LAERTES

Dread my Lord, Your leave and favour to return to France From whence, though willingly I came to Denmark To show my duty in your Coronation, Yet now I must confess, that duty done, My thoughts and wishes bend again towards France, And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. My necessaries are embarked; Farewell: And Sister, as the Winds give Benefit, And Convoy is assistant; do not sleep, But let me hear from you. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favours, Hold it a fashion and a toy in Blood; A Violet in the youth of Primy Nature; Froward, not permanent; sweet not lasting The suppliance of a minute? No more. Think it no more: For nature crescent does not grow alone, In thews and Bulk: but as his Temple waxes, The inward service of the Mind and Soul Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now, And now no soil nor cautel does besmerch The virtue of his fear: but you must fear His greatness weighed, his will is not his own; For he himself is subject to his Birth: He may not, as vnuallued persons do, Carve for himself; for, on his choice depends The sanctity and health of the weole State. And therefore must his choice be circumscribed Unto the voice and yielding of that Body, Whereof he is the Head. Then if he says he loves you, It fits your wisdom so far to believe it; As he in his peculiar Sect and force May give his saying deed: which is no further, Then the main voice of Denmark goes withal. Then weigh what lose your Honour may sustain, If with too credent ear you list his Songs; Or loose your Heart; or your chased Treasure open To his unmastered importunity. Fear it Ophelia, fear it my deer Sister, And keep within the rear of your Affection; Out of the shot and danger of Desire. The chariest Maid is Prodigal enough, If she unmask her beauty to the Moon: Virtue it self escapes not calumnious strokes, The Canker Galls, the Infants of the Spring Too oft before the buttons be disclosed, And in the Morn and liquid Due of Youth, Contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary then, best safety lies in fear; Youth to it self rebels, though none else near. O, fear me not. I stay too long; but here my Father comes: A double blessing is a double grace; Occasion smiles upon a second leave. Most humbly do I take my leave, my Lord. Farewell Ophelia, and remember well What I have said to you. Farewell. Where is the King, sirs? Stand you all without. I pray you give me leave. I thank you: Keep the door. O thou vild King, give me my Father. That drop of blood, that calms Proclaims me Bastard: Cries Cuckold to my Father, brands the Harlot Even here between the chaste vnsmirched brow Of my true Mother. Where's my Father? How came he dead? I'll not be Iuggel'd 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 world's I give to negligence, Let come what comes: only I'll be revenged Most thoroughly for my Father. My Will, not all the world, And for my means, I'll husband them so well, They shall go far with little. None but his Enemies. How now? what noise is that? 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 turns the beam. O Rose of May, Dear Maid, kind Sister, sweet Ophelia : O Heavens, is't possible, a young Maids wits, Should be as mortal as and old men life? Nature is fine in Love, and where it's fine, It sends some precious instance of it self After the thing it loves. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade Re venge, it could not move thus. This nothings more then matter. A document in madness, thoughts & remem brance fitted. Thought, and Affliction, Passion, Hell it self: She turns to Favour, and to prettiness. Do you see this, you Gods? Let this be so: His means of death, his obscure burial; No Trophy, Sword, nor Hatchment over his bones, No Noble rite, nor formal ostentation, Cry to be herd, as 'twere from Heaven to Earth, That I must call in question. It well appears. But tell me, Why you proceeded not against these feats, So crimefull, and so Capital in Nature, As by your Safety, Wisdom, all things else, You mainly were stirred up? And so have I a Noble Father lost, A Sister driven into desperate terms, Who was (if praises may go back again) Stood Challenger on mount of all the Age For her perfections. But my revenge will come. Know you the hand? I'm lost in it my Lord; but let him come, It warms the very sickness in my heart, That I shall live and tell him to his teeth; Thus didst thou. If so you'll not over rule me to a peace. A Norman was't? Upon my life Lamound. I know him well, he is the Brooch indeed, And Jemme of all our Nation. Why out of this, my Lord? Why ask you this? To cut his throat in the Church. I will doo't, And for that purpose I'll anoint my Sword: I bought and Unction of a Mountebanke So mortal, I but dipped a knife in it, Where it draws blood, no Cataplasm so rare, Collected from all Simples that have Virtue Under the Moon, can save the thing from death, That is but scratched withal: I'll touch my point, With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly, It may be death. Drowned! Oh where? Alas then, is she drowned? Too much of water hast thou poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet It is our trick, Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will; when these are gone The woman will be out: Adue my Lord, I have a speech of fire, that feign would blaze, But that this folly doubts it. What Ceremony else? What Ceremony else? Must there no more be done? Lay her in the earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh, May Violets spring. I tell thee (churlish Priest) A Ministering Angel shall my Sister be, When thou liest howling? O terrible woer, Fallen ten times treble, on that cursed head Whose wicked deed thy most Ingenious sense Deprived thee of. Hold off the earth a while, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms: Now pile your dust, upon the quick, and dead, Till of this flat a Mountain you have made, To over top old Pelion, or the skyish head Of blue Olympus. The devil take thy soul. I am satisfied in Nature, Whose motive in this case should stir me most To my Revenge. But in my terms of Honour I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement, Till by some elder Master's of known Honour, I have a voice, and president of peace To keep my name ungorged. But till that time, I do receive your offered love Like love, And will not wrong it. Come one for me. You mock me Sir. This is too heavy, Let me see another. Come on sir. No. Well: again. A touch, a touch, I do confess. My Lord, I'll hit him now. And yet it's almost against my conscience. Say you so? Come on. Have at you now. Why as a Woodcock To mine Sprindge, Osric, I am justly killed with mine own Treachery. It is here Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain, No Medicine in the world can do thee good. In thee, there is not half and hour of life; The Treacherous Instrument is in thy hand. Unbated and envenomed: the foul practice Hath turned it self on me. Lo, here I lie, Never to rise again: Thy Mother's poisoned: I can no more, the King, the King's too blame. He is ustly served. It is a poison tempered by himself: Exchange forgiveness with me, Noble Hamlet ; Mine and my Father's death come not upon thee, Nor thine on me. To his good Friends, thus wide I'll open my Arms: And Like the kind Life-rend'ring Politician, Repast them with my blood.