HAMLET. William Shakespeare

Lay her i’ 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.

       Ham.

       What, the fair Ophelia?

       Queen.

       Sweets to the sweet: farewell.

       [Scattering flowers.]

       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.

       Laer.

       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 awhile,

       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.

       Ham.

       [Advancing.]

       What is he whose grief

       Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow

       Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand

       Like wonder-wounded hearers? this is I,

       Hamlet the Dane.

       [Leaps into the grave.]

       Laer.

       The devil take thy soul!

       [Grappling with him.]

       Ham.

       Thou pray’st not well.

       I pr’ythee, take thy fingers from my throat;

       For, though I am not splenetive 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!—

       Hor.

       Good my lord, be quiet.

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

       Ham.

       Why, I will fight with him upon this theme

       Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

       Queen.

       O my son, what theme?

       Ham.

       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!

       Ham.

       ‘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 a while 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.

       Ham.

       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.]

       SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.

       [Enter Hamlet and Horatio.]

       Ham.

       So much for this, sir: now let me see the other;

       You do remember all the circumstance?

       Hor.

       Remember it, my lord!

       Ham.

       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 fail; and that should teach us

       There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

       Rough-hew them how we will.

       Hor.

       That is most certain.

       Ham.

       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,

       O 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,

       My head should be struck off.

       Hor.