Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Act V.
Scene 1. A churchyard.
- Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c
- First Clown: Is she to be buried in Christian burial that
- wilfully seeks her own salvation?
- Second Clown: I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave
- straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it
- Christian burial.
- First Clown: How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her
- own defence?
- Second Clown: Why, 'tis found so.
- First Clown: It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else. For
- here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly,
- it argues an act: and an act hath three branches: it
- is, to act, to do, to perform: argal, she drowned
- herself wittingly.
- Second Clown: Nay, but hear you, goodman delver, —
- First Clown: Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here
- stands the man; good; if the man go to this water,
- and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he
- goes, — mark you that; but if the water come to him
- and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he
- that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
- Second Clown: But is this law?
- First Clown: Ay, marry, is't; crowner's quest law.
- Second Clown: Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been
- a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o'
- Christian burial.
- First Clown: Why, there thou say'st: and the more pity that
- great folk should have countenance in this world to
- drown or hang themselves, more than their even
- Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
- gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers:
- they hold up Adam's profession.
- Second Clown: Was he a gentleman?
- First Clown: He was the first that ever bore arms.
- Second Clown: Why, he had none.
- First Clown: What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the
- Scripture? The Scripture says 'Adam digged:'
- could he dig without arms? I'll put another
- question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the
- purpose, confess thyself —
- Second Clown: Go to.
- First Clown: What is he that builds stronger than either the
- mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
- Second Clown: The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a
- thousand tenants.
- First Clown: I like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows
- does well; but how does it well? it does well to
- those that do in: now thou dost ill to say the
- gallows is built stronger than the church: argal,
- the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.
- Second Clown: 'Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or
- a carpenter?'
- First Clown: Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.
- Second Clown: Marry, now I can tell.
- First Clown: To't.
- Second Clown: Mass, I cannot tell.
- Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance
- First Clown: Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull
- ass will not mend his pace with beating; and, when
- you are asked this question next, say 'a
- grave-maker: 'the houses that he makes last till
- doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan: fetch me a
- stoup of liquor.
- Exit Second Clown
- He digs and sings
- In youth, when I did love, did love,
- Methought it was very sweet,
- To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
- O, methought, there was nothing meet.
- Hamlet: Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he
- sings at grave-making?
- Horatio: Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
- Hamlet: 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath
- the daintier sense.
- First Clown
- Sings
- But age, with his stealing steps,
- Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
- And hath shipped me intil the land,
- As if I had never been such.
- Throws up a skull
- Hamlet: That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once:
- how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were
- Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It
- might be the pate of a politician, which this ass
- now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God,
- might it not?
- Horatio: It might, my lord.
- Hamlet: Or of a courtier; which could say 'Good morrow,
- sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?' This might
- be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord
- such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?
- Horatio: Ay, my lord.
- Hamlet: Why, e'en so: and now my Lady Worm's; chapless, and
- knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade:
- here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to
- see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding,
- but to play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.
- A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
- For and a shrouding sheet:
- O, a pit of clay for to be made
- For such a guest is meet.
- Throws up another skull
- Hamlet: There's another: why may not that be the skull of a
- lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets,
- his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he
- suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the
- sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of
- his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be
- in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,
- his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers,
- his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and
- the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine
- pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him
- no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than
- the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The
- very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in
- this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?
- Horatio: Not a jot more, my lord.
- Hamlet: Is not parchment made of sheepskins?
- Horatio: Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
- Hamlet: They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance
- in that. I will speak to this fellow. Whose
- grave's this, sirrah?
- First Clown: Mine, sir.
- Sings
- O, a pit of clay for to be made
- For such a guest is meet.
- Hamlet: I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.
- First Clown: You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not
- yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, and yet it is mine.
- Hamlet: 'Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine:
- 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.
- First Clown: 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away gain, from me to
- you.
- Hamlet: What man dost thou dig it for?
- First Clown: For no man, sir.
- Hamlet: What woman, then?
- First Clown: For none, neither.
- Hamlet: Who is to be buried in't?
- First Clown: One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.
- Hamlet: How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the
- card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord,
- Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of
- it; the age is grown so picked that the toe of the
- peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he
- gaffs his kibe. How long hast thou been a
- grave-maker?
