CLAUDIUS

Though yet of Hamlet our deer Brother's death The memory be green: and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole Kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe: Yet so far hath Discretion fought with Nature, That we with wisest sorrow think on him, Together with remembrance of our selves. Therefore our sometime Sister, now our Queen, the Imperial Ioyntresse of this warlike State, Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy, With one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye, With mirth in Funeral, and with Dirge in Marriage, In equal Scale weighing Delight and Dole Taken to Wife; nor have we herein barred Your better Wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along, for all our Thanks. Now follows, that you know young Fortinbras, Holding a weak supposal of our worth; Or thinking by our late deer Brother's death, Our State to be disjoint, and out of Frame, Colleagued with the dream of his Advantage; He hath not failed to pester us with Message, Importing the surrender of those Lands Lost by his Father: with all Bonds of Law To our most valiant Brother. So much for him. Now for our self, and for this time of meeting Thus much the business is. We have here writ To Norway, Uncle of young Fortinbras, Who Impotent and Bedrid, scarcely hears Of this his Nephews purpose, to suppress His further gate herein. In that the Levies, The Lists, and full proportions are all made Out of his subject: and we here dispatch You good Cornelius, and you Voltemand, For bearing of this greeting to old Norway, Giving to you no further personal power To business with the King, more then the scope Of these dilated Articles allow: Farewell and let your hast commend your duty. We doubt it nothing, heartily farewell. And now Laertes, what's the news with you? You told us of some suit. What is't Laertes ? You cannot speak of Reason to the Dane, And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg Laertes, That shall not be my Offer, not thy Asking? The Head is not more Native to the Heart, The Hand more Instrumental to the Mouth, Then is the Throne of Denmark to thy Father. What wouldst thou have Laertes ? Have you your Father's leave? What says Pollonius ? Take thy fair hour Laertes, time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will: But now my Cousin Hamlet, and my Son? How is it that the Clouds still hang on you? It's sweet and commendable In your Nature Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your Father: But you must know, your Father lost a Father, That Father lost, lost his, and the Survivor bound In filial Obligation, for some term To do obsequious Sorrow. But to persever In obstinate Condolement, is a course Of impious stubbornness. It's unmanly grief, It shows a will most incorrect to Heaven, A Heart unfortified, a Mind impatient, And Understanding simple, and unschooled: For, what we know must be, and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sense, Why should we in our peevish Opposition Take it to heart? Fie, it's a fault to Heaven, A fault against the Dead, a fault to Nature, To Reason most absurd, whose common Theme Is death of Father's, and who still hath cried, From the first Coarse, till he that died to day, This must be so. We pray you throw to earth This vnpreuayling woe, and think of us As of a Father; For let the world take note, You are the most immediate to our Throne, And with no less Nobility of Love, Then that which dearest Father bears his Son, Do I impart towards you. For your intent In going back to School in Wittenberg. It is most retrograde to our desire: And we beseech you, bend you to remain Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye, Our chiefest Courtier Cousin, and our Son. Why it's a loving, and a fair Reply, Be as our self in Denmark. Madam come, This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof, No jocund health that Denmark drinks to day, But the great Cannon to the Clouds shall tell, And the Kings Rouce, the Heavens shall bruit again, Respeaking earthly Thunder. Come away. Welcome deer Rosincrance and Guildensterne. Moreover, that we much did long to see you, The need we have to use you, did provoke Our hasty sending. Something have you herd Of Hamlets transformation: so I call it, Since not the exterior, nor the inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be More then his Father's death, that thus hath put him So much from the understanding of himself, I cannot deem of. I entreat you both, That being of so young days brought up with him: And since so Neighboured to his youth, and humour, That you vouchsafe your rest here in our Court Some little time: so by your Companies To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather So much as from Occasions you may glean, That opened lies within our remedy. Thanks Rosincrance, and gentle Guildensterne. Thou still hast been the Father of good News. O speak of that, that I do long to hear. Thy self do grace to them, and bring them in. He tells me my sweet Queen, that he hath found The head and source of all your Sons distemper. Well, we shall sift him. Welcome good Friends: Say Voltumand, what from our Brother Norwey? It likes us well: And at our more considered time we'll read, Answer, and think upon this Business. Mean time we thank you, for your well-tooke Labour. Go to your rest, at night we'll Feast together. Most welcome home. But how hath she received his Love? As of a man, faithful and Honourable. Do you think it's this? Not that I know. How may we try it further? We will try it. And can