SCENE V.-Elsinore.

A Room in the Castle.

Enter QUEEN and HORATIO.

Queen. I will not speak with her.

Hor. She is importunate; indeed, distract; Her mood will needs be pitied.

What would she have?

Queen. Hor. 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; Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,

Indeed would make one think there would be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

Queen. 'T were good she were spoken with; for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds:

Let her come in.

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

[Exit HORATIO.

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself, in fearing to be spilt.

Re-enter HORATIO with OPHELIA.

Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
Queen. How now, Ophelia ?

Oph. (sings) How should I your true love know
From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.

Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? Oph. Say you? nay, pray you, mark.

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;

At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

Queen. Nay, but Ophelia,—

Oph.

Pray you, mark.

White his shroud as the mountain snow.

Enter KING.

Queen. Alas, look here, my lord.

Oph.

Larded with sweet flowers;

Which bewept to the grave did not go,
With true-love showers.

King. How do you, pretty lady?

Oph. Well, God 'ield 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. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. Pray you, let us have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:

To-morrow's Saint Valentine's day

All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine:

Then up he rose, and donn'd his cl thes,

b

And dupp'd the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia !

Oph. Indeed, la, without an oath, I 'll make an end

on 't :

By Gis, and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and f'ye for shame

Young men will do 't, if they come to 't;

By cock, they are to blame.

a God 'ield you-God requite you,

b Dupp'd. To dup is to do up; as to don is to do on.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promis'd me to wed:

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

King. How long has she been this?

Oph. 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.

you.

[Exit. King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray [Exit HORATIO. O! this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father's death: O Gertrude, Gertrude, 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 hut greenly,a

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,
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 persons to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering-piece,b in many places
Gives me superfluous death.

Queen.

[A noise within. Alack! what noise is this?

a Greenly-unwisely; like novices.
b Murdering piece-a cannon was so called.

Enter a Gentleman.

King. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the

door:

What is the matter?

Gent.

Save yourself, my lord;

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impitious a 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, "Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!"

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry! O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.

King. The doors are broke.

[Noise within. Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following.

Laer. Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all with

out.

Dan. No, let's come in.

Laer.

Dan. We will, we will.

[They retire without the door.

Laer. I thank you :-keep the door.-O thou vile

king,

Give me my father.

Queen.

Calmly, good Laertes.

Laer. That drop of blood that 's calm, proclaims me

bastard;

Cries, cuckold, to my father; brands the harlot

Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.

King. What is the cause, Laertes,

a Impitious-unpitying.

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
Speak, man.

Laer. Where is my father?

King.

Queen.

go, Gertrude ;

Dead.

But not by him.

King. Let him demand his fill.

Laer. 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 throughly for my father.

King. Who shall stay you?

Laer. My will, not all the world:

And, for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

King.

Good Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty

Of your dear father's death, is 't writ in your revenge, That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser?

Laer. None but his enemies.

King.

Will you know them then?

Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my

arms;

And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,

Repast them with my blood.

Why, now you speak

King.
Like a good child, and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,