They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes shall be king!’
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
‘Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!’
Queen.
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
[A noise within.]
King.
The doors are broke.
[Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following.]
Laer.
Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without.
Danes.
No, let’s come in.
Laer.
I pray you, give me leave.
Danes.
We will, we will.
[They retire without the door.]
Laer.
I thank you:—keep the door.—O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
Queen.
Calmly, good Laertes.
Laer.
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.
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,
Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incens’d.—Let him go, Gertrude:—
Speak, man.
Laer.
Where is my father?
King.
Dead.
Queen.
But not by him.
King.
Let him demand his fill.
Laer.
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,
Let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d
Most throughly for my father.
King.
Who shall stay you?
Laer.
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,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
Laer.
None but his enemies.
King.
Will you know them then?
Laer.
To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And, like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
King.
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 pierce
As day does to your eye.
Danes.
[Within] Let her come in.
Laer.
How now! What noise is that?
[Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.]
O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
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
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.
Oph.
[Sings.]
They bore him barefac’d on the bier
Hey no nonny, nonny, hey nonny
And on his grave rain’d many a tear.—
Fare you well, my dove!
Laer.
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
Oph. You must sing ‘Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a.’ O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master’s daughter.
Laer.
This nothing’s more than matter.
Oph. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.
Laer.
A document in madness,—thoughts and remembrance fitted.
Oph. There’s fennel for you, and columbines:—there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me:—we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays:—O, you must wear your rue with a difference.—There’s a daisy:—I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died:—they say he made a good end,— [Sings.] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,—
Laer.
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
Oph.
[Sings.]
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
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:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha’ mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God.—God b’ wi’ ye.
[Exit.]
Laer.
Do you