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That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am moft sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment 'pear',
As day does to your eye.

Crowd within. Let her come in.
Laer. How now! what noise is that?
Enter Ophelia, fantastically dress'd with straws and
Aowers.

O heat, dry up my brains! tears, seven times falt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye! -
By heaven, thy madness shall be pay'd with weight,
'Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!-
O heavens! is 't possible, a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love: and, where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves 4.

Oph. They bore bim bare-fac'd on the bier;
Hey no nonny, nonny bey nonny:
And on bis grave rain'd many a tear;

Fare you well, my dove!

[revenge,

Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst perfuade
It could not move thus.

5

10

15

Laer. Thought, and affliction, passion, hell itself,

She turns to favour, and to prettiness.
Oph. And will be not come again?

And will be not come again?

No, no, be is dead,

Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as fuow,

All flaxen was bis poll :

He is gone, be is gone,
And we caft away moan:

God a' mercy on bis foul!

And of all chriftian fouls! I pray God. God be
wi' you.
[Exit Opb.

Laer. Do you see this, O God?
King. Laertes, I must common with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wifeft friends you will,
zo And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me :
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,
To you in fatisfaction; but, if not,

Oph. You must sing, Down a-down, an you call 25 Be you content to lend your patience to us,

bim a-down-a.

O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward,

That stole his master's daughter 3.

Laer. This nothing's more than matter.

And we shall jointly labour with your foul
To give it due content.
Laer. Let this be so:

His means of death, his obscure funeral,

Opb. There's rofemary, that's for remembrance; 30 No trophy, fword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,

pray you, love, remember: and there is panfies 5, that's for thoughts.

Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.

No noble rite, nor formal oftentation,-
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call't in question.

King. So you shall;
35 And, where the offence is, let the great axe fall.

Opb. There's fennel for you, and columbines 6. There's rue for you; and here's fome for me. -we may call it, herb of grace o' Sundays:you may wear your rue with a difference7.--There's a daify: I would give you some violets; but they wither'd all, when my father died:-They 40 fay, he made a good end,

For bonny frweet Robin is all my joy 8,

I pray you, go with me.

SCENE

Another Room.

[Exeunt.

VI.

Enter Horatio, with a Servant.

Hor. What are they, that would speak with me?
Seru. Sailors, fir;

This is an elision of the verb to appear. 2 Dr. Johnson explains this passage thus: "Love (fays Laertes) is the paffion by which nature is most exalted and refined: and as substances, refined and fubtilifed, eafily obey any impulse, or follow any attraction, some part of nature, so purified and refined, flies off after the attracting object, after the thing it loves." 3 Mr. Steevens says, the wheel may mean no more than the burthen of the jong, which the had just repeated, and as fuch was formerly used. Dr. Johnson says, " The story alluded to I do not know; but perhaps the lady stolen by the steward was reduced to spin." 4 Rosemary was anciently supposed to strengthen the memory, and was not only carried at funerals, but worn at weddings. 5 Panfies is for thoughts, because of its name, Penfées. 6 Mr. Steevens says, Greene, in his Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1620, calls fennel women's weeds: " fit generally for that fex, fith while they are maidens, they with wantonly." Mr. Steevens adds, that he knows not of what columbines were supposed to be emblematical; but that Gerard, and other herbalifts, impute few, if any, virtues to them; and they may therefore be, stiled thankless, because they appear to make no grateful return for their creation. 7 Dr. Warburton says, that berb of grace is the name the country people give to rue; and the reason is, because that herb was a principal ingredient in the potion which the Romish priests used to force the possessed to fwallow down when they exorcifed them. Now these exorcifms being performed generally on a Sunday, in the church before the whole congregation, is the reason why the says, we may call it berb of grace o Sundays. Mr. Steevens believes there is a quibble meant in this passage; rue anciently fignifying the fame as Ruth, i. e. forrow. Ophelia gives the queen some, and keeps a proportion of it for herself. There may, however, he adds, be fomewhat more implied here than is expressed. You, madam (fays Ophelia to the queen), may call your RUE by its Sunday name, HERB OF GRACE, and so wear it with a difference to diftinguish it from mine, which can never be any thing but merely RUE, i. e. forrow. * This is part of an old fong.

