ARKCODEX
Act IV, Scene 5
1Elsinore. A room in the castle.
2Enter Queen, Horatio, and a Gentleman.
3QueenI will not speak with her.
4GentlemanShe is importunate, indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied.
5QueenWhat would she have?
6GentlemanShe speaks much of her father; says she hears
There’s tricks i’ the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
7Horatio’Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
8QueenLet her come in. Exit Horatio.
To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
9Reenter Horatio, with Ophelia.
10OpheliaWhere is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
11QueenHow now, Ophelia!
12OpheliaSings.
How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
13QueenAlas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
14OpheliaSay you? nay, pray you, mark. Sings.
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
15QueenNay, but, Ophelia—
16OpheliaPray you, mark. Sings. White his shroud as the mountain snow—
17Enter King.
18QueenAlas, look here, my lord.
19OpheliaSings.
Larded with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.
20KingHow do you, pretty lady?
21OpheliaWell, God ’ild you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!
22KingConceit upon her father.
23OpheliaPray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this: Sings.
To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
24KingPretty Ophelia!
25OpheliaIndeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t: Sings.
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t, if they come to’t;
By cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.
26KingHow long hath she been thus?
27OpheliaI hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i’ the cold ground. My brother shall know of it: and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night. Exit.
28KingFollow her close; give her good watch, I pray you. Exit Horatio.
O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father’s death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. First, her father slain:
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just 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 herself and her fair judgment,
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;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father’s death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death. A noise within.
29QueenAlack, what noise is this?
30KingWhere are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
31Enter another Gentleman.
32What is the matter?
33GentlemanSave yourself, my lord:
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O’erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry “Choose we: Laertes shall be king:”
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:
“Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!”
34QueenHow cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
35KingThe doors are broke. Noise within.
36Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following.
37LaertesWhere is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.
38DanesNo, let’s come in.
39LaertesI pray you, give me leave.
40DanesWe will, we will. They retire without the door.
41LaertesI thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
42QueenCalmly, good Laertes.
43LaertesThat drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.
44KingWhat is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There’s such divinity doth 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.
45LaertesWhere is my father?
46KingDead.
47QueenBut not by him.
48KingLet him demand his fill.
49LaertesHow came he dead? I’ll not be juggled 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 worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I’ll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.
50KingWho shall stay you?
51LaertesMy will, not all the world:
And for my means, I’ll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
52KingGood Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge,
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
53LaertesNone but his enemies.
54KingWill you know them then?
55LaertesTo his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
56KingWhy, 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 judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.
57DanesWithin. Let her come in.
58LaertesHow now! what noise is that?
59Reenter Ophelia.
60O 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 turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is’t possible, a young maid’s wits
Should be as moral as an old man’s life?
Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
61OpheliaSings.
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain’d many a tear:—
Fare you well, my dove!
62LaertesHadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
63OpheliaSings.
You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master’s daughter.
64LaertesThis nothing’s more than matter.
65OpheliaThere’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.
66LaertesA document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
67OpheliaThere’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it herb-grace o’ Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they say he made a good end—Sings. For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
68LaertesThought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
69OpheliaSings.
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha’ mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi’ ye. Exit.
70LaertesDo you see this, O God?
71KingLaertes, I must commune 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 ’twixt you and me:
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we can 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 due content.
72LaertesLet this be so;
His means of death, his obscure funeral—
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation—
Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call’t in question.
73KingSo you shall;
And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me. Exeunt.