- First Clown: Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day
- that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.
- Hamlet: How long is that since?
- First Clown: Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it
- was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that
- is mad, and sent into England.
- Hamlet: Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?
- First Clown: Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits
- there; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there.
- Hamlet: Why?
- First Clown: 'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men
- are as mad as he.
- Hamlet: How came he mad?
- First Clown: Very strangely, they say.
- Hamlet: How strangely?
- First Clown: Faith, e'en with losing his wits.
- Hamlet: Upon what ground?
- First Clown: Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man
- and boy, thirty years.
- Hamlet: How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?
- First Clown: I' faith, if he be not rotten before he die — as we
- have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce
- hold the laying in — he will last you some eight year
- or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year.
- Hamlet: Why he more than another?
- First Clown: Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that
- he will keep out water a great while; and your water
- is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.
- Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth
- three and twenty years.
- Hamlet: Whose was it?
- First Clown: A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?
- Hamlet: Nay, I know not.
- First Clown: A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a
- flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull,
- sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
- Hamlet: This?
- First Clown: E'en that.
- Hamlet: Let me see.
- Takes the skull
- Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
- of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
- borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
- abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
- it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
- not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
- gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
- that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
- now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
- Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
- her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
- come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell
- me one thing.
- Horatio: What's that, my lord?
- Hamlet: Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'
- the earth?
- Horatio: E'en so.
- Hamlet: And smelt so? pah!
- Puts down the skull
- Horatio: E'en so, my lord.
- Hamlet: To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may
- not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,
- till he find it stopping a bung-hole?
- Horatio: 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.
- Hamlet: No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
- modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
- thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
- Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
- earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
- was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
- Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
- Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
- O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
- Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
- But soft! but soft! aside: here comes the king.
- Enter Priest, &c. in procession; the Corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and Mourners following; King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, their trains, &c
- The queen, the courtiers: who is this they follow?
- And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
- The corse they follow did with desperate hand
- Fordo its own life: 'twas of some estate.
- Couch we awhile, and mark.
- Retiring with Horatio
- Laertes: What ceremony else?
- Hamlet: That is Laertes,
- A very noble youth: mark.
- Laertes: What ceremony else?
- First Priest: Her obsequies have been as far enlarged
- As we have warrantise: her death was doubtful;
- And, but that great command o'ersways the order,
- She should in ground unsanctified have lodged
- Till the last trumpet: for charitable prayers,
- Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her;
- Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
- Her maiden strewments and the bringing home
- Of bell and burial.
- Laertes: Must there no more be done?
- First Priest: No more be done:
- We should profane the service of the dead
- To sing a requiem and such rest to her
- As to peace-parted souls.
- Laertes: Lay her i' the earth:
- And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
- May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
- A ministering angel shall my sister be,
- When thou liest howling.
- Hamlet: What, the fair Ophelia!
- Queen Gertrude: Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
- Scattering flowers
- I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;
- I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
- And not have strew'd thy grave.
- Laertes: O, treble woe
- Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
- Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
- Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
- Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:
- Leaps into the grave
- Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
- Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
- To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
- Of blue Olympus.
- Hamlet
- Advancing
- What is he whose grief
- Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
- Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
- Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
- Hamlet the Dane.
- Leaps into the grave
- Laertes: The devil take thy soul!
- Grappling with him
- Hamlet: Thou pray'st not well.
- I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
- For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
- Yet have I something in me dangerous,
- Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.
- King Claudius: Pluck them asunder.
- Queen Gertrude: Hamlet, Hamlet!
- All: Gentlemen, —
- Horatio: Good my lord, be quiet.
- The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave
- Hamlet: Why I will fight with him upon this theme
- Until my eyelids will no longer wag.
- Queen Gertrude: O my son, what theme?
- Hamlet: I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
- Could not, with all their quantity of love,
- Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?
- King Claudius: O, he is mad, Laertes.
- Queen Gertrude: For love of God, forbear him.
- Hamlet: 'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
- Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
- Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
- I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
- To outface me with leaping in her grave?
- Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
- And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
- Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
- Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
- Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
- I'll rant as well as thou.
- Queen Gertrude: This is mere madness:
- And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
- Anon, as patient as the female dove,
- When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
- His silence will sit drooping.
- Hamlet: Hear you, sir;
- What is the reason that you use me thus?
