Another Room in the Castle.
 Enter KING and LAERTES.

King	Now must your conscience my acquittance 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
	Pursued my life.

Laertes					It well appears. But tell me
	Why you proceeded not against these feats,
	So criminal and so capital in nature,
	As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
	You mainly were stirred up.

King									O, for two special reasons,
	Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinewed,
	But yet to me they're strong. The queen his mother
	Lives almost by his looks; and for myself-
	My virtue or my plague, be it either which-
	She's so conjunctive to my life and soul
	That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
	I could not but by her. The other motive,
	Why to a public count I might not go,
	Is the great love the general gender bear him;
	Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
	Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
	Convert his gyves to graces, so that my arrows,
	Too slightly timbered for so loud a wind,
	Would have reverted to my bow again,
	But not where I have aimed them.

Laertes	And so have I a noble father lost;
	A sister driven into desp'rate terms,
	Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
	Stood challenger on mount of all the age
	For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

King	Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think
	That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
	That we can let our beard be shook with danger,
	And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.
	I loved your father, and we love ourself;
	And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-

                     Enter a MESSENGER, with letters.

	How now, what news?

Messenger							Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.
	These to your majesty; this to the queen.

King	From Hamlet? Who brought them?

Messenger	Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.
	They were given me by Claudio. He received them
	Of him that brought them.

King									Laertes, you shall hear them.
	Leave us.
												[Exit MESSENGER.

	[Reads.]	"High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on 
			your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see 
			your kingly eyes, when I shall, first asking you 
			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?

Laertes	Know you the hand?

King							'Tis Hamlet's character. 'Naked'!
	And in a postscript here he says 'alone'.
	Can you devise me?

Laertes	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 diest thou.'

King						If it be so, Laertes-
	As how should it be so, how otherwise?-
	Will you be ruled by me?

Laertes										Ay, my lord;
	So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

King	To thine own peace. If he be now returned,
	As checking at his voyage, and that he means
	No more to undertake it, I will work him
	To an exploit now ripe in my device,
	Under the which he shall not choose but fall;
	And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
	But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
	And call it accident.

Laertes							My lord, I will be ruled;
	The rather if you could devise it so
	That I might be the organ.

King										It falls right.
	You have been talked of since your travel much,
	And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
	Wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts
	Did not together pluck such envy from him
	As did that one, and that in my regard,
	Of the unworthiest siege.

Laertes								What part is that, my lord?

King	A very riband in the cap of youth,
	Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes
	The light and careless livery that it wears
	Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
	Importing health and graveness. Two months since
	Here was a gentleman of Normandy-
	I've seen myself, and served against, the French,
	And they can well on horseback; but this gallant
	Had witchcraft in't. He grew unto his seat,
	And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
	As had he been incorpsed, and demi-natured
	With the brave beast. So far he topped my thought
	That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
	Come short of what he did.

Laertes										A Norman was't?

King	A Norman.

Laertes	Upon my life, Lamord.

King								The very same.

Laertes	I know him well. He is the brooch indeed,
	And gem, of all the nation.

King	He made confession of you,
	And gave you such a masterly report
	For art and exercise in your defence,
	And for your rapier most especial,
	That he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed
	If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation
	He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
	If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his
	Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
	That he could nothing do but wish and beg
	Your sudden coming o'er, to play with you.
	Now, out of this-

Laertes						What out of this, my lord?

King	Laertes, was your father dear to you?
	Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
	A face without a heart?

Laertes									Why ask you this?

King	Not that I think you did not love your father,
	But that I know love is begun by time,
	And that I see, in passages of proof,
	Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
	There lives within the very flame of love
	A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
	And nothing is at a like goodness still,
	For goodness, growing to a plurisie,
	Dies in his own too much. That we would do,
	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's sigh
	That hurts by easing. But, to the quick of th' ulcer:
	Hamlet comes back; what would you undertake
	To show yourself your father's son
	More than in words?

Laertes						To cut his throat i'th' church.

King	No place indeed should murder sanctuarize;
	Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
	Will you do this? - keep close within your chamber.
	Hamlet returned shall know you are come home.
	We'll put on those shall praise your excellence,
	And set a double varnish on the fame
	The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, together
	And wager on your heads. He, being remiss,
	Most generous and free from all contriving,
	Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,
	Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
	A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,
	Requite him for your father.

Laertes										I will do't;
	And for that 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 cataplasm so rare,
	Collected from all simples that have virtue
	Under the moon, can save the thing from death
	That is but scratched withal. I'll touch my point
	With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
	It may be death.

King						Let's further think of this;
	Weigh what convenience both of time and means
	May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
	And that our drift look through our bad performance,
	'Twere better not assayed; therefore this project
	Should have a back or second that might hold
	If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see.
	We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings:-
	I ha't!
	When in your motion you are hot and dry-
	As make your bouts more violent to that end-
	And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him
	A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,
	If he by chance escape your venomed stuck,
	Our purpose may hold there. But stay, what noise?

                               Enter QUEEN.

Queen	One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
	So fast they follow. Your sister's drowned, Laertes

Laertes	Drowned! O, where?

Queen	There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook,
	That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
	Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
	Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
	That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
	But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
	There on the pendant boughs her crownet weeds
	Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
	When down her weedy trophies and herself
	Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
	And mermaid-like a while they bore her up;
	Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,
	As one incapable of her own distress,
	Or like a creature native and indued
	Unto that element. But long it could not be
	Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
	Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
	To muddy death.

Laertes					Alas, then she is drowned.

Queen	Drowned, drowned.

Laertes	Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
	And therefore I forbid my tears. - But yet
	It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
	Let shame say what it will.
							[Weeps.] When these are gone,
	The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord.
	I have a speech o' fire that fain would blaze,
	But that this folly douts it.
												[Exit.
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.
