SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the castle.

    Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman 

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    I will not speak with her.

Gentleman

    She is importunate, indeed distract:
    Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    What would she have?

Gentleman

    She speaks much of her father; says she hears
    There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
    Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
    That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
    Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
    The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
    And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
    Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures
    yield them,
    Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
    Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

HORATIO

    'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
    Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    Let her come in.

    Exit HORATIO
    To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
    Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
    So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
    It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

    Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA

OPHELIA

    Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    How now, Ophelia!

OPHELIA

    [Sings]
    How should I your true love know
    From another one?
    By his cockle hat and staff,
    And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA

    Say you? nay, pray you, mark.

    Sings
    He is dead and gone, lady,
    He is dead and gone;
    At his head a grass-green turf,
    At his heels a stone.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    Nay, but, Ophelia,--

OPHELIA

    Pray you, mark.

    Sings
    White his shroud as the mountain snow,--

    Enter KING CLAUDIUS

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    Alas, look here, my lord.

OPHELIA

    [Sings]
    Larded with sweet flowers
    Which bewept to the grave did go
    With true-love showers.

KING CLAUDIUS

    How do you, pretty lady?

OPHELIA

    Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's
    daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not
    what we may be. God be at your table!

KING CLAUDIUS

    Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA

    Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they
    ask you what it means, say you this:

    Sings
    To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
    All in the morning betime,
    And I a maid at your window,
    To be your Valentine.
    Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
    And dupp'd the chamber-door;
    Let in the maid, that out a maid
    Never departed more.

KING CLAUDIUS

    Pretty Ophelia!

OPHELIA

    Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:

    Sings
    By Gis and by Saint Charity,
    Alack, and fie for shame!
    Young men will do't, if they come to't;
    By cock, they are to blame.
    Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
    You promised me to wed.
    So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
    An thou hadst not come to my bed.

KING CLAUDIUS

    How long hath she been thus?

OPHELIA

    I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I
    cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him
    i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:
    and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
    coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
    good night, good night.

    Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

    Follow her close; give her good watch,
    I pray you.

    Exit HORATIO
    O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
    All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
    When sorrows come, they come not single spies
    But in battalions. First, her father slain:
    Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
    Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
    Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
    For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,
    In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
    Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
    Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
    Last, and as much containing as all these,
    Her brother is in secret come from France;
    Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
    And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
    With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
    Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
    Will nothing stick our person to arraign
    In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
    Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
    Gives me superfluous death.

    A noise within

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    Alack, what noise is this?

KING CLAUDIUS

    Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

    Enter another Gentleman
    What is the matter?

Gentleman

    Save yourself, my lord:
    The ocean, overpeering of his list,
    Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
    Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
    O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
    And, as the world were now but to begin,
    Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
    The ratifiers and props of every word,
    They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:'
    Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:
    'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
    O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

KING CLAUDIUS

    The doors are broke.

    Noise within

    Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following

LAERTES

    Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes

    No, let's come in.

LAERTES

    I pray you, give me leave.

Danes

    We will, we will.

    They retire without the door

LAERTES

    I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
    Give me my father!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    Calmly, good Laertes.

LAERTES

    That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
    Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
    Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
    Of my true mother.

KING CLAUDIUS

    What is the cause, Laertes,
    That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
    Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
    There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
    That treason can but peep to what it would,
    Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
    Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
    Speak, man.

LAERTES

    Where is my father?

KING CLAUDIUS

    Dead.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

    But not by him.

KING CLAUDIUS

    Let him demand his fill.

LAERTES

    How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
    To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
    Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
    I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
    That both the worlds I give to negligence,
    Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
    Most thoroughly for my father.

KING CLAUDIUS

    Who shall stay you?

LAERTES

    My will, not all the world:
    And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
    They shall go far with little.

KING CLAUDIUS

    Good Laertes,
    If you desire to know the certainty
    Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,
    That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
    Winner and loser?

LAERTES

    None but his enemies.

KING CLAUDIUS

    Will you know them then?

LAERTES

    To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
    And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
    Repast them with my blood.

KING CLAUDIUS

    Why, now you speak
    Like a good child and a true gentleman.
    That I am guiltless of your father's death,
    And am most sensible in grief for it,
    It shall as level to your judgment pierce
    As day does to your eye.

Danes

    [Within] Let her come in.

LAERTES

    How now! what noise is that?

    Re-enter OPHELIA
    O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
    Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
    By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
    Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
    Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
    O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
    Should be as moral as an old man's life?
    Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
    It sends some precious instance of itself
    After the thing it loves.

OPHELIA

    [Sings]
    They bore him barefaced on the bier;
    Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
    And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
    Fare you well, my dove!

LAERTES

    Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
    It could not move thus.

OPHELIA

    [Sings]
    You must sing a-down a-down,
    An you call him a-down-a.
    O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
    steward, that stole his master's daughter.

LAERTES

    This nothing's more than matter.

OPHELIA

    There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
    love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.

LAERTES

    A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA

    There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
    for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
    herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
    a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
    some violets, but they withered all when my father
    died: they say he made a good end,--

    Sings
    For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES

    Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
    She turns to favour and to prettiness.

OPHELIA

    [Sings]
    And will he not come again?
    And will he not come again?
    No, no, he is dead:
    Go to thy death-bed:
    He never will come again.
    His beard was as white as snow,
    All flaxen was his poll:
    He is gone, he is gone,
    And we cast away moan:
    God ha' mercy on his soul!
    And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.

    Exit

LAERTES

    Do you see this, O God?

KING CLAUDIUS

    Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
    Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
    Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.
    And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:
    If by direct or by collateral hand
    They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
    Our crown, our life, and all that we can ours,
    To you in satisfaction; but if not,
    Be you content to lend your patience to us,
    And we shall jointly labour with your soul
    To give it due content.

LAERTES

    Let this be so;
    His means of death, his obscure funeral--
    No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
    No noble rite nor formal ostentation--
    Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
    That I must call't in question.

KING CLAUDIUS

    So you shall;
    And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
    I pray you, go with me.

    Exeunt
