William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Complete Works

HAMLET.

This?

FIRST CLOWN.

E’en that.

HAMLET.

Let me see. [ Takes the skull. ] Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not 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 chop-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.—Prythee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO.

What’s that, my lord?

HAMLET.

Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ th’earth?

HORATIO.

E’en so.

HAMLET.

And smelt so? Pah!

[ Throws down the skull. ]

HORATIO.

E’en so, my lord.

HAMLET.

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

HORATIO.

’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.

HAMLET.

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 into 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 Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

O, that that earth which kept the world in awe

Should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw.

But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King.

Enter PRIESTS, &C, in procession; the corpse of OPHELIA, LAERTES and MOURNERS following; KING, QUEEN, their Trains, &c.

The Queen, the courtiers. Who is that they follow?

And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken

The corse they follow did with desperate hand

Fordo it own life. ’Twas of some estate.

Couch we awhile and mark.

[ Retiring with HORATIO. ]

LAERTES.

What ceremony else?

HAMLET.

That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.

LAERTES.

What ceremony else?

PRIEST.

Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d

As we have warranties. Her death was doubtful;

And but that great command o’ersways the order,

She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d

Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,

Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.

Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,

Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home

Of bell and burial.

LAERTES.

Must there no more be done?

PRIEST.

No more be done.

We should profane the service of the dead

To sing sage requiem and such rest to her

As to peace-parted souls.

LAERTES.

Lay her i’ th’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.

HAMLET.

What, the fair Ophelia?

QUEEN.

[ Scattering flowers. ] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell. 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.

LAERTES.

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 a while,

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.

HAMLET.

[ Advancing. ] What is he whose grief Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wand’ring stars, and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane. [ Leaps into the grave. ]

LAERTES.

[ Grappling with him. ] The devil take thy soul!

HAMLET.

Thou pray’st not well.

I prythee take thy fingers from my throat;

For though I am not splenative and rash,

Yet have I in me something dangerous,

Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand!

KING.

Pluck them asunder.

QUEEN.

Hamlet! Hamlet!

All.

Gentlemen!

HORATIO.

Good my lord, be quiet.

[ The ATTENDANTS part them, and they come out of the grave. ]

HAMLET.

Why, I will fight with him upon this theme

Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

QUEEN.

O my son, what theme?

HAMLET.

I lov’d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

KING.

O, he is mad, Laertes.

QUEEN.

For love of God forbear him!

HAMLET.

’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do:

Woul’t weep? woul’t fight? woul’t fast? woul’t tear thyself?

Woul’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?

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:

And thus awhile the fit will work on him;

Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclos’d,

His silence will sit drooping.

HAMLET.

Hear you, sir;

What is the reason that you use me thus?

I lov’d you ever. But it is no matter.

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.

[ Exit HORATIO. ]

[ To Laertes ] Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech; We’ll put the matter to the present push.— Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son. This grave shall have a living monument. An hour of quiet shortly shall we see; Till then in patience our proceeding be.

[ Exeunt. ]

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO.

HAMLET.

So much for this, sir. Now let me see the other;

You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO.

Remember it, my lord!

HAMLET.

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting

That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay

Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly,

And prais’d be rashness for it,—let us know,

Our indiscretion sometime serves us well,

When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.

HORATIO.

That is most certain.

HAMLET.

Up from my cabin,

My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark

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, Horatio,

Oh 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,

That on the supervise, no leisure bated,

No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,