- I loved you ever: but it is no matter;
- Let Hercules himself do what he may,
- The cat will mew and dog will have his day.
- Exit
- King Claudius: I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.
- Exit Horatio
- To Laertes
- Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;
- We'll put the matter to the present push.
- Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
- This grave shall have a living monument:
- An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
- Till then, in patience our proceeding be.
- Exeunt
Scene 2. A hall in the castle.
- Enter Hamlet and Horatio
- Hamlet: So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;
- You do remember all the circumstance?
- Horatio: Remember it, my lord?
- Hamlet: Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
- That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
- Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
- And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
- Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
- When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
- There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
- Rough-hew them how we will, —
- Horatio: That is most certain.
- Hamlet: Up from my cabin,
- My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
- Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
- Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
- To mine own room again; making so bold,
- My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
- Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio, —
- O royal knavery! — an exact command,
- Larded with many several sorts of reasons
- Importing Denmark's health and England's too,
- With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
- That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
- No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
- My head should be struck off.
- Horatio: Is't possible?
- Hamlet: Here's the commission: read it at more leisure.
- But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
- Horatio: I beseech you.
- Hamlet: Being thus be-netted round with villanies, —
- Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
- They had begun the play — I sat me down,
- Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
- I once did hold it, as our statists do,
- A baseness to write fair and labour'd much
- How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
- It did me yeoman's service: wilt thou know
- The effect of what I wrote?
- Horatio: Ay, good my lord.
- Hamlet: An earnest conjuration from the king,
- As England was his faithful tributary,
- As love between them like the palm might flourish,
- As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear
- And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
- And many such-like 'As'es of great charge,
- That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
- Without debatement further, more or less,
- He should the bearers put to sudden death,
- Not shriving-time allow'd.
- Horatio: How was this seal'd?
- Hamlet: Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
- I had my father's signet in my purse,
- Which was the model of that Danish seal;
- Folded the writ up in form of the other,
- Subscribed it, gave't the impression, placed it safely,
- The changeling never known. Now, the next day
- Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
- Thou know'st already.
- Horatio: So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.
- Hamlet: Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
- They are not near my conscience; their defeat
- Does by their own insinuation grow:
- 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
- Between the pass and fell incensed points
- Of mighty opposites.
- Horatio: Why, what a king is this!
- Hamlet: Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon —
- He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother,
- Popp'd in between the election and my hopes,
- Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
- And with such cozenage — is't not perfect conscience,
- To quit him with this arm? and is't not to be damn'd,
- To let this canker of our nature come
- In further evil?
- Horatio: It must be shortly known to him from England
- What is the issue of the business there.
- Hamlet: It will be short: the interim is mine;
- And a man's life's no more than to say 'One.'
- But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
- That to Laertes I forgot myself;
- For, by the image of my cause, I see
- The portraiture of his: I'll court his favours.
- But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
- Into a towering passion.
- Horatio: Peace! who comes here?
- Enter Osric
- Osric: Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
- Hamlet: I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?
- Horatio: No, my good lord.
- Hamlet: Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a vice to
- know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a
- beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at
- the king's mess: 'tis a chough; but, as I say,
- spacious in the possession of dirt.
- Osric: Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I
- should impart a thing to you from his majesty.
- Hamlet: I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of
- spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for the head.
- Osric: I thank your lordship, it is very hot.
- Hamlet: No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is
- northerly.
- Osric: It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
- Hamlet: But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my
- complexion.
- Osric: Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, — as
- 'twere, — I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his
- majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
- great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter, —
- Hamlet: I beseech you, remember —
- Hamlet moves him to put on his hat
- Osric: Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith.
- Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe
- me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
- differences, of very soft society and great showing:
- indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
- calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the
- continent of what part a gentleman would see.
- Hamlet: Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;
- though, I know, to divide him inventorially would
- dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw
- neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the
- verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
- great article; and his infusion of such dearth and
- rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his
- semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace
- him, his umbrage, nothing more.
- Osric: Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
- Hamlet: The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman
- in our more rawer breath?
- Osric: Sir?
- Horatio: Is't not possible to understand in another tongue?
- You will do't, sir, really.
- Hamlet: What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
- Osric: Of Laertes?
- Horatio: His purse is empty already; all's golden words are spent.
