SCENE VI. Another Room in the same. Enter HORATIO, and a Servant. Hor. What are they, that would speak with me? Serv. They say, they have letters for you. Sailors, sir; Let them come in. [Exit Servant. I do not know from what part of the world Enter Sailors. 1 Sail. God bless you, sir. Hor. Let him bless thee too. 1 Sail. He shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for you, sir; it comes from the ambassador that was bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is. Hor. [reads.] Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows some means to the king; they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chace: Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour; and in the grapple I boarded them: on the instant, they got clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me, like thieves of mercy; but they knew what they did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me with as much haste as thou would'st fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear, will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England; of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell. y He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet. - for the bore of the matter.] The bore is the caliber of a gun, or the capacity of the barrel. The matter (says Hamlet) would carry heavier words. JOHNSON. Come, I will give you way for these your letters ; SCENE VII. Another Room in the same. Enter King and LAERTES. [Exeunt. King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for friend; 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, wisdom, all things else, You mainly were stirr'd up. King. O, for two special reasons; Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd, Laer. And so have I a noble father lost; A sister driven into desperate terms; - the general gender-] The common race of the people. JOHNSON. * Work like the spring, wing, &c.] The allusion here is to the quality still ascribed to the dropping-well at Knaresborough in Yorkshire.-REED. Whose worth, if praises may go back again, For her perfections:-But my revenge will come. King. Break not your sleeps for that: you must not That we are made of stuff so flat and dull, [think, That we can let our beard be shook with danger, And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine, How now? what news? Mess. Enter a Messenger. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet: This to your majesty; this to the queen. King. From Hamlet! Who brought them? Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them not; They were given me by Claudio, he receiv'd them Of him that brought them. King. Leave us. Laertes, you shall hear them : [Exit Messenger. [Reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return. Hamlet. What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? Or is it some abuse, and no such thing? 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 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 diddest thou. King. b If it be so, Laertes, if praises may go back again,] If I may praise what has been, but is now to be found no more. -JOHNSON. |