you by no drift of circumstance Get from him why he puts on this Confusion: Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous Lunacy. With all my heart, and it does much content me To hear him so inclined. Good Gentlemen, Give him a further edge, and driven his purpose on To these delights. Sweet Gertrude leave us too, For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, That he, as 'twere by accident, may there Affront Ophelia. Her Father, and my self (lawful espials) Will so bestow our selves, that seeing unseen We may of their encounter frankly judge, And gather by him, as he is behaved, If't be the affliction of his love, or no. That thus he suffers for. O it's true: How smart a lash that speech does give my Conscience? The Harlots Cheek beauty with plaist'ring Art Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it, Then is my deed, to my most painted word. O heavy burden! Love? His affections do not that way tend, Nor what he spoke, though it lacked Form a little, Was not Like Madness. There's something in his soul? Over which his Melancholy sits on brood, And I do doubt the hatch, and the disclose Will be some danger, which to prevent I have in quick determination Thus set it down. He shall with speed to England For the demand of our neglected Tribute: Haply the Seas and Countries different With variable Objects, shall expel This something settled matter in his heart: Whereon his Brains still beating, puts him thus From fashion of himself. What think you on't? It shall be so: Madness in great Ones, must not unwatched go. How fares our Cousin Hamlet ? I have nothing with this answer Hamlet, these words are not mine. Full thirty times hath Phœbus Cart gone round, Neptune's salt Wash, and Tellus Orbed ground: And thirty dozen Moons with borrowed sheen, About the World have times twelve thirties been, Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands Unite comutuall, in most sacred Bans. Faith I must leave thee Love, and shortly too: My operant Powers my Functions leave to do: And thou shalt live in this fair world behind, Honoured, beloved, and haply, one as kind. For Husband shalt thou— I do believe you. Think what now you speak: But what we do determine, oft we break: Purpose is but the slave to Memory, Of violent Birth, but poor validity: Which now Like Fruit unripe sticks on the Tree, But fallen unshaken, when they mellow be. Most necessary it's, that we forget To pay our selves, what to our selves is debt: What to our selves in passion we propose, The passion ending, does the purpose loose. The violence of other Grief or Joy, Their own ennactors with themselves destroy: Where Joy most Revels, Grief does most lament; Grief joys, Joy grieves on slender accident. This world is not for aye, nor it's not strange That even our Loves should with our Fortune's change. For it's a question left us yet to prove, Whither Love led Fortune, or else Fortune Love. The great man down, you mark his favourites flies, The poor advanced makes Friends of Enemies: And hitherto does Love on Fortune tend, For who not needs, shall never lack a Friend: And who in want a hollow Friend does try, Directly seasons him his Enemy. But orderly to end, where I begun, Our Wills and Fates do so contrary run, That our Devices still are overthrown, Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. So think thou wilt no second Husband wed. But die thy thoughts, when thy first Lord is dead. It's deeply sworn: Sweet, leave me here a while, My spirits grow dull, and feign I would beguile The tedious day with sleep. Have you herd the Argument, is there no Of fence in't? What do you call the Play? Give me some Light. Away. I Like him not, nor stands it safe with us, To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you, I your Commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you: The terms of our estate, may not endure Hazard so dangerous as does hourly grow Out of his Lunacies. Arm you, I pray you to this speedy Voyage; For we will Fetters put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-footed. Thanks deer my Lord. O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven, It hath the primall eldest curse vpon't, A Brother's murder. Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will: My stronger gilded, defeats my strong intent, And Like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect; what if this cursed hand Were thicker then it self with Brother's blood, Is there not Rain enough in the sweet Heavens To wash it white as Snow? Whereto serves mercy, But to confront the visage of Offence? And what's in Prayer, but this twofold force, To be forestalled ere we come to fallen, Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up, My fault is passed. But o, what form of Prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul Murder: That cannot be, since I am still possessed Of those effects for which I did the Murder. My Crown, mine own Ambition, and my Queen: May one be pardoned, and retain the offence? In the corrupted currants of this world, Offences gilded hand may shove by Justice, And oft it's seen, the wicked prize it self Buys out the Law; but it's not so above, There is no shuffling, there the Actium lies In his true Nature, and we our selves compelled Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence. What then? What rests? Try what Repentance can. What can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? O wretched state! O bosom, black as death! O limed soul, that struggling to be free, Art more engaged: Help Angels, make assay: Bow stubborn knees, and heart with strings of Steel, Be soft as sinews of the newborn Babe, All may be well. