OSRIC The King, sir, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen passes between you and him he shall not exceed you three hits. He hath on’t twelve for nine, and it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.
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, ‘tis the breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be brought; the gentleman willing, an the King hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can. If not, I’ll gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits. OSRIC Shall I re-deliver you e’en so?
HAMLET To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.
OSRIC I commend my duty to your lordship.
HAMLET Yours, yours.
Exit Osric
He does well to commend it himself; there are no tongues else for ’s turn.
HORATIO This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
HAMLET A did comply with his dug before a sucked it. Thus has he—and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on—only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter, a kind of yeasty collection which carries them through and through the most fanned and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.
HORATIO You will lose this wager, my lord.
HAMLET I do not think so. Since he went into France, I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how all here about my heart—but it is no matter.
HORATIO Nay, good my lord—
HAMLET It is but foolery, but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would perhaps trouble a woman.
HORATIO If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.
HAMLET Not a whit. We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?
Enter King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, Laertes, and
lords, with Osric and other attendants with
⌈trumpets, drums, cushions⌉, foils, and gauntlets; a
table, and flagons of wine on it
KING CLAUDIUS
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.
HAMLET (to Laertes)
Give me your pardon, sir. I’ve done you wrong;
But pardon’t as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,
And you must needs have heard, how I am punished
With sore distraction. What I have done
That might your nature, honour, and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was’t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet.
If Hamlet from himself be ta‘en away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then? His madness. If’t be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged.
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.
Sir, in this audience
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts
That I have shot mine arrow o’er the house
And hurt my brother.
LAERTES
I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive in this case should stir me most
To my revenge. But in my terms of honour
I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement
Till by some elder masters of known honour
I have a voice and precedent of peace
To keep my name ungored; but till that time
I do receive your offered love like love,
And will not wrong it.
HAMLET
I do embrace it freely,
And will this brothers’ wager frankly play.—
(To attendants) Give us the foils. Come on.
LAERTES (to attendants)
Come, one for me.
HAMLET
I’ll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance
Your skill shall, like a star i’th’ darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.
LAERTES You mock me, sir.
HAMLET No, by this hand.
KING CLAUDIUS
Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?
HAMLET
Very well, my lord.
Your grace hath laid the odds o’th’ weaker side.
KING CLAUDIUS
I do not fear it; I have seen you both.
But since he is bettered, we have therefore odds.
LAERTES (taking a foil)
This is too heavy; let me see another.
HAMLET (taking a foil)
This likes me well. These foils have all a length?
OSRIC Ay, my good lord.
Hamlet and Laertes prepare to play
KING CLAUDIUS (to attendants)
Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire.
The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath,
And in the cup an union shall he throw
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups,
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,
‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet’.
Trumpets the while he drinks
Come, begin.
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.
HAMLET (to Laertes) Come on, sir.
LAERTES Come, my lord.
They play
HAMLET One.
LAERTES No.
HAMLET (to Osric) Judgement.
OSRIC A hit, a very palpable hit.
LAERTES Well, again.
KING CLAUDIUS
Stay. Give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine.
Here’s to thy health.—
⌈Drum and⌉ trumpets sound, and shot goes off Give him the cup.
HAMLET
I’ll play this bout first. Set it by a while.—
Come.
They play again
Another hit. What say you?
LAERTES
A touch, a touch, I do confess.
KING CLAUDIUS
Our son shall win.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
He’s fat and scant of breath.—
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin. Rub thy brows.
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
HAMLET
Good madam.
KING CLAUDIUS Gertrude, do not drink.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I will, my lord, I pray you pardon me.
She drinks, then offers the cup to Hamlet
KING CLAUDIUS (aside)
It is the poisoned cup; it is too late.
HAMLET
I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
QUEEN GERTRUDE (to Hamlet) Come, let me wipe thy face.
LAERTES (aside to Claudius) My lord, I’ll hit him now.
KING CLAUDIUS (aside to Laertes) I do not think’t.
LAERTES (aside)
And yet ‘tis almost ’gainst my conscience.
HAMLET
Come for the third, Laertes, you but dally.
I pray you pass with your best violence.
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
LAERTES
Say you so? Come on.
