The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Could not with all their quantity of love

  270

  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’t do.

  Woo’t weep, woo’t fight, woo’t fast, woo’t tear thyself,

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  Woo’t drink up eisel, eat a crocodile?

  I’ll do’t. Dost 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

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  Millions of acres on us, till our ground,

  Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

  Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, and thou’lt mouth,

  I’ll rant as well as thou.

  QUEEN This is mere madness,

  And thus awhile the fit will work on him.

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  Anon, as patient as the female dove

  When that her golden couplets are disclos’d,

  His silence will sit drooping.

  HAMLET Hear you, sir,

  What is the reason that you use me thus?

  I lov’d you ever. But it is no matter.

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  Let Hercules himself do what he may,

  The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. Exit.

  KING I pray thee, 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. –

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  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.

  5.2 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

  5

  Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly –

  And prais’d be rashness for it: let us know

  Our indiscretion sometime serves us well

  When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us

  There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

  10

  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

  Grop’d I to find out them, had my desire,

  Finger’d their packet, and in fine withdrew

  15

  To mine own room again, making so bold,

  My fears forgetting manners, to unseal

  Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio –

  Ah, royal knavery! – an exact command,

  Larded with many several sorts of reasons

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  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?

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  HAMLET

  Here’s the commission, read it at more leisure.

  But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed?

  HORATIO I beseech you.

  HAMLET Being thus benetted round with villainies –

  Or I could make a prologue to my brains,

  30

  They had begun the play – I sat me down,

  Devis’d 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

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  It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know

  Th’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,

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  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,

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  He should those 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,

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  Folded the writ up in the form of th’other,

  Subscrib’d it, gave’t th’impression, plac’d it safely,

  The changeling never known. Now the next day

  Was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent

  Thou knowest already.

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  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

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  Between the pass and fell incensed points

  Of mighty opposites.

  HORATIO Why, what a king is this!

  HAMLET

  Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon –

  He that hath kill’d my king and whor’d my mother,

  Popp’d in between th’election and my hopes,

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  Thrown out his angle for my proper life

  And with such coz’nage – 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?

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  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,

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  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 tow’ring passion.

  HORATIO Peace, who comes here?

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  Enter OSRIC, a courtier.

  OSRIC Your Lordship is right welcome back to

  Denmark.

  HAMLET I humbly thank you sir. – Dost know this

  waterfly?

  HORATIO No, my good lord.

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  HAMLET Thy state is the more gracious, for ’tis a vice to

  know him. He hath much land and fertile. Let a

  beast be lord of beasts and his crib shall stand at the

  king’s mess. ’Tis a chuff, but, as I say, spacious in the

  possession of dirt.

  90

  OSRIC Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I

  should impart a thing to you from his Majesty.

  HAMLET I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit.

  Your bonnet to his right use: ’tis for the head.

  OSRIC I thank your lordship, it is very hot.

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  HAMLET No, believe me, ’tis very cold, the wind is

&nb
sp; northerly.

  OSRIC It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

  HAMLET But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for

  my complexion.

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  OSRIC Exceedingly, my lord, it is very sultry – as ’twere

  – I cannot tell how. My lord, his Majesty bade me

  signify to you that a has laid a great wager on your

  head. Sir, this is the matter –

  HAMLET [signing to him to put on his hat] I beseech you

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  remember –

  OSRIC Nay, good my lord, for my ease, in good faith. Sir,

  here is newly come to court Laertes – believe me, an

  absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences,

  of very soft society and great showing. Indeed, to

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  speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of

  gentry; for you shall find in him the continent of what

  part a gentleman would see.

  HAMLET Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in

  you, though I know to divide him inventorially would

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  dozy th’arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw

  neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity

  of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article

  and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to

  make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror

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  and who else would trace him his umbrage, nothing

  more.

  OSRIC Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

  HAMLET The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the

  gentleman in our more rawer breath?

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  OSRIC Sir?

  HORATIO Is’t not possible to understand in another

  tongue? You will to’t, sir, really.

  HAMLET What imports the nomination of this

  gentleman?

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  OSRIC Of Laertes?

  HORATIO His purse is empty already, all’s golden words

  are spent.

  HAMLET Of him, sir.

  OSRIC I know you are not ignorant –

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  HAMLET I would you did, sir. Yet in faith if you did, it

  would not much approve me. Well, sir?

  OSRIC You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes

  is –

  HAMLET I dare not confess that, lest I should compare

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  with him in excellence; but to know a man well were to

  know himself.

  OSRIC I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation

  laid on him, by them in his meed, he’s unfellowed.

  HAMLET What’s his weapon?

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  OSRIC Rapier and dagger.

  HAMLET That’s two of his weapons. But well.

  OSRIC The King, sir, hath wagered with him six

  Barbary horses, against the which he has impawned, as

  I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their

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  assigns, as girdle, hanger, and so. Three of the

  carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very

  responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of

  very liberal conceit.

  HAMLET What call you the carriages?

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  HORATIO I knew you must be edified by the margin ere

  you had done.

  OSRIC The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

  HAMLET The phrase would be more german to the

  matter if we could carry a cannon by our sides – I

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  would it might be hangers till then. But on. Six

  Barbary horses against six French swords, their

  assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages – that’s

  the French bet against the Danish. Why is this –

  impawned, as you call it?

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  OSRIC The King, sir, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen

  passes between yourself and him he shall not exceed

  you three hits; he hath laid on twelve for nine. And it

  would come to immediate trial if your lordship would

  vouchsafe the answer.

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  HAMLET How if I answer no?

  OSRIC I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in

  trial.

  HAMLET Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his

  Majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me. Let

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  the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the

  King hold his purpose, I will win for him and I can; if

  not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

  OSRIC Shall I deliver you so?