They

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They say, they have letters for you.

Hor. Let them come in.

I do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted, if not from lord Hamlet.

Enter Sailors.

Sail. God bless you, fir.

Hor. Let him bless thee too.

Work, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; fo that my arrows,
Too flightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,

5 And not where I had aim'd them.

Laer. And fo have I a noble father loft:
A fister driven into desperate terms;
Whose worth, if praifes may go back again 3,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age

Sail. He shall, fir, an 't please him. There's a letter for you, fir: it comes from the embaffador that was bound for England; if your name be 10 For her perfections:- But my revenge will come.

Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

Horatio reads the letter.

King. Break not your fleeps for that: you must
not think,

HORATIO, when thou shalt bave overlook'd this,

r

give these fellows some means to the king; they have
letters for bim. Ere we were two days old at fea, 15 And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:
a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chace:
Finding ourselves too flow of fail, we put on a com-
pelled valour; and in the grapple I boarded them:
on the inftant, they got clear of our ship; so I alone
became their prifoner. They bave dealt with me, 20
like thieves of mercy; but they knew what they did;
I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king bave
the letters I have fent; and repair thou to me with

That we are made of stuff so flat and dull,
That we can let our beard be shook with danger,

I lov'd your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,-
How now? what news?

Enter a Messenger.

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

as much bafte as thou would'ft fly death. I have

King. From Hamlet! Who brought them?
Meff Sailors, my lord, they say: I faw them not;
They were given me by Claudio, he receiv'd them

words to speak in thine ear, will make thee dumb; 25 Of him that brought them.

yet are they much too light for the bure of the matter.
These good fellows will bring thee where I am.
Rofencrantz and Guildenstern bold their course for
England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewel.
He that thou knoquest thine, Hamlet.
Come, I will make you way for these your letters;
And do 't the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them. (Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

Another Room.

Enter King, and Laertes.

King. Now muft your confcience my acquit-
tance 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 slain,
Pursu'd my life.

Laer. It well appears :-But tell me,
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,

As by your safety, greatness, wifdom, all things elfe,
You mainly were stirr'd up?

King. Laertes, you shall hear them:-
Leave us.

[Exit Meff.

HIGH and mighty, you shall know, I am fet naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to 3o fee your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occafion of my fudden and more ftrange return, Hamlet.

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? 35 Or is it fome abuse, and no such thing?

40

Laer. Know you the hand?
King. "Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,
And, in a postscript here, he says, alone:
Can you advise me?

Laer. I am loft in it, my lord. But let him come;
It warms the very fickness in my heart,
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
Thus diddest thou.

King. If it be so, Laertes,

45 As how should it be fo?-how otherwife?-
Will you be rul'd by me?
Lear. Ay, my lord;

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The bore is the caliber of a gun, or the capacity of the barrel. The matter (fays Hamlet) would carry beavier words. 2 i. e. The common race of the people. 3 i. e. If I may praife what has been, but is now to be found no more.

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King. It falls right..

You have been talk'd of finçe your travel much,
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
Wherein, they say, you shine: your fum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him,
As did that one; and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege 1.

Laer. What part is that, my lord ?
King. A very ribband in the cap of youth,
Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears,
Than fettled age his fables and his weeds,
Importing health, and graveness.

fince,

Two months

Here was a gentleman of Normandy,
I have feen myfelf, and ferv'd against, the French,
And they can well on horseback: but this gallant
Had witchcraft in 't; he grew unto his feat;
And to fuch wondrous doing brought his horse,
As he had been incorps'd and demy-natur'd
With the brave beast: fo far he topp'd my thought,
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.

Laer. A Norman, was 't?

