Hamlet

thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms: Leaps into the grave.
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o’ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus. Hamlet

Advancing. What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane. Leaps into the grave.

Laertes The devil take thy soul! Grappling with him. Hamlet

Thou pray’st not well.
I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For, though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear: hold off thy hand.

King Pluck them asunder. Queen Hamlet, Hamlet! All Gentlemen⁠— Horatio Good my lord, be quiet. The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave. Hamlet

Why, I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

Queen O my son, what theme? Hamlet

I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

King O, he is mad, Laertes. Queen For love of God, forbear him. Hamlet

’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do:
Woo’t weep? woo’t fight? woo’t fast? woo’t tear thyself?
Woo’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou’lt mouth,
I’ll rant as well as thou.

Queen

This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
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

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 II

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 still 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