The First Web Folio Edition of Shakespeare's Works
Elsinore. A room in the castle. |
[Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman] |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | I will not speak with her. |
Gentleman | She is importunate, indeed distract: | ||
Her mood will needs be pitied. |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | What would she have? |
Gentleman | She speaks much of her father; says she hears | 5 | |
There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart; | |||
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt, | |||
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing, | |||
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move | |||
The hearers to collection; they aim at it, | 10 | ||
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; | |||
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures | |||
yield them, | |||
Indeed would make one think there might be thought, | |||
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily. | 15 |
HORATIO | 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew | ||
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds. |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | Let her come in. | ||
[Exit HORATIO] | |||
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, | |||
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss: | 20 | ||
So full of artless jealousy is guilt, | |||
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. | |||
[Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA] |
OPHELIA | Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark? |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | How now, Ophelia! |
OPHELIA | [Sings] | 25 | |
How should I your true love know | |||
From another one? | |||
By his cockle hat and staff, | |||
And his sandal shoon. |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? | 30 |
OPHELIA | Say you? nay, pray you, mark. | ||
[Sings] | |||
He is dead and gone, lady, | |||
He is dead and gone; | |||
At his head a grass-green turf, | |||
At his heels a stone. | 35 |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | Nay, but, Ophelia,-- |
OPHELIA | Pray you, mark. | ||
[Sings] | |||
White his shroud as the mountain snow,-- | |||
[Enter KING CLAUDIUS] |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | Alas, look here, my lord. |
OPHELIA | [Sings] | 40 | |
Larded with sweet flowers | |||
Which bewept to the grave did go | |||
With true-love showers. |
KING CLAUDIUS | How do you, pretty lady? |
OPHELIA | Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's | 45 | |
daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not | |||
what we may be. God be at your table! |
KING CLAUDIUS | Conceit upon her father. |
OPHELIA | Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they | ||
ask you what it means, say you this: | 50 | ||
[Sings] | |||
To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, | |||
All in the morning betime, | |||
And I a maid at your window, | |||
To be your Valentine. | |||
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes, | 55 | ||
And dupp'd the chamber-door; | |||
Let in the maid, that out a maid | |||
Never departed more. |
KING CLAUDIUS | Pretty Ophelia! |
OPHELIA | Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't: | 60 | |
[Sings] | |||
By Gis and by Saint Charity, | |||
Alack, and fie for shame! | |||
Young men will do't, if they come to't; | |||
By cock, they are to blame. | |||
Quoth she, before you tumbled me, | 65 | ||
You promised me to wed. | |||
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, | |||
An thou hadst not come to my bed. |
KING CLAUDIUS | How long hath she been thus? |
OPHELIA | I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I | 70 | |
cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him | |||
i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it: | |||
and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my | |||
coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; | |||
good night, good night. | 75 | ||
[Exit] |
KING CLAUDIUS | Follow her close; give her good watch, | ||
I pray you. | |||
[Exit HORATIO] | |||
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs | |||
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude, | |||
When sorrows come, they come not single spies | 80 | ||
But in battalions. First, her father slain: | |||
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author | |||
Of his own just remove: the people muddied, | |||
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers, | |||
For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly, | 85 | ||
In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia | |||
Divided from herself and her fair judgment, | |||
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts: | |||
Last, and as much containing as all these, | |||
Her brother is in secret come from France; | 90 | ||
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, | |||
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear | |||
With pestilent speeches of his father's death; | |||
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd, | |||
Will nothing stick our person to arraign | 95 | ||
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this, | |||
Like to a murdering-piece, in many places | |||
Gives me superfluous death. | |||
[A noise within] |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | Alack, what noise is this? |
KING CLAUDIUS | Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door. | 100 | |
[Enter another Gentleman] | |||
What is the matter? |
Gentleman | Save yourself, my lord: | ||
The ocean, overpeering of his list, | |||
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste | |||
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, | 105 | ||
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord; | |||
And, as the world were now but to begin, | |||
Antiquity forgot, custom not known, | |||
The ratifiers and props of every word, | |||
