[Enter Gertrude and Horatio.]
Gertrude
I will not speak with her.
Horatio
Indeed distract. Her mood will needs be pitied.
Gertrude
Horatio
She speaks much of her father, says she hears
There's tricks i'th' 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 unshapèd use of it does 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 would be thought,
Though nothing sure – yet much unhappily.
Gertrude
'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
[Aside] 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.
[Enter Ophelia playing a lute (a stringed instrument similar to a guitar)]
Ophelia
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
Gertrude
Ophelia
[She sings a love ballad.]
How should I your true love know
By his cockle hat and staff,
Gertrude
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
Ophelia
Say you? Nay, pray you, mark.
[She sings.]
He is dead and gone, lady,
At his head a grass-green turf,
[Enter Claudius.]
Gertrude
Ophelia
[She sings.]
White his shroud as the mountain snow
Gertrude
Alas, look here, my lord.
Ophelia
[She sings.]
Larded with sweet flowers,
Which bewept to the ground did not go
Claudius
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!
Claudius
Ophelia
Pray you, let's have no words of this, but when
they ask you what it means, say you this:
[She sings.]
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,
And dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Claudius
Ophelia
Indeed, la! Without an oath I'll make an end on't.
[She 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,
"So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed."
Claudius
How long has 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'th'
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.]
Claudius
[To Horatio.] Follow her close. Give her good watch, I pray you.
[Exit Horatio.]
Oh, this is the poison of deep grief! It springs
All from her father's death. Oh, 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 thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius’s 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 this 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 beggared,
Will nothing stick our persons to arraign
In ear and ear. Oh, my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.
[A noise within. Enter a Messenger.]
Gertrude
Alack, what noise is this?
Claudius
Attend! Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
Messenger
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impiteous 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!"
Gertrude
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
Oh, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
[Enter Laertes, armed, with Danish citizens following.]
Claudius
Laertes
Where is this king? [To his followers] Sirs, stand you all without.
Danes
[Offstage] No, let's come in.
Laertes
I pray you, give me leave.
Danes
Laertes
I thank you. Keep the door.
[To Claudius] Oh thou vile king,
[Gertrude restrains Laertes]
Gertrude
Laertes
That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries "Cuckold!" to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirchèd brow
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 does hedge a king,
That Treason can but peep to what it wouldwould,
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed? Let him go, Gertrude.
Laertes
Claudius
Gertrude
Claudius
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 throughly for my father.
Claudius
Laertes
My will, not all the world.
And for my means, I'll husband them so well
They shall go far with little.
Claudius
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Laertes
Claudius
Will you know them, then?
Laertes
To his good friends, thus wide I'll ope my arms,
And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
Claudius
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,
[A noise offstage]
All Followers
Laertes
How now, what noise is that?
[Enter Ophelia]
Oh 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 turns the beam. Oh rose of May,
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
Oh heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as a poor 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
[She sings.]
They bore him bare-faced on the bier,
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,
And in his grave rains many a tear. –
Laertes
Have thou thy wits, and did persuade revenge,
Ophelia
You must sing "a-down, a-down," an you call
him "a-down-a." Oh, how the wheel becomes it!
It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter.
Laertes
This nothing's more than matter.
Ophelia
[Handing out flowers, first to Laertes (flower symbolism was popular at that time)]
There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.
Pray, love, remember. And there is pansies,
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
Of Sundays. Oh, 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.
[She sings.]
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Laertes
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself —
She turns to favor and to prettiness.
Ophelia
[She sings.]
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
He never will come again.
His beard as white as snow,
God have mercy on his soul!
And of all Christians' souls, I pray God. God buy you!
[Exit Ophelia and Gertrude.]
Laertes
Do you see this, you gods?
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 touched, we will our kingdom give —
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours —
To you in satisfaction. But if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labor with your soul
Laertes
His means of death, his obscure burial:
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 in question.
Claudius
And where th' offense is, let the great ax fall.
[Exit.]