King. A Norman.

Laer. Upon my life, Lamond.

King. The very fame.

A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it:
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a pleurify,
Dies in his own too much: That we would do,

5 We should do when we would; for this would

changes,

And hath abatements and delays as many,
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this should is like a spendthrift figh
10 That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:
Hamlet comes back; What would you undertake,
To thew yourself your father's son in deed
More than in words?

Laer. To cut his throat i' the church. [rize;
15 King. No place, indeed, should murder sanctua-
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 excellence,

20 And fet a double varnish on the fame

The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine,
together,

And wager o'er your heads: he, being remiss",
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
25 Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A fword unbated 8, and, in a pass of practice,

Laer. I know him well: he is the brooch, indeed, Requite him for your father.

And gem of all the nation.

King. He made confeffion of you; And gave you fuch a masterly report, For art and exercise in your defence 2, And for your rapier most especial,

That he cried out, 'Twould be a fight indeed,

Laer. I will do 't:

30 And, for the 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 cataplaím so rare,
Collected from all fimples that have virtue

If one could match you: the scrimers 3 of their 35 Under the moon, can save the thing from death,

nation,

He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you oppos'd them: Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy,
That he could nothing do, but with and beg
Your fudden coming o'er, to play with him.
Now out of this,

Laer. What out of this, my lord?
King. Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a forrow,
A face without a heart?

Laer. Why ask you this?

King. Not that I think, you did not love your
father;

But that I know, love is begun by time 4;
And that I fee, in passages of proof 5,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives within the very flame of love

That is but fcratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
With this contagion; that, if I gall him flightly,
It may be death.

King. Let's further think of this;
40 Weigh, what convenience, both of time and means,
May fit us to our shape 10: If this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad per

formance,

Twere better not afsay'd; therefore, this project
45 Should have a back, or second, that might hold,
If this should blast in proof 11. Soft; let me fee:-
We'll make a folemn wager on your cunnings,
I ha't:

When in your motion you are hot and dry,
50 (As make your bouts more violent to that end)
And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him
A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom'd tuck,

2 That is, in the science of defence.

3 The

i. e. of the lowest rank. Siege, for feat, place. fencers. + Dr. Johnson says, this is obfcure; and adds, " The meaning may be, Love is not innate in us, and co-effential to our nature, but begins at a certain time from fome external cause, and, being always fubject to the operations of time, suffers change and diminution. 5 i. e. in transactions of daily experience. 6 i. e. a figh that makes an unnecessary waste of the vital flame. It is a notion very prevalent, that fighs impair the strength, and wear out the animal powers. 7 i. e. not vigilant or cautious. 8 i. e. not blunted as foils are. 9 Dr. Johnson obferves, that practice is often by Shakspeare, and other writers, taken for an infidicus ftratagem, or privy treason, a sense not incongruous to this passage, where yet he rather believes, that nothing more is meant than a thruft for exercifes 10 i, e. may enable us to affume proper characters, and to act our part. This metaphor is taken from the trying or proving fire-arms or cannon, which often blafi or burji in the proof.

Our

Our purpose may hold there. But stay, what noife? Or like a creature native and indu'd

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Therewith fantastic garlands did the make,

Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears: But yet

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Queen. There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook,

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, 10 It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

That liberal shepherds give a groffer name,

But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies, and herself,
Fell in the weepingbrook. Her cloaths spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, a while they bore her up :
Which time, she chaunted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,

15 King. 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.

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more than their even chriftian 4. Come; my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's 30 profeffion.

2 Clown. Was he a gentleman ?
1 Clown. He was the first that ever bore arms.
2 Cloron. Why, he had none.

1 Clown. What, art a heathen? How dost thou 35 understand the fcripture ? - The fcripture says, Adam digged; Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answer'st me not to the purpose, confess thyself

I Clown. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be elfe. For here lies the point: If I drown myself 40 wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches 3; it is, to act, to do, and to perform:--Argal, she drown'd herself wittingly.

