The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  No, no, he is dead,

  Go to thy death-bed,

  He never will come again.

  His beard as white as snow,

  All flaxen was his poll.

  He is gone, he is gone,

  And we cast away moan.

  God ‘a’ mercy on his soul.

  And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b’wi’ ye.

  ⌈Exeunt Ophelia and Gertrude⌉

  LAERTES Do you see this, O God?

  KING CLAUDIUS

  Laertes, I must commune with your grief,

  Or you deny me right. Go but apart,

  Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,

  And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me.

  If by direct or by collateral hand

  They find us touched, 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.

  LAERTES

  Let this be so.

  His means of death, his obscure burial—

  No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o‘er his bones,

  No noble rite nor formal ostentation—

  Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth,

  That I must call’t in question.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  So you shall;

  And where th’offence is, let the great axe fall.

  I pray you go with me.

  Exeunt

  4.6 Enter Horatio with a Servant

  HORATIO

  What are they that would speak with me?

  SERVANT

  Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.

  HORATIO Let them come in.

  Exit Servant

  I do not know from what part of the world

  I should be greeted if not from Lord Hamlet.

  Enter ⌈Sailors⌉

  A SAILOR God bless you, sir.

  HORATIO Let him bless thee too.

  A SAILOR A shall, sir, an’t please him. There’s a letter for you, sir. It comes from th’ambassador that was bound for England—if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

  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 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 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 give you way for these your letters,

  And do’t the speedier that you may direct me

  To him from whom you brought them. Exeunt

  4.7 Enter King Claudius and Laertes

  KING CLAUDIUS

  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 stirred up.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  O, for two special reasons,

  Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed,

  And yet to me they’re 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 guilts to graces; so that my arrows,

  Too slightly timbered for so loud a wind,

  Would have reverted to my bow again,

  And not where I had aimed them.

  LAERTES

  And so have I a noble father lost,

  A sister driven into desp’rate terms,

  Who has, if praises may go back again,

  Stood challenger, on mount, of all the age

  For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  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 with letters

  How now? What news?

  MESSENGER

  Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.

  This to your majesty; this to the Queen.

  KING CLAUDIUS From Hamlet? Who brought them?

  MESSENGER

  Sailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not.

  They were given me by Claudio. He received them.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  Laertes, you shall hear them.—Leave us.

  Exit Messenger

  (Reads) ‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes, when I shall, first asking your pardon, thereunto recount th’occasions 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 CLAUDIUS

  ’Tis Hamlet’s character.

  ‘Naked’—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,

  ‘Thus diddest thou’.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  If it be so, Laertes—

  As how should it be so, how otherwise?—

  Will you be ruled by me?

  LAERTES

  If so you’ll not o’errule me to a peace.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  To thine own peace. If he be now returned,

  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. Some 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 into 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 passed my thought

  That I in fo
rgery of shapes and tricks

  Come short of what he did.

  LAERTES A Norman was’t?

  KING CLAUDIUS A Norman.

  LAERTES

  Upon my life, Lamord.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  The very same.

  LAERTES

  I know him well. He is the brooch indeed,

  And gem, of all the nation.

  KING CLAUDIUS He made confession of you,

  And gave you such a masterly report

  For art and exercise in your defence,

  And for your rapier most especially,

  That he cried out ‘twould be a sight indeed

  If one could match you. 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 CLAUDIUS

  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 CLAUDIUS

  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.

  Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake

  To show yourself your father’s son in deed

  More than in words?

  LAERTES To cut his throat i’th’ church.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  No place indeed should murder sanctuarize.

  Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,

  Will you do this?—keep close within your chamber.

  Hamlet returned shall know you are come home.

  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 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.

  LAERTES I will do’t,

  And for that 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 scratched withal. I’ll touch my point

  With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,

  It may be death.

  KING CLAUDIUS Let’s further think of this;

  Weigh what convenience both of time and means

  May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,

  And that our drift look through our bad performance,

  ‘Twere better not essayed. Therefore this project

  Should have a back or second that might hold

  If this should blast in proof. Soft, let me see.

  We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings ...

  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 prepared him

  A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,

  If he by chance escape your venomed stuck,

  Our purpose may hold there.—

  Enter Queen Gertrude

  How now, sweet Queen?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,

  So fast they follow. Your sister’s drowned, Laertes.

  LAERTES Drowned? O, where?

  QUEEN GERTRUDE

  There is a willow grows aslant a brook

  That shows his hoar 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,

  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 the weedy trophies and herself

  Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

  And mermaid-like a while they bore her up;

  Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,

  As one incapable of her own distress,

  Or like a creature native and endued

  Unto that element. But long it could not be

  Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

  Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay

  To muddy death.

  LAERTES Alas, then is she drowned.

  QUEEN GERTRUDE Drowned, drowned.

  LAERTES

  Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

  And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet

  It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

  Let shame say what it will.He weeps

  When these are gone,

  The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord.

  I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze,

  But that this folly douts it.

  Exit

  KING CLAUDIUS

  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 ⌈carrying a spade and a pickaxe⌉

  FIRST CLOWN Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

  SECOND CLOWN I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight. The coroner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.

  FIRST CLOWN How can that be unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

  SECOND CLOWN Why, ’tis found so.

  FIRST CLOWN It must be se offendendo, it cannot be else; for here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches: it is to act, to do, and to perform. Argal she drowned herself wittingly.

  SECOND CLOWN Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver.

  FIRST CLOWN Give me leave. Here lies the water—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.

  SECOND CLOWN But is this law?

  FIRST CLOWN Ay, marry, is’t: coroner’s quest law.

  SECOND CLOWN Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.

  FIRST CLOWN Why, there thou sayst, and the more pity that great folk should have count’nance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and gravemakers; they hold up Adam’s profession.

  ⌈First Clown digs⌉

  SECOND CLOWN Was he a gentleman?

  FIRST CLOWN A was the first that ever bore arms.

  SECOND CLOWN Why, he had none.

  FIRST CLOWN What, art a heathen? How dost thou 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—

  SECOND CLOWN Go to.

  FIRST CLOWN What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

  SECOND CLOWN The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

  FIRST CLOWN I like thy w
it well, in good faith. The 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.

  SECOND CLOWN ‘Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?’

  FIRST CLOWN Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

  SECOND CLOWN Marry, now I can tell.

  FIRST CLOWN To’t.

  SECOND CLOWN Mass, I cannot tell.

  Enter Prince Hamlet and Horatio afar off

  FIRST CLOWN 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 that he makes lasts till doomsday. Go, get thee to Johan. Fetch me a stoup of liquor.

  Exit Second Clown

  (Sings)

  In youth when I did love, did love,

  Methought it was very sweet

  To contract-O-the time for-a-my behove,

  O methought there-a-was nothing-a-meet.

  HAMLET Has this fellow no feeling of his business that a sings at grave-making?

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

  HAMLET ‘Tis e’en so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

  FIRST CLOWN (sings)

  But age with his stealing steps

  Hath caught me in his clutch,

  And hath shipped me intil the land,

  As if I had never been such.

  ⌈He throws up a skull⌉

  HAMLET That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once. How the knave jowls it to th’ ground as if ‘twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass o’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not? HORATIO It might, my lord.

  HAMLET Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord. How dost thou, good lord?’ This might be my lord such a one, that praised my lord such a one’s horse when a meant to beg it, might it not?

  HORATIO Ay, my lord.

  HAMLET Why, e‘en so, and now my lady Worm’s, chapless, and knocked about the mazard with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution, an we had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggats with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t.

  FIRST CLOWN (sings)