Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Table of Contents

ACT IV SCENE V� Setting: 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 � � 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, � � And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; �10 � 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. � 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. � � 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, � � It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. �20 � Re–enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA. � OPHELIA� Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark? � QUEEN GERTRUDE� How now, Ophelia! OPHELIA� Sings. � � 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? OPHELIA� Say you? nay, pray you, mark. � � Sings. � � He is dead and gone, lady, � � He is dead and gone; �30 � At his head a grass–green turf, � � At his heels a stone. 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. � � Larded with sweet flowers � Which bewept to the grave did go � � With true–love showers. � KING CLAUDIUS� How do you, pretty lady? �40 OPHELIA� Well, God 'ild 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 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: � � Sings � � To–morrow is Saint Valentine's day, � All in the morning betime, � � And I a maid at your window, � � To be your Valentine. �50 � Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes, � � 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: � � 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, � � 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 � � 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. � � 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, �60 � When sorrows come, they come not single spies � � 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, � � 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, �70 � 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 beggar'd, � � Will nothing stick our person to arraign � � 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. � � Enter a Messenger. � � What is the matter? Gentleman� Save yourself, my lord: �81 � The ocean, overpeering of his list, � � Eats not the flats with more impetuous 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, � � The ratifiers and props of every word, � � They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:' � � Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds: �90 � 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. � � 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! QUEEN GERTRUDE� Calmly, good Laertes. � LAERTES� That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard, �100 � 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? � � 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. � � Speak, man. � LAERTES� Where is my father? � KING CLAUDIUS� Dead. QUEEN GERTRUDE� But not by him. � KING CLAUDIUS� Let him demand his fill. �110 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, � � 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, � � They shall go far with little. � KING CLAUDIUS� Good Laertes, � � If you desire to know the certainty �121 � Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge, � � That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe, � � 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, � � 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, �130 � And am most sensible in grief for it, � � 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, � � 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 �140 � 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. � � 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, � It could not move thus. �150 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 � � 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. �159 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 � � 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. � � And will he not come again? � � And will he not come again? �170 � No, no, he is dead: � � Go to thy death–bed: � � 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 be wi' you. � � Exit � LAERTES� Do you see this, O God? KING CLAUDIUS� Laertes, I must commune with your grief, �180 � 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: � � 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, � � 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; �190 � His means of death, his obscure funeral–– � � 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; � � And where the offence is, let the great axe fall. � � I pray you, go with me. � Exeunt