That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgement 'pear',
As day does to your eye.

Crowd, within. Let her come in.
Laer. How now! what noise is that?
Enter Ophelia, fantastically dress'd with straws
and flowers.

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 pay'd with 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
Should be as mortal 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.

Oph. They bore him bare-fac'd on the bier;
Hey no nonny, nonny hey nonny:

And on his grave rain'd many a tear;

Fare you well, my dove!

[revenge, Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade It could not move thus.

And of all christian souls! I pray God. God be [15] [Exit Oph.

wi' you.

Laer. Do you see this, O God?

King. Laertes, I must commune with your grief, Or you deny me right. Go but apart,

Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, 20 And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me: If by direct or by collateral hand

O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false stew-
That stole his master's daughter'.

Laer. This nothing's more than matter.
Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remem-30
brance; pray you, love, remember: and there is
pansies, that's for thoughts.

Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines .35 There's rue for you;—and here's some for me; -we may call it, herb of grace o' Sundays:you may wear your rue with a difference'.--There's daisy:-I would give you some violets; but they wither'd all, when my father died:-They 40 say, he made a good end,

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,—

4

They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call 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.

Laer. Let this be so:

This is an elision of the verb to appear. 2 Dr. Johnson explains this passage thus: "Love (says Laertes) is the passion by which nature is most exalted and refined: and as substances, refined and subtilised, easily obey any impulse, or follow any attraction, some part of nature, so purified and refined, flies off after the attracting object, after the thing it loves." 3 Mr. Steevens says, the wheel may mean no more than the burthen of the song, which she had just repeated, and as such was formerly used.-Dr. Johnson says, "The story alluded to I do not know; but perhaps the lady stolen by the steward was reduced to spin." Rosemary was anciently supposed to strengthen the memory, and was not only carried at funerals, but worn at weddings. Pansies is for thoughts, because of its name, Pensées. Mr. Steevens says, Greene, in his Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1620, calls fennel women's weeds: " fit generally for that sex, sith, while they are maidens, they wish wantonly."-Mr. Steevens adds, that he knows not of what columbines were supposed to be emblematical; but that Gerard, and other herbalists, impute few, if any, virtues to them: and they may therefore be styled thankless, because they appear to make no grateful return for their creation. Dr. Warburton says, that herb of grace is the name the country-people give to rue; and the reason is, because that herb was a principal ingredient in the potion which the Romish priests used to force the possessed to swallow down when they exorcised them. Now, these exorcisms being performed generally on a Sunday, in the church before the whole congregation, is the reason why she says, we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays.-Mr. Steevens believes there is a quibble meant in this passage; rue anciently signifying the same as Ruth, i. e. sorrow. Ophelia gives the queen some, and keeps a proportion of it for herself. There may, however, he adds, be somewhat more implied here than is expressed. You, madum, (says Ophelia to the queen,) may call your RUE by its Sunday nume, HERB OF GRACE, and so wear it with a difference to distinguish it from mine, which can never be any thing but merely RUE, i. e. sorrow. This is part of an old song.

They

Work, 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,

5 And not where I had aim'd them.

Sail. He shall, sir, an 't please him. There's a letter for you, sir: it comes from the embassador that was bound for England; if your name be 10 Horatio, as I am let to know it is."

Horatio reads the letter.

20

HORATIO, when thou shalt have overlook'd this, give these fellows some means to the king; they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, 15 a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chace: 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 thieces 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 haste as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear, will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore1 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, 30 Come, I will make you way for these your letters; And do 't the speedier, that direct me you may To him from whom you brought them. [Exeunt.

As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things
You mainly were stirr'd up?

King. O, for two special reasons;

25

Laer. 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.
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 lov'd your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,—
How now? what news?

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
This to your majesty; this to the queen.
King. From Hamlet! Who brought them?
Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not:
They were given me by Claudio; he receiv'd
Of him that brought them.
[them

King. Laertes, you shall hear them :-
Leave us.

[Exit Mess. 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 35 Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

40

Laer. Know you the hand?
King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,
And, in a postscript here, he says, alone:
Can you advise me?

[back?

[come;

Laer. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him It warms the very sickness in my heart,

That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
Thus diddest thou.

King. If it be so, Laertes,

45 As how should it be so?-how otherwise?-
Will you be rul'd by me?
Laer. Ay, my lord;

Which may to you, perhaps,seem much unsinew'd, 50
And 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 is 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,

So you will not o'er-rule me to a peace.
King. To thine own peace. If he be now

return'd,

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:
55 And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe;
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice,
And call it, accident,

Laer. My lord, I will be rul'd;

The rather, if you could devise it so,

60 That I might be the organ,

The bore is the calibre of a gun, or the capacity of the barrel.-The matter (says Hamlet) would carry heavier words. 2 i. c. The common race of the people. i. e. If I may praise what has

been, but is now to be found no more.

King. It falls right.

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 1.

Laer. What part is that, my lord?

King. A very ribband 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 have seen myself, and serv'd 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 he had been incorps'd and demy-natur'd
With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought,
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.

Laer. A Norman, was 't?
King. A Norman.

Laer. Upon my life, Lamond.

King. The very same.

Laer. 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,

3

A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it:
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,

Dies in his own too much: That we would do,
5 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
10 That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:
Hamlet comes back; What would you undertake,
To shew yourself your father's son in deed
More than in words?

