bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

12

Horatio. [Reads] 'Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows some means to the king: they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded them: on the instant they got clear of our ship; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy: but they knew what they did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me with as much speed as thou wouldest fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell. He that thou knowest thine,

HAMLET.'

Come, I will make you way for these your letters;
And do't the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.

SCENE VII. Another room in the castle.

Enter KING and LAERTES.

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[Exeunt.

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 crimeful and so capital in nature,

As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirr'd up.

King.

O, for two special reasons;

Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinew'd,
But yet to me they are 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 timber'd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim'd them.

Laertes. And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate 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.

ΙΟ

20

29

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.

How now! what news?

Messenger.

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

This 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. Leave us.

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Laertes, you shall hear them.
[Exit Messenger.

[Reads] 'High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your 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!'

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And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'

Can you advise me?

Laertes. I'm 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,

As how should it be so? how otherwise?—

Will you be ruled by me?

So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

King. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd, 60

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;

It falls right.

The rather, if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ.

King.
You have been talk'd 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.

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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 topp'd my thought
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,

Came short of what he did.

Laertes.

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A Norman was 't?

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 him.
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?

100

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 plurisy,

Dies in his own too much: that we would do

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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 sigh,

That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:
Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake,
To show yourself your father's son in deed
More than in words?

Laertes.
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 return'd shall know you are come home:
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
And set a double varnish on the fame

To cut his throat i' the church.

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.

I will do't

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Laertes.

So mortal that but dip a knife in it,

And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank,

Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,