LAERTES Know you the hand?
KING ’Tis Hamlet’s character.
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‘Naked’ –
And in a postscript here he says ‘Alone’.
Can you devise me?
LAERTES I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come.
It warms the very sickness in my heart
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That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
‘Thus diest thou’.
KING If it be so, Laertes –
As how should it be so, how otherwise? –
Will you be rul’d by me?
LAERTES Ay, my lord,
So you will not o’errule me to a peace.
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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;
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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 rul’d,
The rather if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ.
KING It falls right.
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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,
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Of the unworthiest siege.
LAERTES What part is that, my lord?
KING A very ribbon 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
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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,
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And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
As had he been incorps’d and demi-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.
LAERTES A Norman was’t?
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KING A Norman.
LAERTES Upon my life, Lamord.
KING The very same.
LAERTES I know him well. He is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.
KING He made confession of you,
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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
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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 you.
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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?
LAERTES Why ask you this?
KING Not that I think you did not love your father,
110
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;
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And nothing is at a like goodness still,
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,
Dies in his own too-much. That we would do,
We should do when we would: for this ‘would’ changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
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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 of th’ulcer:
Hamlet comes back; what would you undertake
To show yourself in deed your father’s son
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More than in words?
LAERTES To cut his throat i’th’ church.
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;
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We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence,
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,
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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.
LAERTES I will do’t.
And for that purpose, I’ll anoint my sword.
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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
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That is but scratch’d withal. I’ll touch my point
With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.
KING Let’s further think of this,
Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
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And that our drift look through our bad performance,
’Twere better not essay’d. Therefore this project
Should have a back or second that might hold
If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see.
We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings –
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I ha’t!
When in your motion you are hot and dry –
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,
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If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,
Our purpose may hold there. But stay, what noise?
Enter QUEEN.
QUEEN One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.
LAERTES Drown’d? O, where?
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QUEEN There is a willow grows askant the brook
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
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But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.
There on the pendent boughs her crownet weeds
Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
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And mermaid-like
awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
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Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
LAERTES Alas, then she is drown’d.
QUEEN Drown’d, drown’d.
LAERTES Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
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And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will. [Weeps.]
When these are gone,
The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord,
I have a speech o’ fire that fain would blaze
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But that this folly douts it. Exit
KING Let’s follow, Gertrude.
How much I had to do to calm his rage.
Now fear I this will give it start again.
Therefore let’s follow. Exeunt.
5.1 Enter two clowns – the Gravedigger and Another.
GRAVEDIGGER Is she to be buried in Christian burial,
when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?
OTHER I tell thee she is, therefore make her grave
straight. The crowner hath sat on her and finds it
Christian burial.
5
GRAVEDIGGER How can that be, unless she drowned
herself in her own defence?
OTHER Why, ’tis found so.
GRAVEDIGGER It must be se offendendo, it cannot be else.
For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it
10
argues an act, and an act hath three branches – it is to
act, to do, to perform; argal, she drowned herself
wittingly.
OTHER Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver –
GRAVEDIGGER Give me leave. Here lies the water –
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good. Here stands the man – good. If the man go to
this water and drown himself, it is, will he 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 death shortens not his own life.
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OTHER But is this law?
GRAVEDIGGER Ay, marry is’t, crowner’s quest law.
OTHER Will you ha’ the truth an’t? If this had not been
a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’
Christian burial.
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GRAVEDIGGER Why, there thou say’st. And the more
pity that great folk should have countenance in this
world to drown or hang themselves more than their
even-Christen. Come, my spade. There is no ancient
gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers
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– they hold up Adam’s profession. [He digs.]
OTHER Was he a gentleman?
GRAVEDIGGER A was the first that ever bore arms.
OTHER Why, he had none.
GRAVEDIGGER What, art a heathen? How dost thou
35
understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam
digged. Could he dig without arms? I’ll put another
question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the
purpose, confess thyself –
OTHER Go to.
40
GRAVEDIGGER What is he that builds stronger than
either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
OTHER The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a
thousand tenants.
GRAVEDIGGER I like thy wit well in good faith, the
45
gallows does well. But how does it well? It does well to
those that do ill. Now, thou dost ill to say the gallows
is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows
may do well to thee. To’t again, come.
OTHER Who builds stronger than a mason, a
50
shipwright, or a carpenter?
GRAVEDIGGER Ay, tell me that and unyoke.
OTHER Marry, now I can tell.
GRAVEDIGGER To’t.
OTHER Mass, I cannot tell.
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GRAVEDIGGER Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for
your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating. And
when you are asked this question next, say ‘A grave-
maker’. The houses he makes lasts till doomsday. Go,
get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.
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Exit the other clown.
[The Gravedigger continues digging.]
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 136