- Hamlet: Of him, sir.
- Osric: I know you are not ignorant —
- Hamlet: I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did,
- it would not much approve me. Well, sir?
- Osric: You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is —
- Hamlet: I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with
- him in excellence; but, to know a man well, were to
- know himself.
- Osric: I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation
- laid on him by them, in his meed he's unfellowed.
- Hamlet: What's his weapon?
- Osric: Rapier and dagger.
- Hamlet: That's two of his weapons: but, well.
- Osric: The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
- horses: against the which he has imponed, as I take
- it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their
- assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so: three of the
- carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
- responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
- and of very liberal conceit.
- Hamlet: What call you the carriages?
- Horatio: I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.
- Osric: The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
- Hamlet: The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we
- could carry cannon by our sides: I would it might
- be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses
- against six French swords, their assigns, and three
- liberal-conceited carriages; that's the French bet
- against the Danish. Why is this 'imponed,' as you call it?
- Osric: The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes
- between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you
- three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine; and it
- would come to immediate trial, if your lordship
- would vouchsafe the answer.
- Hamlet: How if I answer 'no'?
- Osric: I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
- Hamlet: Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
- majesty, 'tis the breathing time of day with me; let
- the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the
- king hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can;
- if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.
- Osric: Shall I re-deliver you e'en so?
- Hamlet: To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.
- Osric: I commend my duty to your lordship.
- Hamlet: Yours, yours.
- Exit Osric
- He does well to commend it himself; there are no
- tongues else for's turn.
- Horatio: This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
- Hamlet: He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.
- Thus has he — and many more of the same bevy that I
- know the dressy age dotes on — only got the tune of
- the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of
- yesty collection, which carries them through and
- through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do
- but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.
- Enter a Lord
- Lord: My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young
- Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in
- the hall: he sends to know if your pleasure hold to
- play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.
- Hamlet: I am constant to my purpose; they follow the king's
- pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now
- or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.
- Lord: The king and queen and all are coming down.
- Hamlet: In happy time.
- Lord: The queen desires you to use some gentle
- entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.
- Hamlet: She well instructs me.
- Exit Lord
- Horatio: You will lose this wager, my lord.
- Hamlet: I do not think so: since he went into France, I
- have been in continual practise: I shall win at the
- odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here
- about my heart: but it is no matter.
- Horatio: Nay, good my lord, —
- Hamlet: It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
- gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.
- Horatio: If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
- forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
- fit.
- Hamlet: Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
- providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
- 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
- now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
- readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
- leaves, what is't to leave betimes?
- Enter King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, Laertes, Lords, Osric, and Attendants with foils, &c
- King Claudius: Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
- King Claudius puts Laertes' hand into Hamlet's
- Hamlet: Give me your pardon, sir: I've done you wrong;
- But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
- This presence knows,
- And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
- With sore distraction. What I have done,
- That might your nature, honour and exception
- Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
- Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet:
- If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,
- And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,
- Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
- Who does it, then? His madness: if't be so,
- Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;
- His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
- Sir, in this audience,
- Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
- Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
- That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
- And hurt my brother.
- Laertes: I am satisfied in nature,
- Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most
- To my revenge: but in my terms of honour
- I stand aloof; and will no reconcilement,
- Till by some elder masters, of known honour,
- I have a voice and precedent of peace,
- To keep my name ungored. But till that time,
- I do receive your offer'd love like love,
- And will not wrong it.
- Hamlet: I embrace it freely;
- And will this brother's wager frankly play.
- Give us the foils. Come on.
- Laertes: Come, one for me.
- Hamlet: I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance
- Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night,
- Stick fiery off indeed.
- Laertes: You mock me, sir.
- Hamlet: No, by this hand.
- King Claudius: Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
- You know the wager?
- Hamlet: Very well, my lord
- Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker side.
- King Claudius: I do not fear it; I have seen you both:
- But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.
- Laertes: This is too heavy, let me see another.
- Hamlet: This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
- They prepare to play
- Osric: Ay, my good lord.
- King Claudius: Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
- If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
- Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
- Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:
- The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
- And in the cup an union shall he throw,
- Richer than that which four successive kings
- In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;
- And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
- The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
- The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
- 'Now the king dunks to Hamlet.' Come, begin:
- And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
- Hamlet: Come on, sir.