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below, Words without thoughts, never to Heaven go. There's matters in these sighs. These profound heaves You must translate; 'Tis fit we understand them. Where is your Son? What Gertrude ? How do's Hamlet ? O heavy deed: It had been so with us had we been there: His Liberty is full of threats to all, To you your self, to us, to every one. Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered? It will be laid to us, whose providence Should have kept short, restrained, and out of haunt, This mad young man. But so much was our love, We would not understand what was most fit, But Like the Owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulging, let's it feed Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone? O Gertrude, come away: The Sun no sooner shall the Mountains touch, But we will ship him hence, and this vild deed, We must with all our Majesty and Skill Both countenance, and excuse. Ho Guildenstern : Friends both go join you with some further aid: Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, And from his Mother Closets hath he dragged him. Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body Into the Chapel. I pray you hast in this. Come Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends, To let them know both what we mean to do, And what's untimely done. O come away, My soul is full of discord and dismay. I have sent to seek him, and to find the body: How dangerous is it that this man goes lose: Yet must not we put the strong Law on him: He's loved of the distracted multitude, Who Like not in their judgement, but their eyes: And where it's so, the Offenders scourge is weighed But nearer the offence: to bear all smooth, and even, This sudden sending him away, must seem Deliberate pause, diseases desperate grown, By desperate appliance are relieved, Or not at all. How now? What hath befallen? But where is he? Bring him before us. Now Hamlet, where's Polonius ? At Supper? Where? What dost thou mean by this? Where is Polonius. Go seek him there. I Hamlet. So is it, if thou knewest our purposes. Thy loving Father Hamlet. Follow him at foot, Tempt him with speed aboard: Delay it not, I'll have him hence to night. Away, for every thing is Sealed and done That else leans on the Affair, pray you make haft. And England, if my love thou holdest at ought, As my great power thereof may give thee sense, Since yet thy Cicatrice looks raw and read After the Danish Sword, and thy free awe Pays homage to us; thou mayest not coldly set Our Sovereign Process, which imports at full By Letters conjuring to that effect The present death of Hamlet. Do it England, For Like the Hecticke in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me: Till I know it's done, How ere my haps, my joys were never begun. How do you, pretty Lady? Conceit upon her Father. Pretty Ophelia. How long hath she been this? Follow her close, Give her good watch I pray you: O this is the poison of deep grief, it springs All from her Father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows comes, they come not single spies, But in Battaliaes. First, her Father slain, Next your Son gone, and he most violent Author Of his own joust 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 her self, and her fair Judgement, 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, Keeps on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not Buzzers to infect his ear With pestilent Speeches of his Father's death, Where in necessity of matter Beggard, Will nothing stick our persons to Arraign In ear and ear. Oh my deer Gertrude, this, Like to a murdering Piece in many places, Gives me superfluous death. Where are my Switzers ? Let them guard the door. What is the matter? The doors are broke. What is the cause Laertes, That thy Rebellion looks so Giantlike? 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 would, Acts little of his will. Tell me Laertes, Why thou art thus Incensed? Let him go Gertrude. Speak man. Dead. Let him demand his fill. Who shall stay you? Good Laertes : If you desire to know the certainty Of your deer Father's death, if writ in your revenge, That Soop-stake you will draw both Friend and Foe, Winner and Looser. Will you know them then. 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 Judgement pierce As day do's to your eye. Laertes, I must common 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 betwixt 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 labour with your soul To give it endue content. So you shall: And where the offence is, let the great Axe fallen. I pray you go with me. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for Friend, Sith you have herd, and with a knowing ear, That he which hath your Noble Father slain, Pursued my life. Oh for two special Reasons, Which may to you (perhaps) seem much vnsinnowed, And yet to me they are strong. The Queen his Mother, Lives almost by his looks: and for my self, My Virtue or my Plague, be it either which, She's so conjunctive to my life and soul; That as the Star moves not but in his Sphere, I could not but by her. The other Motive, Why to a public count I might not go, Is the great love the general gender bear him, Who dipping all his Faults in their affection, Would Like the Spring that turns Wood to Stone, Convert his Gives to Graces. So that my Arrows Too slightly timbered for so loud a Wind, Would have reverted to my Bow again, And not where I had armed