ACT IV SCENE VII� Setting: Another room in the castle.
Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES.�
| KING CLAUDIUS� |
Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal, |
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And you must put me in your heart for friend, |
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Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, |
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That he which hath your noble father slain |
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Pursued my life. |
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| LAERTES� |
It well appears: but tell me |
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Why you proceeded not against these feats, |
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So crimeful and so capital in nature, |
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As by your safety, wisdom, all things else, |
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You mainly were stirr'd up. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
O, for two special reasons; |
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Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd, |
�10 |
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But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother |
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Lives almost by his looks; and for myself–– |
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My virtue or my plague, be it either which–– |
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She's so conjunctive to my life and soul, |
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That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, |
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I could not but by her. The other motive, |
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Why to a public count I might not go, |
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Is the great love the general gender bear him; |
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Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, |
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Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone, |
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Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows, |
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Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind, |
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Would have reverted to my bow again, |
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And not where I had aim'd them. |
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| LAERTES� |
And so have I a noble father lost; |
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A sister driven into desperate terms, |
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Whose worth, if praises may go back again, |
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Stood challenger on mount of all the age |
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For her perfections: but my revenge will come. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think |
�30 |
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That we are made of stuff so flat and dull |
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That we can let our beard be shook with danger |
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And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more: |
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I loved your father, and we love ourself; |
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And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine–– |
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Enter a Messenger. |
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How now! what news? |
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| Messenger� |
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet: |
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This to your majesty; this to the queen. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
From Hamlet! who brought them? |
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| Messenger� |
Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not: |
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They were given me by Claudio; he received them |
�40 |
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Of him that brought them. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us. |
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Exit Messenger. |
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Reads. |
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High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on |
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your kingdom. To–morrow shall I beg leave to see |
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your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your |
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pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden |
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and more strange return. 'HAMLET.' |
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What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? |
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Or is it some abuse, and no such thing? |
�50 |
| LAERTES� |
Know you the hand? |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
Tis Hamlets character. "Naked!" |
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And in a postscript here, he says "alone." |
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Can you advise me? |
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| LAERTES� |
I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come; |
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It warms the very sickness in my heart, |
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That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, |
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Thus didest thou.' |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
If it be so, Laertes–– |
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As how should it be so? how otherwise?–– |
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Will you be ruled by me? |
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| LAERTES� |
Ay, my lord; |
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So you will not o'errule me to a peace. |
�60 |
| KING CLAUDIUS� |
To thine own peace. If he be now return'd, |
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As checking at his voyage, and that he means |
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No more to undertake it, I will work him |
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To an exploit, now ripe in my device, |
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Under the which he shall not choose but fall: |
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And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, |
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But even his mother shall uncharge the practise |
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And call it accident. |
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| LAERTES� |
My lord, I will be ruled; |
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The rather, if you could devise it so |
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That I might be the organ. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
It falls right. |
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You have been talk'd of since your travel much, |
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And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality |
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Wherein, they say, you shine: your sum of parts |
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Did not together pluck such envy from him |
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As did that one, and that, in my regard, |
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Of the unworthiest siege. |
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| LAERTES� |
What part is that, my lord? |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
A very riband in the cap of youth, |
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Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes |
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The light and careless livery that it wears |
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Than settled age his sables and his weeds, |
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Importing health and graveness. Two months since, |
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Here was a gentleman of Normandy:–– |
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I've seen myself, and served against, the French, |
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And they can well on horseback: but this gallant |
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Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his seat; |
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And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, |
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As he had been incorpsed and demi–natured |
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With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought, |
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That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks, |
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Come short of what he did. |
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| LAERTES� |
A Norman was't? |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
A Norman. |
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| LAERTES� |
Upon my life, Lamond. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
The very same. |
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| LAERTES� |
I know him well: he is the brooch indeed |
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And gem of all the nation. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
He made confession of you, |
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And gave you such a masterly report |
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For art and exercise in your defence |
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And for your rapier most especially, |
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That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed, |
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If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation, |
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He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye, |
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If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his |
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Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy |
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That he could nothing do but wish and beg |
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Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him. |
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Now, out of this,–– |
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| LAERTES� |
What out of this, my lord? |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
Laertes, was your father dear to you? |
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Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, |
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A face without a heart? |
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| LAERTES� |
Why ask you this? |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
Not that I think you did not love your father; |
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But that I know love is begun by time; |
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And that I see, in passages of proof, |
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Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. |
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There lives within the very flame of love |
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A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; |
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And nothing is at a like goodness still; |
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For goodness, growing to a plurisy, |
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Dies in his own too much: that we would do |
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We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes |
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And hath abatements and delays as many |
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As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; |
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And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh, |
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That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:–– |
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Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake, |
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To show yourself your father's son in deed |
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More than in words? |
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| LAERTES� |
To cut his throat i' the church. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; |
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Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes, |
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Will you do this, keep close within your chamber. |
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Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home: |
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We'll put on those shall praise your excellence |
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And set a double varnish on the fame |
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The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together |
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And wager on your heads: he, being remiss, |
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Most generous and free from all contriving, |
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Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease, |
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Or with a little shuffling, you may choose |
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A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise |
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Requite him for your father. |
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| LAERTES� |
I will do't: |
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And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword. |
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I bought an unction of a mountebank, |
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So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, |
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Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, |
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Collected from all simples that have virtue |
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Under the moon, can save the thing from death |
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That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point |
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With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, |
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It may be death. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
Let's further think of this; |
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Weigh what convenience both of time and means |
�149 |
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May fit us to our shape: if this should fail, |
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And that our drift look through our bad performance, |
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Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project |
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Should have a back or second, that might hold, |
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If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see: |
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We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha't. |
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When in your motion you are hot and dry–– |
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As make your bouts more violent to that end–– |
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And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him |
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A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping, |
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If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck, |
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Our purpose may hold there. |
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Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE. |
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How now, sweet queen! |
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| QUEEN GERTRUDE� |
One woe doth tread upon another's heel, |
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So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes. |
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| LAERTES� |
Drown'd! O, where? |
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| QUEEN GERTRUDE� |
There is a willow grows aslant a brook, |
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That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; |
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There with fantastic garlands did she come |
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Of crow–flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples |
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That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, |
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But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: |
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There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds |
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Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; |
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When down her weedy trophies and herself |
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Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; |
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And, mermaid–like, awhile they bore her up: |
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Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes; |
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As one incapable of her own distress, |
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Or like a creature native and indued |
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Unto that element: but long it could not be |
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Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, |
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Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay |
�180 |
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To muddy death. |
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| LAERTES� |
Alas, then, she is drown'd? |
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| QUEEN GERTRUDE� |
Drown'd, drown'd. |
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| LAERTES� |
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, |
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And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet |
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It is our trick; nature her custom holds, |
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Let shame say what it will: when these are gone, |
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The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord: |
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I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, |
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But that this folly douts it. |
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Exit. |
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| KING CLAUDIUS� |
Let's follow, Gertrude: |
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How much I had to do to calm his rage! |
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Now fear I this will give it start again; |
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Therefore let's follow. |
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Exeunt |
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