Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections:-But my revenge will come. KING. 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 dan

ger, (57)

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,—
How now? what news?

MESS.

Enter a Messenger.

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

This to your majesty; this to the queen.

KING. From Hamlet! who brought them?

MESS. Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them

KING. Leave us.

not:

They were given me by Claudio, he receiv'd them. Laertes, you shall hear them :[Erit Messenger. [Reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion 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?

Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections] Whose merits, if the report of them may, where she can never return, be here re-echoed, stood (on the highest ground, and in the fullest presence of the age) like a champion for their mistress, to give a general challenge in support of her excellence.

LAER. Know you the hand?

KING.

'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,

And, in a postscript here, he says, alone:

Can you advise me?

LAER. I am 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.

If it be so, Laertes, As how should it be so? how otherwise? be rul'd by me?

Will you

So

LAER.

Ay, my lord;

you will not o'er-rule me to a peace.

KING. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd,

As checking at his voyage,(56) 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.

LAER.

[My lord, I will be rul'd;

The rather, if you could devise it so,
That I might be the organ.

It falls right.

KING. 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,

'Tis Hamlet's character] Peculiar mode of shaping letters. See "charactery," M. W. of W. V. 5. Mrs. Quickly.

b uncharge the practice] Acquit the expedient pursued, of blame.

sum of parts] Total. See M. of V. Portia, III. 2.

K

• Two months

As did that one; and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege."

What part is that,

my

lord?

LAER.
KING. A very ribband 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,
Importing health and graveness.-] Some two
months hence,*

since, 4tos. Here was a gentleman of Normandy,

I have seen myself, and serv'd against the French,
And they ran well on horseback: but this gallant
Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his seat;
And to such wond'rous doings brought his horse,
As he had been incorps'd and demi-natur'd
With the brave beast: so far he pass'd my thought;
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.

b

siege] Place or rank. See Othel. I. 2. Othel.

Importing health and graveness] Carrying with them those ideas; denoting as well that, from which this stage of life derives health (viz. warm clothing), as that which also ought to accompany it, gravity, or an exterior of sobriety and decorum. Here was a gentleman of Normandy,

C

I have seen myself, and serv'd against the French,

And they ran well, &c.] With this punctuation, that of the quartos also, the construction may be," Here was a gentleman [whom] I've seen myself, and [I have also] served against the French, and they, &c." or, if the reading of the folio of 1632 is adopted, viz.

"Here was a gentleman of Normandy,"

we must read and punctuate the next line with the modern editors:

"I have seen myself, and serv'd against, the French." They, also, with the quartos, read can instead of ran.

a Had witchcraft in't] In this exercise, in the art and feats of horsemanship.

· pass'd my thought;

That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,

Come short] Outwent all that my imagination could

frame. For pass'd my, the quartos read topp'd me.

LAER.

A Norman, was't?

KING. A Norman.

LAER. Upon my life, Lamound.

KING.

The very same.

a

LAER. I know him well: he is the brooch, indeed,

And gem of all the nation.

KING. He made confession of you;
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,

d

He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you oppos'd them:] Sir, this report (59) 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.
Now, out of this,

LAER.

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?

LAER.

Why ask you this?

KING. 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,

made confession of] Acknowledged.

© in your defence] Used for "in your art and science of defence."

d scrimers] From escrimeur, Fr. a fencer. "Hence scrimish, says Mr. Pegge, by transposition of letters made skirmish, became the encounter." Anecd, of Engl. Language, 8vo. 1803,

P. 68.

Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.(60)
[There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a plurisy, (61)

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,

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 o'the

ulcer :]

Hamlet comes back; What would you undertake, To show yourself in deed your father's son

More than in words?

LAER.

To cut his throat i'the church.

KING. No place, indeed, should murder, sanc

tuarize;

Revenge should have no bounds. (63) But, good Laertes,

Will you do this? keep close within your chamber! Hamlet, return'd, 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 o'er your heads: he, being remiss,
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,

We should do when we would] i. e. at the heat, at the time of the resolution taken.

for this would changes] Inclination is fluctuating and uncertain. SEYMOUR.

* he being remiss] Inattentive, as unsuspicious.

peruse the foils] Closely inspect.