them. Break not your sleeps for that, You must not think That we are made of stuff, so flat, and dull, That we can let our Beard be shook with danger, And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more, I loved your Father, and we love our Self, And that I hope will teach you to imagine— How now? What News? From Hamlet? Who brought them? Laertes you shall hear them: Leave us. High and Mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your Kingdom. To morrow shall I beg leave to see your Kingly Eyes. When I shall (first asking your Pardon thereunto) re count the Occasions of my sudden, and more strange return. Hamlet. High and Mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your Kingdom. To morrow shall I beg leave to see your Kingly Eyes. When I shall (first asking your Pardon thereunto) re count the Occasions of my sudden, and more strange return. What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? Or is it some abuse? Or no such thing? Pluck them asunder. O he is mad Laertes, Give them the Foils young Osric, Cousin Hamlet, you know the wagot. I do not fear it, I have seen you both: But since he is bettered, we have therefore odds. Set me the Stopes of wine upon that Table: If Hamlet give the first, or second hit, Or quit in answer of the third exchange, Let all the Battlements their Ordinance fire, The King shall drink to Hamlets better breath, And in the Cup and union shall he throw Richer then that, which four successive Kings In Denmarks Crown have worn. Give me the Cups, And let the Kettle to the Trumpets speak, The Trumpet to the Cannoneer without, The Cannons to the Heavens, the Heaven to Earth, Now the King drinks to Hamlet. Come, begin, And you the Judges bear a wary eye. Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this Pearl is thine, Here's to thy health. Give him the cup, Our Son shall win. Gertrude, do not drink. It is the poisoned Cup, it is too late. I do not thinke't. Partly them, they are incensed. She sounds to see them bleed. Oh yet defend me Friends, I am but hurt. Hamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve For that which thou hast done, must send thee hence With fiery Quickness. Therefore prepare thy self, The Bark is ready, and the wind at help, the Associates tend, and every thing at bent For England. It's Hamlets Character, naked and in a Post script here he says alone: Can you advise me? If it be so Laertes, as how should it be so: How otherwise will you be ruled by me? To thine own peace: if he be now returned, As checking at his Voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it; I will work him To and exploit now ripe in my Device, Under the which he shall not choose but fallen; And for his death no wind of blame shall breath, But even his Mother shall uncharge the practice, And call it accident: Some two Months hence Here was a Gentleman of Normandy, I've seen my self, and served against the French, And they ran well on Horseback; but this Gallant Had witchcraft in't; he grew into his Seat, And to such wondrous doing brought his Horse, As had he been encorps't and demy-Natur'd With the brave Beast, so far he passed my thought, That I in forgery of shapes and tricks, Come short of what he did. A Norman. The very same. He mad confession of you, And gave you such a Masterly report, For Art and exercise in your defence; And for your Rapier most especially e , That he cried out, to would be a sighed indeed, If one could match you Sir. This report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his Envy, That he could nothing do but wish and beg, Your sudden coming over to play with him; Now out of this. Not that I think you did not love your Father, 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: Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake, To show your self your Father's son indeed, More then in words? No place indeed should murder Sancturize; Revenge should have no bounds: but good Laertes Will you do this, keep close within your Chamber, Hamlet returned, shall know you are come 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 on 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 unbaited, and in a pass of practice, Requited him for your Father. Let's follow, Gertrude: How much I had to do to calm his rage? Now fear I this will give it start again; Therefore let's follow. This is mere Madness: And thus awhile the fit will work on him: Anon as patient as the female Dove, When that her golden Cuplet are disclosed; His silence will fit drooping. I pray you good Horatio wait upon him, Strengthen you patience in our last nights 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: And hour of quiet shortly shall we see; Till then, in patience our proceeding be. Come Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me. Laertes was your Father deer to you? Or are you Like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart? Let's further think of this, Weigh what convenience both of time and means May fit us to our shape, if this should fail; And that our drift look through our bade performance, 'Twere better not assayed; therefore this Project Should have a back or second, that might hold, If this should blast in proof: Soft, let me see We'll make a solemn wager on your comings, I have't: when in your motion you are hight and dry, As make your bouts more violent to the end, And that he calls for drink; I'll have prepared him A Chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping, If he by chance escape your venomed stuck, Our purpose may hold there; how sweet Queen.