- Laertes: Come, my lord.
- They play
- Hamlet: One.
- Laertes: No.
- Hamlet: Judgment.
- Osric: A hit, a very palpable hit.
- Laertes: Well; again.
- King Claudius: Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
- Here's to thy health.
- Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within
- Give him the cup.
- Hamlet: I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.
- They play
- Another hit; what say you?
- Laertes: A touch, a touch, I do confess.
- King Claudius: Our son shall win.
- Queen Gertrude: He's fat, and scant of breath.
- Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;
- The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
- Hamlet: Good madam!
- King Claudius: Gertrude, do not drink.
- Queen Gertrude: I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.
- King Claudius
- Aside
- It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.
- Hamlet: I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
- Queen Gertrude: Come, let me wipe thy face.
- Laertes: My lord, I'll hit him now.
- King Claudius: I do not think't.
- Laertes
- Aside
- And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.
- Hamlet: Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
- I pray you, pass with your best violence;
- I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
- Laertes: Say you so? come on.
- They play
- Osric: Nothing, neither way.
- Laertes: Have at you now!
- Laertes wounds Hamlet; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes
- King Claudius: Part them; they are incensed.
- Hamlet: Nay, come, again.
- Queen Gertrude falls
- Osric: Look to the queen there, ho!
- Horatio: They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?
- Osric: How is't, Laertes?
- Laertes: Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
- I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.
- Hamlet: How does the queen?
- King Claudius: She swounds to see them bleed.
- Queen Gertrude: No, no, the drink, the drink, — O my dear Hamlet, —
- The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.
- Dies
- Hamlet: O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd:
- Treachery! Seek it out.
- Laertes: It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
- No medicine in the world can do thee good;
- In thee there is not half an hour of life;
- The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
- Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practise
- Hath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,
- Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:
- I can no more: the king, the king's to blame.
- Hamlet: The point! — envenom'd too!
- Then, venom, to thy work.
- Stabs King Claudius
- All: Treason! treason!
- King Claudius: O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.
- Hamlet: Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
- Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
- Follow my mother.
- King Claudius dies
- Laertes: He is justly served;
- It is a poison temper'd by himself.
- Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
- Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
- Nor thine on me.
- Dies
- Hamlet: Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
- I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
- You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
- That are but mutes or audience to this act,
- Had I but time — as this fell sergeant, death,
- Is strict in his arrest — O, I could tell you —
- But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;
- Thou livest; report me and my cause aright
- To the unsatisfied.
- Horatio: Never believe it:
- I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:
- Here's yet some liquor left.
- Hamlet: As thou'rt a man,
- Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't.
- O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
- Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
- If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
- Absent thee from felicity awhile,
- And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
- To tell my story.
- March afar off, and shot within
- What warlike noise is this?
- Osric: Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
- To the ambassadors of England gives
- This warlike volley.
- Hamlet: O, I die, Horatio;
- The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
- I cannot live to hear the news from England;
- But I do prophesy the election lights
- On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
- So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
- Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
- Dies
- Horatio: Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
- And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
- Why does the drum come hither?
- March within
- Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors, and others
- Prince Fortinbras: Where is this sight?
- Horatio: What is it ye would see?
- If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
- Prince Fortinbras: This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
- What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
- That thou so many princes at a shot
- So bloodily hast struck?
- First Ambassador: The sight is dismal;
- And our affairs from England come too late:
- The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
- To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
- That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
- Where should we have our thanks?
- Horatio: Not from his mouth,
- Had it the ability of life to thank you:
- He never gave commandment for their death.
- But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
- You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
- Are here arrived give order that these bodies
- High on a stage be placed to the view;
- And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
- How these things came about: so shall you hear
- Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
- Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
- Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
- And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
- Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I
- Truly deliver.
- Prince Fortinbras: Let us haste to hear it,
- And call the noblest to the audience.
- For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
- I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
- Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
- Horatio: Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
- And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
- But let this same be presently perform'd,
- Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
- On plots and errors, happen.
- Prince Fortinbras: Let four captains
- Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
- For he was likely, had he been put on,
- To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
- The soldiers' music and the rites of war
- Speak loudly for him.
- Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
- Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
- Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
- A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off.
- --oOo-- -