15

Laer. To cut his throat i' the church. [tuarize; King. No place, indeed, should murder sancRevenge should havenobounds. 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, 20 And set a double varnish on the fame

The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine,
together,

And wager o'er your heads: he, being remiss",
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
25 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.

Laer. I will do't:

30 And, for the 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 scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
With this contagion; that, if I gall him slightly,
may be death.

That he cried out, 'Twould be a sight indeed,
If one could match you: the scrimers of their 35
nation,

He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you oppos'd 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,-

Laer. 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?

Laer. 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

It

King. Let's further think of this;

40 Weigh,what convenience, both of time and means, May fit us to our shape 10: If this should fail,

And that our drift look through our bad per

formance,

Twere better not assay'd; therefore, this project 45 Should have a back, or second, that might hold, If this should blast in proof". Soft;-let mesee:We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,― I ha't:

When in your motion you are hot and dry, 50(As make your bouts more violent to that end) And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping, If he by chance escape your venom'd tuck, ? That is, in the science of defence.

5 i. e. in

i. e.

1i. e. of the lowest rank.-Siege, for seat, place; Fr. The fencers. Dr. Johnson says, this is obscure; and adds, "The meaning may be, Love is not innate in us, and co-essential to our nature, but begins at a certain time from some external cause, and, being always subject to the operations of time, suffers change and diminution." transactions of daily experience. i. e. a sigh that makes an unnecessary waste of the vital flame. It is a notion very prevalent, that sighs impair the strength, and wear out the animal powers. not,vigilant or cautious. i. e. not blunted as foils are. Dr. Johnson observes, that practice is often by Shakspeare, and other writers, taken for an insidious stratagem, or privy treason; a sense not incongruous to this passage, where yet he rather believes, that nothing more is meant than a thrust for exercise. 10 i. e. may enable us to assume proper characters, and to act our part. "This metaphor is taken from the trying or proving fire-arms or cannon, which often blast or burst in the proof.

Our

HAMLE T.

5

10

ACT

Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c. 1 Clown. IS she to be bury'd in christian burial, that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

2 Clown. I tell thee, she is; therefore, make her grave straight 2: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it christian burial.

1 Clown. How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own defence?

2 Clown. Why, 'tis found so.

1 Clown. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown myself 40 wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform:Argal, she drown'd herself wittingly.

2 Clown. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. 1 Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water; [45] good: Here stands the man; good: If the man

to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, go nill he, he goes; mark you that: But if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: Argal, he, that is not guilty of his own 50 death, shortens not his own life.

1 Clown. Ay, marry is 't; crowner's-quest law. 2 Clown. Will you ha' the truth on 't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have 55 been bury'd out of christian burial.

1 Clown. Why, there thou say'st: And the more pity, that great folk should have countein this world to drown or hang themselves,

2 i. e. make her grave immediately.

1i. e. aside, sideways. without distinction; and of distinctions without difference. fellow-christians.

i.e. When you have done that, I'll trouble you no more with these riddles.

ing; and, when you are ask'd this question next, say, a grave-maker; the houses that he makes, Jast 'till doomsday. Go, get thee to Youghan, and fetch me a stoop of liquor. [Exit 2 Clown.

He digs, and sings',

In youth when I did love, did love,

Methought, it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove,
O, methought there was nothing meet.

Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making.

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

| Ham. There's another; Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks i why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock 5 him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in 's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: Is this the fine 10 of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and dou ble ones too, than the length and breadth of a par of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inneritor himself have no more? ha?

Ham. 'Tis e'en so the hand of little employ-15

ment hath the daintier sense.

30

35

Ham. Why, e'en so: and now my lady worm's'; chapless, and knock'd about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see 't. Did these bones cost no more 40 the breeding, but to play at loggats 3 with them?| mine ache to think on 't.

Clown sings.

3

A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For-and a shrouding sheet:

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

1451

Ham. I think it be thine indeed; for thou ly'st in 't:

Clown. You lie out on 't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in 't, yet it is mine.

Ham. Thou dost lie in 't, to be in't, and say it is thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou ly'st.

Clown. 'Tis a quick lye, sir; 'twill away again, from me to you.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for ?
Clown. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman, then?

Clown. For none neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in 't?

Clown. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead,

Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card', or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have

The three stanzas, sung here by the grave-digger, are extracted, with a slight variation, from a little poem, called The aged Lover renounceth Love, written by Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, who flourished in the reign of King Henry VIII. and who was beheaded in 1547, on a strained accusation of treason. The entire song is published by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Antient English Poetry. i. e. The scull that was my lord Such-a-one's, is now my lady Worm's. 3 Dr. Johnson says, this is a play, in which pins are set up to be beaten down with a bowl. We have been informed, however, that the reverse is true; that the bowl is the mark, and the pins are pitched at it; and that the game is well known in the neighbourhood of Norwich.- -Mr. Steevens observes, that "this is a game played in several parts of England even at this time.-A stake is fixed into the ground; those who play, throw loggats at it; and he that is nearest the stake, wins :-I have seen it played in different counties at their sheep-shearing feasts, where the winner was entitled to a black fleece, which he afterwards presented to the farmer's maid to spin for the purpose of making a petticoat, and on condition that she knelt down on the fleece to be kissed by all the rustics present." i. e. subtilties. i. e. the head, • A quibble is intended.-Deeds, which are usually written on parchment, are called the common assurances of the kingdom. 'The card is the paper on which the different points of the compass were described.—To do any thing by the card, is, to do it with nice observation.

taken