What should this mean! Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
Laer. Know you the hand?

King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,-
And in a postscript here, he says, alone:
Can you advise me?

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.
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 pleurisy,

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 ?Will you be rul'd by me?

Laer. Ay, my lord;

So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

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

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 :

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,

Laer. My lord, I will be rul'd;

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

King. It falls right.

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
parts

Did not together pluck such envy from him,
As did that one; and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege. +

of

Laer. What part is that, my lord? 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.-Two months since,

Here was a gentlemen of Normandy ;

I have seen myself, and serv'd against the French, And they can well on horseback: but this gal

lant

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, Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,¶ Requite him for your father.

Laer. I will do't:

And, for the 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 scratch'd withal: P'Il touch my
point

With this contagion; that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.

King. Let's further think of this;

Weigh what convenience, both of time and

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 preferr'd ‡

him

A chalice for the nonce: whereon but şipping, If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck, || Our purpose may hold there. But stay, what

noise ?

Enter QUEEN.

How now, sweet queen?

Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel,

So fast they follow:-Your sister's drown'd, Laer. Drown'd! Oh! where?

Queen. There is a willow grows ascant the 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 coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies, and herself, Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: Which time, she chaunted snatches of old As one incapable ++ of her own distress, [tunes, Or like a creature native and indu'd,

Unto that element; but long it could not be, Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death.

Laer. Alas then, she is drown'd?

Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.

Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor

Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears: But yet

It is our trick; nature ber custom holds,

2 Clo. Was he a gentlemen ?

1 Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2 Clo. Why, he had none.

1 Clo. 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

2 Clo. Go to.

1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter ?

2 Clo. The gallows maker; for that frame out-lives a thousand tenants.

1 Clo. I like thy wit 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.

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke. †

2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clo. To't.

2 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

SCENE I-A Church-Yard.

Enter Two CLOWNS, with Spades, &c. 1 Clo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, that wilfully seeks her own salvation?

2 Clo. I tell thee, she is; therefore make her grave straight: 65 the crowner hath set on her, and finds it Christian burial.

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

2 Clo. Why 'tis found so.

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown my. self 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.

As fire arms sometimes burst in proving their

strength.

+ Skill.

A cup for the purpose. Orchis morio mas.

tt lusensible.

Immediately.

1 Clo. 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 last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup of liquor. Exit 2 CLOWN.

1 CLOWN digs, and sings. In youth, when I did love, did love, ‡ Methought, it was very sweet, To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove O, methought, there was nothing meet. Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making.

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

ployment hath the daintier sense.

Ham. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little em

1 Clo. But age, with his stealing steps, Hath claw'd me in his clutch, And hath shipped me into the land, As if I had never been such. [Throws up a Scull.

could sing once: How the knave jowls it to Ham. That scull had a tongue in it, and the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches : one that would circumvent God, might it not?

Ham. Why, e'en so; and now my lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard 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 them? mine ache to think on't.

1 Clo. A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade, [Sings. For-and a shrouding sheet;

O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet. [Throws up a Scull. Ham. There's another; Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude kuave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more? ha? Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. Is not parchinent made of sheep-skins? Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calves-skins too. Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow :-Whose grave's this, Sirrah?

1 Clo. Mine, Sir.

Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into Eng. land?

1 Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there: or, if he do not, tis no great matter there.

Ham. Why?

1 Clo. 'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as be.

Ham. How came he mad?

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say. Ham. How strangely?

1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits. Ham. Upon what ground?

1 Clo. Why, here in Deumark; I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

Ham. How long will a man lie i'the earth ere he rot?

1 Clo. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die, (as we have many pocky corses now-adays, that will scarce hold the laying in,) he will last you some eight year, or nine year a tanner will last you uine year.

Ham. Why he more than another?

1 Clo. Why, Sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a sculi now hath lain you i'the earth, three-and-twenty years.

Ham. Whose was it?

1 Clo. A whoreson mad fellow's it was. Whose do you think it was?

Ham. Nay, I know not.

1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a nad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same scull, Sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester.

Ham. This ?

1 Clo. E'en that.

[Takes the Scull.

For such a guest is meet.

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou

liest in't.

1 Clo. You lie out on't, Sir, and therefore it is not yours for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.

Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine; 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

1 Clo. 'Tis a quick lie, Sir; 'twill away again, from me to you.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?

1 Clo. For no man, Sir.

Ham. What woman then?

1 Clo. For uone neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in't?

1 Clo. One, that was a woman, Sir; but, rest her soul she's dead.

Ham. How absolute the kuave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. How long hast thou been a gravemaker?

1 Clo. Of all the days i'the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

Ham. How long's that since?

1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was that very day that young Hamlet was born: he that is mad, and sent into England.

An ancient game played as quoits are at present. + Subtilties. Frivolous distinctions. Ilead. By the compass, or chart of direction. Spruce, affected.

how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.-Pr'ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

Hor. What's that, my lord?

Ham. Dost thou think, Alexander looked o'this fashion i'the earth?

Hor. E'en so.

Ham. And smelt so? pah!

[Throws down the Scull. Hor. E'en so, my lord.

Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bunghole?

Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Ham. No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: As thus; Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam : And why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?

Imperious+ Cesar, dead, and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
Oh! that the earth, which kept the world in
awe,

Should patch a wall to expel the winter's

flaw! 1

Yet here she is allow'd her virgin_crants, ||
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

Laer. Must there no more be done?
1 Priest. No more be done!

We should profane the service of the dead,
To sing a requiem ¶ and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.

Laer. Lay her i'the earth;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh,
May violets spring!-I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

Ham. What, the fair Ophelia !

Queen. Sweets to the sweet: Farewell!

[Scattering Flowers.

I hop'd, thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife :

I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,

And not have strew'd thy grave.

Laer. O treble woe

Fall ten times treble on that cursed head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Depriv'd 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.

Ham. [Advancing.] What is he, whose grief Bears such an emphasis ? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them

stand

Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.-What wilt thou do for her?
King. Oh! he is mad, Laertes.
Queen. For love of God, forbear him.
Ham. 'Zonnds, show me what thou'll do:
Woul't weep? woul't fight? woul't fast? woul't
Woul't drink up Esil? eat a crocodile ?
tear thyself?
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:

Anon, as patient as the female dove,
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
When that her golden couplets are disclos'd, t
His silence will sit drooping.

Ham. Hear you, Sir;

I lov'd you ever: But it is no matter;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
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.[Erit HORATIO. Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech; [TO LAERTES. We'll put the matter to the present push.Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.This grave shall have a living monument: Till then, in patience our proceeding be. An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

[Exeunt.

teach us,

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we well.

Hor. That is most certain.

My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
Ham. Up from my cabin,
Grop'd 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, Ho-
ratio,

A 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,-