Enter Horatio, ⟨Queen,⟩ and a Gentleman.QUEEN I will not speak with her.GENTLEMAN She is importunate, Indeed distract; her mood will needs be pitied.QUEEN What would she have?GENTLEMAN 5 She speaks much of her father, says she hears There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart, Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,10 Yet the unshapèd use of it doth move The hearers to collection. They ⟨aim⟩ at it And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,15 Indeed would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.HORATIO ’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew20 Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.⌜QUEEN⌝ Let her come in.⌜Gentleman exits.⌝ ⌜Aside.⌝ To my sick soul (as sin’s true nature is), Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss. So full of artless jealousy is guilt,25 It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
⟨Enter Ophelia distracted.⟩OPHELIA Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?QUEEN How now, Ophelia?OPHELIA ⌜sings⌝
How should I your true love know
From another one?
30 By his cockle hat and staff
And his sandal shoon.QUEEN Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?OPHELIA Say you? Nay, pray you, mark.⌜Sings.⌝ He is dead and gone, lady,
35 He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone. Oh, ho!QUEEN Nay, but Ophelia—OPHELIA 40Pray you, mark.⌜Sings.⌝ White his shroud as the mountain snow—Enter King.QUEEN Alas, look here, my lord.OPHELIA ⌜sings⌝
Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the ground did not go
45 With true-love showers.KING How do you, pretty lady?OPHELIA Well, God dild you. They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are but know not what we may be. God be at your table.KING 50Conceit upon her father.OPHELIA Pray let’s have no words of this, but when they ask you what it means, say you this:
⌜Sings.⌝ Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
55 And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose and donned his clothes
And dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
60 Never departed more.KING Pretty Ophelia—OPHELIA Indeed, without an oath, I’ll make an end on ’t:⌜Sings.⌝ By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack and fie for shame,
65 Young men will do ’t, if they come to ’t;
By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she “Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.” He answers:
70 “So would I ’a done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.”KING How long hath she been thus?OPHELIA I hope all will be well. We must be patient, but I cannot choose but weep to think they would75 lay him i’ th’ 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.⟨She exits.⟩KING Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.⌜Horatio exits.⌝80 O, this is the poison of deep grief. It springs All from her father’s death, and now behold! O Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions: first, her father slain;85 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 but90 greenly 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,95 Her brother is in secret come from France, 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 beggared,100 Will nothing stick our person to arraign In ear and ear. O, my dear Gertrude, this, Like to a murd’ring piece, in many places Gives me superfluous death.A noise within.⟨QUEEN Alack, what noise is this?⟩KING 105Attend! Where is my Switzers? Let them guard the door.Enter a Messenger. What is the matter?MESSENGER Save yourself, my lord. The ocean, overpeering of his list,110 Eats not the flats with more impiteous haste Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, O’erbears your officers. The rabble call him “lord,” And, as the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, custom not known,115 The ratifiers and props of every word, ⟨They⟩ cry “Choose we, Laertes shall be king!” Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds, “Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!”A noise within.
QUEEN How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.120 O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!KING The doors are broke.Enter Laertes with others.
LAERTES Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without.ALL No, let’s come in!LAERTES I pray you, give me leave.ALL 125We will, we will.LAERTES I thank you. Keep the door. ⌜Followers exit.⌝ O, thou vile king, Give me my father!QUEEN Calmly, good Laertes.LAERTES 130 That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard, Cries “cuckold” to my father, brands the harlot Even here between the chaste unsmirchèd brow Of my true mother.KING 135 What is the cause, Laertes, That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?— 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,140 Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus incensed.—Let him go, Gertrude.— Speak, man.LAERTES Where is my father?KING 145Dead.QUEEN But not by him.KING Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with. To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!150 Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand, That both the worlds I give to negligence, Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged Most throughly for my father.KING 155Who shall stay you?LAERTES My will, not all the ⟨world.⟩ And for my means, I’ll husband them so well They shall go far with little.KING Good Laertes,160 If you desire to know the certainty Of your dear father, is ’t writ in your revenge That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser?LAERTES 165None but his enemies.KING Will you know them, then?LAERTES To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms And, like the kind life-rend’ring pelican, Repast them with my blood.KING 170 Why, now you speak Like a good child and a true gentleman. That I am guiltless of your father’s death And am most sensibly in grief for it, It shall as level to your judgment ’pear175 As day does to your eye. A noise within: ⟨“Let her come in!”LAERTES⟩ How now, what noise is that?Enter Ophelia. O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
180 By heaven, thy madness shall be paid 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?185 ⟨Nature is fine in love, and, where ’tis fine, It sends some precious instance of itself After the thing it loves.⟩OPHELIA ⌜sings⌝
They bore him barefaced on the bier,
⟨Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,⟩
190 And in his grave rained many a tear. Fare you well, my dove.LAERTES Hadst thou thy wits and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus.OPHELIA You must sing “A-down a-down”—and you195 “Call him a-down-a.”—O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter.LAERTES This nothing’s more than matter.OPHELIA There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.200 Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.LAERTES A document in madness: thoughts and remembrance fitted.OPHELIA There’s fennel for you, and columbines.205 There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. 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 died. They say he made a good end.210 ⌜Sings.⌝ For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.LAERTES Thought and afflictions, passion, hell itself She turns to favor and to prettiness.
OPHELIA ⌜sings⌝
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
215 No, no, he is dead.
Go to thy deathbed.
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
⟨All⟩ flaxen was his poll.
220 He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan.
God ’a mercy on his soul. And of all Christians’ souls, ⟨I pray God.⟩ God be wi’ you.⟨She exits.⟩LAERTES 225Do you ⟨see⟩ this, O God?KING Laertes, I must commune with your grief, Or you deny me right. Go but apart, Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me.230 If by direct or by collateral hand They find us touched, we will our kingdom give, Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours, To you in satisfaction; but if not, Be you content to lend your patience to us,235 And we shall jointly labor with your soul To give it due content.LAERTES Let this be so. His means of death, his obscure funeral (No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,240 No noble rite nor formal ostentation) Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth, That I must call ’t in question.KING So you shall, And where th’ offense is, let the great ax fall.245 I pray you, go with me.They exit.
Hamlet