They play
OSRIC
Nothing neither way.
LAERTES (to Hamlet)
Have at you now!
⌈Laertes wounds Hamlet.⌉ In scuffling, they change
rapiers, ⌈and Hamlet wounds Laertes⌉
KING CLAUDIUS (to attendants)
Part them, they are incensed.
HAMLET (to Laertes)
Nay, come again.
⌈The Queen falls down⌉
OSRIC
Look to the Queen there, ho!
HORATIO
They bleed on both sides. (To Hamlet) How is’t, my lord?
OSRIC How is’t, Laertes?
LAERTES
Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.
I am justly killed with mine own treachery.
HAMLET
How does the Queen?
KING CLAUDIUS
She swoons to see them bleed.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet,
The drink, the drink—I am poisoned. ⌈She dies⌉
HAMLET
O villainy! Ho! Let the door be locked! ⌈Exit Osric⌉
Treachery, seek it out.
LAERTES
It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain.
No med’cine in the world can do thee good.
In thee there is not half an hour of life.
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenomed. The foul practice
Hath turned itself on me. Lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poisoned.
I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.
HAMLET
The point envenomed too? Then, venom, to thy work.
He hurts King Claudius
ALL THE COURTIERS Treason, treason!
KING CLAUDIUS
O yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.
HAMLET
Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother. King Claudius dies
LAERTES He is justly served.
It is a poison tempered by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me. He dies
HAMLET
Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu!
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time—as this fell sergeant Death
Is strict in his arrest—O, I could tell you—
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead,
Thou liv’st. Report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.
HORATIO
Never believe it.
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
Here’s yet some liquor left.
HAMLET As thou’rt a man,
Give me the cup. Let go. By heaven, I’ll ha’t.
O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity a while,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story.
March afar off, and shout within
What warlike noise is this?
Enter Osric
OSRIC
Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To th’ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.
HAMLET
O, I die, Horatio!
The potent poison quite o‘ercrows my spirit.
I cannot live to hear the news from England,
But I do prophesy th’election lights
On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.
So tell him, with th’occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.
O, O, O, O!
He dies
HORATIO
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.—
Why does the drum come hither?
Enter Fortinbras with the English ⌈Ambassadors⌉, with a drummer, colours, and attendants
FORTINBRAS Where is this sight?
HORATIO What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
FORTINBRAS
This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck!
AMBASSADOR
The sight is dismal,
And our affairs from England come too late.
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing
To tell him his commandment is fulfilled,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?
HORATIO
Not from his mouth,
Had it th‘ability of life to thank you.
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since so jump upon this bloody question
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on th’inventors’ heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.
FORTINBRAS Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
HORATIO
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.
But let this same be presently performed,
Even whiles men’s minds are wild, lest more
mischance
On plots and errors happen.
FORTINBRAS
Let four captains
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally; and for his passage,
The soldiers’ music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the body. Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
Exeunt, marching, with the bodies; after the which, a peal of ordnance are shot off
ADDITIONAL PASSAGES
A. Just before the second entrance of the Ghost in 1.1 (l. 106.1), Q2 has these additional lines:
BARNARDO
I think it be no other but e’en so.
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch so like the king
That was and is the question of these wars.
HORATIO
A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets
At stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of feared events,
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climature and countrymen.
B. Just before the entrance of the Ghost in 1.4 (l. 18.1),
Q2 has these additional lines continuing Hamlet’s speech:
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations.
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though performed at height,
So, oft it chances in particular men
That, for some vicious mole of nature in them—
As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin,
By the o‘ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o’erleavens
The form of plausive manners—that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature’s livery or fortune’s star,
His virtues else be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault. The dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance over-daub
To his own scandal.
C. After 1.4.55, Q2 has these additional lines continuing Horatio’s speech:
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.
D. After 3.2.163, Q2 has this additional couplet concluding the Player Queen’s speech:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
E. After 3.2.208, Q2 has this additional couplet in the middle of the Player Queen’s speech:
To desperation turn my trust and hope;
An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope.
F. After ‘this?’ in 3.4.70, Q2 has this more expansive version of Hamlet’s lines of which F retains only ‘what devil . . . blind’:
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 234