2 Clown. Go to.

1 Clown. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpen

ter?

2. Clown. The gallows-maker; for that frame out-lives a thousand tenants.

1 Clorun. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well: But how does it well? it does well to those that do ill: 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;

2 Clown. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. I Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water; 45 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 50 come. death, shortens not his own life.

2 Clorun. But is this law?

Cloron. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law. 2. Clorun. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been 55 bury'd out of christian burial,

1 Clown. Why, there thou say'st: And the more pity; that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves,

2 Clown. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1 Clown. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke 5.
2 Clown. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clown. To't.

2 Clown. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance. 1 Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beat

i. e. afide, fideways. 2 i. e. make ber grave immediately. 3 Ridicule on scholaftic divifions without distinction; and of distinctions without difference. 4 This is an old English expression for fellow-christians. 5 i. e. When you have done that, I'll trouble you no more with these riddles. The phrafe is taken from husbandry.

ing; and, when you are ask'd this question next,
fay, a grave-maker; the houses that he makes,
last 'till doomsday. Go, get thee to Youghan, and
fetch me a stoop of liquer.
[Exit 2 Clown.

He digs, and fings 1.

In youth when I did love, did love,
Methought, it was very sweet,

Ham. There's another: Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits 4 now, his quillets, his cafes, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock 5 him about the sconce 5 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 ftatutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: Is this the fine 10 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 Ham. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employ- 15 will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor ment hath the daintier sense.

To contract, O, the time, for, ab, my bebove
O, methought there was nothing meet.

Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business ? he fings at grave-making.

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of casiness.

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Hor. Ay, my lord.

himself have no more? ha?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.
Ham. Is not parchment made of theep-skins?
Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calves-skins too.
Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which feek
out affurance 6 in that. I will speak to this fellow:
Whose grave's this, firrah?
Clown. Mine, fir.

O, a pit of clay for to be made-
For fuch a guest is meet.

Ham. I think it be thine indeed; for thou ly'st

in't.

Cloqun. You lie out on't, fir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.

Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't, and say it is thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; there

35 fore thou ly'st.

-Ham. Why, e'en so: and now my lady worm's 2; chaplefs, and knock'd about the mazzard with a fexton's spade: Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to fee't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats 3 with them? 40 mine ache to think on't.

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45

Cloqun. "Tis a quick lye, fir; 'twill away again, from me to you.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?

Clown. For no man, fir.

Ham. What woman, then?

Clown. For none neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in't?

Clown. One that was a woman, fir; but, reft her foul, she's dead.'

Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card 7, or equivocation will undo us. By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have

3 Dr.

The three stanzas, fung here by the grave-digger, are extracted, with a flight variation, from a little poem, called The aged Lover renounceth Love, written by Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, who Hourished in the reign of King Henry VIII. and who was beheaded in 1547, on a strained accufatión of treason. The entire song is published by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Antient English Poetry. 2 i. e. The scull that was my lord Such-a-one's, is now my lady Warm's. Johnson says, this is a play, in which pins are set up to be beaten down with a bowl. We have been informed, however, that the reverse is true that the bowl is the mark, and the pins are pitched at it; and that the game is well known in the neighbourhood of Norwich. Mr. Steevens observes, that "this is a game played in several parts of England even at this time. A stake is fixed into the ground; those who play throw liggats at it, and he that is nearest the stake wins:-I have feen it played in different counties at their sheep-fhearing feafts, where the winner was entitled to a black fleece, which he afterwards presented to the farmer's maid to spin for the purpose of making a petticoat, and on condition that she knelt down on the fleece to be kiffed by all the rufticks present."

i. e. fubtilties. 5 i. e. the head. • A quibble is intended. Deeds, which are usually written on parchment, are called the common affurances of the kingdom. 7 The card is the paper on which the different points of the compass were described. To do any thing by the card, is, to do it with nich obfervation.

taken

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