They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:' | 110 | ||
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds: | |||
'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!' |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | How cheerfully on the false trail they cry! | ||
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs! |
KING CLAUDIUS | The doors are broke. | 115 | |
[Noise within] | |||
[Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following] |
LAERTES | Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without. |
Danes | No, let's come in. |
LAERTES | I pray you, give me leave. |
Danes | We will, we will. | ||
[They retire without the door] |
LAERTES | I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king, | ||
Give me my father! | 120 |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | Calmly, good Laertes. |
LAERTES | That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard, | ||
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot | |||
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow | |||
Of my true mother. |
KING CLAUDIUS | What is the cause, Laertes, | ||
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like? | 125 | ||
Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person: | |||
There's such divinity doth hedge a king, | |||
That treason can but peep to what it would, | |||
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes, | |||
Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude. | 130 | ||
Speak, man. |
LAERTES | Where is my father? |
KING CLAUDIUS | Dead. |
QUEEN GERTRUDE | But not by him. |
KING CLAUDIUS | Let him demand his fill. | 135 |
LAERTES | How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with: | ||
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil! | |||
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! | |||
I dare damnation. To this point I stand, | |||
That both the worlds I give to negligence, | 140 | ||
Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged | |||
Most thoroughly for my father. |
KING CLAUDIUS | Who shall stay you? |
LAERTES | My will, not all the world: | ||
And for my means, I'll husband them so well, | 145 | ||
They shall go far with little. |
KING CLAUDIUS | Good Laertes, | ||
If you desire to know the certainty | |||
Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge, | |||
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe, | 150 | ||
Winner and loser? |
LAERTES | None but his enemies. |
KING CLAUDIUS | Will you know them then? |
LAERTES | To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms; | ||
And like the kind life-rendering pelican, | 155 | ||
Repast them with my blood. |
KING CLAUDIUS | Why, now you speak | ||
Like a good child and a true gentleman. | |||
That I am guiltless of your father's death, | |||
And am most sensible in grief for it, | 160 | ||
It shall as level to your judgment pierce | |||
As day does to your eye. |
Danes | [Within] Let her come in. |
LAERTES | How now! what noise is that? | ||
[Re-enter OPHELIA] | |||
O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt, | 165 | ||
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye! | |||
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by 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 | 170 | ||
Should be as moral 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. |
OPHELIA | [Sings] | 175 | |
They bore him barefaced on the bier; | |||
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny; | |||
And in his grave rain'd many a tear:-- | |||
Fare you well, my dove! |
LAERTES | Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, | 180 | |
It could not move thus. |
OPHELIA | [Sings] | ||
You must sing a-down a-down, | |||
An you call him a-down-a. | |||
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false | 185 | ||
steward, that stole his master's daughter. |
LAERTES | This nothing's more than matter. |
OPHELIA | There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, | ||
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts. |
LAERTES | A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted. | 190 |
OPHELIA | There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue | ||
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it | |||
herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with | |||
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you | |||
some violets, but they withered all when my father | 195 | ||
died: they say he made a good end,-- | |||
[Sings] | |||
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. |
LAERTES | Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, | ||
She turns to favour and to prettiness. |
OPHELIA | [Sings] | 200 | |
And will he not come again? | |||
And will he not come again? | |||
No, no, he is dead: | |||
Go to thy death-bed: | |||
He never will come again. | 205 | ||
His beard was as white as snow, | |||
All flaxen was his poll: | |||
He is gone, he is gone, | |||
And we cast away moan: | |||
God ha' mercy on his soul! | 210 | ||
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye. | |||
[Exit] |
LAERTES | Do you see this, O God? |
KING CLAUDIUS | Laertes, I must commune with your grief, | ||
Or you deny me right. Go but apart, | |||
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will. | 215 | ||
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 can ours, | |||
To you in satisfaction; but if not, | 220 | ||
Be you content to lend your patience to us, | |||
And we shall jointly labour with your soul | |||
To give it due content. |
LAERTES | Let this be so; | ||
His means of death, his obscure funeral-- | 225 | ||
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones, | |||
No noble rite nor formal ostentation-- | |||
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth, | |||
That I must call't in question. |
KING CLAUDIUS | So you shall; | 230 | |
And where the offence is let the great axe fall. | |||
I pray you, go with me. | |||
[Exeunt] |
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