William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Complete Works

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

QUEEN.

Let her come in.

[ Exit GENTLEMAN. ]

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.

OPHELIA.

Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN.

How now, Ophelia?

OPHELIA.

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

QUEEN.

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.

Nay, but Ophelia—

OPHELIA.

Pray you mark.

[ Sings. ] White his shroud as the mountain snow.

Enter KING.

QUEEN.

Alas, look here, my lord!

OPHELIA.

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

KING.

How do you, pretty lady?

OPHELIA.

Well, God dild 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.

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. ] Tomorrow 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.

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 promis’d me to wed.

So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.

KING.

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 would 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. ]

KING.

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 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.

Alack, what noise is this?

KING.

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

Enter a 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 offices. 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.

How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.

[ A noise within. ]

KING.

The doors are broke.

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.

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.

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 incens’d.—Let him go, Gertrude:—

Speak, man.

LAERTES.

Where is my father?

KING.

Dead.

QUEEN.

But not by him.

KING.

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 reveng’d

Most throughly for my father.

KING.

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.

Good Laertes,

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,

Winner and loser?

LAERTES.

None but his enemies.

KING.

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.

Why, now you speak

Like a good child and a true gentleman.

That I am guiltless of your father’s death,

And am most sensibly in grief for it,

It shall as level to your judgment ’pear

As day does to your eye.

DANES.

[ Within. ] Let her come in.

LAERTES.

How now! What noise is that?

Re-enter OPHELIA, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.

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 mortal 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 barefac’d on the bier, Hey no nonny, nonny, hey nonny And on his grave rain’d many a tear.— Fare you well, my dove!