Scene VII

Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,And you must put me in your heart for friend,Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,That he which hath your noble father slainPursued my life.

It well appears: but tell meWhy you proceeded not against these feats,So crimeful and so capital in nature,As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,You mainly were stirr’d up.

O, for two special reasons;Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d,But yet to me they are strong. The queen his motherLives almost by his looks; and for myself—My virtue or my plague, be it either which—She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul,That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,I could not but by her. The other motive,Why to a public count I might not go,Is the great love the general gender bear him;Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind,Would have reverted to my bow again,And not where I had aim’d them.

And so have I a noble father lost;A sister driven into desperate terms,Whose worth, if praises may go back again,Stood challenger on mount of all the ageFor her perfections: but my revenge will come.

Break not your sleeps for that: you must not thinkThat we are made of stuff so flat and dullThat we can let our beard be shook with dangerAnd think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:I loved your father, and we love ourself;And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:This to your majesty; this to the queen.

Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:They were given me by Claudio; he received themOf him that brought them.

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

’Tis Hamlet’s character. “Naked!”And in a postscript here, he says “alone.”Can you advise me?

I’m lost in it, my lord. But let him come;It warms the very sickness in my heart,That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,“Thus didest thou.”

If it be so, Laertes—As how should it be so? how otherwise?—Will you be ruled by me?

Ay, my lord;So you will not o’errule me to a peace.

To thine own peace. If he be now return’d,As checking at his voyage, and that he meansNo more to undertake it, I will work himTo an exploit, now ripe in my device,Under the which he shall not choose but fall:And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,But even his mother shall uncharge the practiceAnd call it accident.

My lord, I will be ruled;The rather, if you could devise it soThat I might be the organ.

It falls right.You have been talk’d of since your travel much,And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a qualityWherein, they say, you shine: your sum of partsDid not together pluck such envy from himAs did that one, and that, in my regard,Of the unworthiest siege.

A very riband in the cap of youth,Yet needful too; for youth no less becomesThe light and careless livery that it wearsThan settled age his sables and his weeds,Importing health and graveness. Two months since,Here was a gentleman of Normandy:—I’ve seen myself, and served against, the French,And they can well on horseback: but this gallantHad witchcraft in’t; he grew unto his seat;And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,As he had been incorpsed and demi-naturedWith the brave beast: so far he topp’d my thought,That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,Come short of what he did.

I know him well: he is the brooch indeedAnd gem of all the nation.

He made confession of you,And gave you such a masterly reportFor art and exercise in your defenceAnd for your rapier most especial,That he cried out, ’twould be a sight indeed,If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation,He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye,If you opposed them. Sir, this report of hisDid Hamlet so envenom with his envyThat he could nothing do but wish and begYour sudden coming o’er, to play with him.Now, out of this—

Laertes, was your father dear to you?Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,A face without a heart?

Not that I think you did not love your father;But that I know love is begun by time;And that I see, in passages of proof,Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.There lives within the very flame of loveA kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;And nothing is at a like goodness still;For goodness, growing to a plurisy,Dies in his own too much: that we would do,We should do when we would; for this “would” changesAnd hath abatements and delays as manyAs there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;And then this “should” is like a spendthrift sigh,That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o’ the ulcer:—Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,To show yourself your father’s son in deedMore than in words?

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.Hamlet return’d shall know you are come home:We’ll put on those shall praise your excellenceAnd set a double varnish on the fameThe Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine togetherAnd wager on your heads: he, being remiss,Most generous and free from all contriving,Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,Or with a little shuffling, you may chooseA sword unbated, and in a pass of practiceRequite him for your father.

I will do’t:And, for that purpose, I’ll anoint my sword.I bought an unction of a mountebank,So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,Collected from all simples that have virtueUnder the moon, can save the thing from deathThat is but scratch’d withal: I’ll touch my pointWith this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,It may be death.

Let’s further think of this;Weigh what convenience both of time and meansMay fit us to our shape: if this should fail,And that our drift look through our bad performance,’Twere better not assay’d: therefore this projectShould have a back or second, that might hold,If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see:We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings:I ha’t.When in your motion you are hot and dry—As make your bouts more violent to that end—And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared himA chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,Our purpose may hold there.

One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,So fast they follow: your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;There with fantastic garlands did she comeOf crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purplesThat liberal shepherds give a grosser name,But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them:There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weedsClambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;When down her weedy trophies and herselfFell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;As one incapable of her own distress,Or like a creature native and induedUnto that element: but long it could not beTill that her garments, heavy with their drink,Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious layTo muddy death.

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,And therefore I forbid my tears: but yetIt is our trick; nature her custom holds,Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,But that this folly douts it. Exit.

Let’s follow, Gertrude:How much I had to do to calm his rage!Now fear I this will give it start again;Therefore let’s follow. Exeunt.