HAMLET. William Shakespeare

As had he been incorps’d and demi-natur’d

       With the brave beast: so far he topp’d my thought

       That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,

       Come short of what he did.

       Laer.

       A Norman was’t?

       King.

       A Norman.

       Laer.

       Upon my life, Lamond.

       King.

       The very same.

       Laer.

       I know him well: he is the brooch indeed

       And gem of all the nation.

       King.

       He made confession of you;

       And gave you such a masterly report

       For art and exercise in your defence,

       And for your rapier most especially,

       That he cried out, ‘twould be a sight indeed

       If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation

       He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,

       If you oppos’d them. Sir, this report of his

       Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy

       That he could nothing do but wish and beg

       Your sudden coming o’er, to play with him.

       Now, out of this,—

       Laer.

       What out of this, my lord?

       King.

       Laertes, was your father dear to you?

       Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,

       A face without a heart?

       Laer.

       Why ask you this?

       King.

       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.

       There lives within the very flame of love

       A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;

       And nothing is at a like goodness still;

       For goodness, growing to a plurisy,

       Dies in his own too much: that we would do,

       We should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes,

       And hath abatements and delays as many

       As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;

       And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh,

       That hurts by easing. But to the quick o’ the ulcer:—

       Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake

       To show yourself your father’s son in deed

       More than in words?

       Laer.

       To cut his throat i’ the church.

       King.

       No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;

       Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,

       Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.

       Hamlet return’d 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 unbated, and, in a pass of practice,

       Requite him for your father.

       Laer.

       I will do’t:

       And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword.

       I bought an unction of a mountebank,

       So mortal that, but dip 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

       This is but scratch’d withal: I’ll touch my point

       With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,

       It may be death.

       King.

       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 bad performance.

       ‘Twere better not assay’d: therefore this project

       Should have a back or second, that might hold

       If this did blast in proof. Soft! let me see:—

       We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,—

       I ha’t:

       When in your motion you are hot and dry,—

       As make your bouts more violent to that end,—

       And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him

       A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,

       If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,

       Our purpose may hold there.

       [Enter Queen.]

       How now, sweet queen!

       Queen.

       One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,

       So fast they follow:—your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.

       Laer.

       Drown’d! O, where?

       Queen.

       There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

       That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;

       There with fantastic garlands did she come

       Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,

       That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

       But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.

       There, on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds

       Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke;

       When down her weedy trophies and herself

       Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;

       And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;

       Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes;

       As one incapable of her own distress,

       Or like a creature native and indu’d

       Unto that element: but long it could not be

       Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

       Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay

       To muddy death.

       Laer.

       Alas, then she is drown’d?

       Queen.

       Drown’d, drown’d.