When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.
HAMLET Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever: but it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and dog will have his day.
Exit
KING CLAUDIUS I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.
Exit HORATIO
To LAERTES
Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech;
We’ll put the matter to the present push.
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
This grave shall have a living monument:
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then, in patience our proceeding be.
Exeunt
Scene 2
A hall in the castle.
Enter HAMLET and HORATIO
HAMLET So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?
HORATIO Remember it, my lord?
HAMLET Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,
And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,–
HORATIO That is most certain.
HAMLET Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
Finger’d their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again; making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,–
O royal knavery!–an exact command,
Larded with many several sorts of reasons
Importing Denmark’s health and England’s too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.
HORATIO Is’t possible?
HAMLET Here’s the commission: read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?
HORATIO I beseech you.
HAMLET Being thus be-netted round with villanies,–
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play–I sat me down,
Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair and labour’d much
How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
It did me yeoman’s service: wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?
HORATIO Ay, good my lord.
HAMLET An earnest conjuration from the king,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma ‘tween their amities,
And many such-like ‘As’es of great charge,
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow’d.
HORATIO How was this seal’d?
HAMLET Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father’s signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gave’t the impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
Thou know’st already.
HORATIO So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.
HAMLET Why, man, they did make love to this employment;
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow:
‘Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.
HORATIO Why, what a king is this!
HAMLET Does it not, think’st thee, stand me now upon–
He that hath kill’d my king and whored my mother,
Popp’d in between the election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage–is’t not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm? and is’t not to be damn’d,
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?
HORATIO It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there.
HAMLET It will be short: the interim is mine;
And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘One.’
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For, by the image of my cause, I see
The portraiture of his: I’ll court his favours.
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion.
HORATIO Peace! who comes here?
Enter OSRIC
OSRIC Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
HAMLET I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?
HORATIO No, my good lord.
HAMLET Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a vice to
know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a
beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at
the king’s mess: ’tis a chough; but, as I say,
spacious in the possession of dirt.
OSRIC Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I
should impart a thing to you from his majesty.
HAMLET I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of
spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; ’tis for the head.
OSRIC I thank your lordship, it is very hot.
HAMLET No, believe me, ’tis very cold; the wind is
northerly.
OSRIC It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
HAMLET But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my
complexion.
OSRIC Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,–as
’twere,–I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his
majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter,–
HAMLET I beseech you, remember–
HAMLET moves him to put on his hat
OSRIC Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith.
Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe
me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent
differences, of very soft society and great showing:
indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the
continent of what part a gentleman would see.
HAMLET Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;
though, I know, to divide him inventorially would
dizzy the arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw
neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the
verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
great article; and his infusion of such dearth and
rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his
semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace
him, his umbrage, nothing more.
OSRIC Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
HAMLET The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman
in our more rawer breath?
OSRIC Sir?
HORATIO Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue?
You will do’t, sir, really.
HAMLET What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
OSRIC Of Laertes?
HORATIO His purse is empty already; all’s golden words are spent.
HAMLET Of him, sir.
OSRIC I know you are not ignorant–
HAMLET I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did,
it would not much approve me. Well, sir?
OSRIC You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is–
HAMLET I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with
him in excellence; but, to know a man well, were to
know himself.
OSRIC I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation
laid on him by them, in his meed he’s unfellowed.
HAMLET What’s his weapon?
OSRIC Rapier and dagger.
HAMLET That’s two of his weapons: but, well.
OSRIC The king, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary
horses: against the which he has imponed, as I take
it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their
assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so: three of the
carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very
responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages,
and of very liberal conceit.
HAMLET What call you the carriages?
HORATIO I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.
OSRIC The carriages, sir, are the hangers.
HAMLET The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we
could carry cannon by our sides: I would it might
be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses
against six French swords, their assigns, and three
liberal-conceited carriages; that’s the French bet
against the Danish. Why is this ‘imponed,’ as you call it?
OSRIC The king, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes
between yourself and him, he shall not exceed you
three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine; and it
would come to immediate trial, if your lordship
would vouchsafe the answer.
HAMLET How if I answer ‘no’?
OSRIC I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.
HAMLET Sir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his
majesty, ’tis the breathing time of day with me; let
the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the