Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 7
Elsinore. Another room in the Castle.
Claudius : Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,
[p]And You must put me
in your heart for friend,
[p]Sith you have heard, and with a knowing
ear,
[p]That he which hath your noble father slain
[p]Pursued my
life.
Laertes : It well appears. But tell me
[p]Why you proceeded not against these
feats
[p]So crimeful and so capital in nature,
[p]As by your safety,
wisdom, all things else,
[p]You mainly were stirr'd up.
Claudius : O, for two special reasons,
[p]Which may to you, perhaps, seem much
unsinew'd,
[p]But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his
mother
[p]Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,-
[p]My virtue or
my plague, be it either which,-
[p]She's so conjunctive to my life and
soul
[p]That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
[p]I could not
but by her. The other motive
[p]Why to a public count I might not
go
[p]Is the great love the general gender bear him,
[p]Who, dipping
all his faults in their affection,
[p]Would, like the spring that
turneth wood to stone,
[p]Convert his gives to graces; so that my
arrows,
[p]Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
[p]Would have
reverted to my bow again,
[p]And not where I had aim'd them.
Laertes : And so have I a noble father lost;
[p]A sister driven into desp'rate
terms,
[p]Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
[p]Stood
challenger on mount of all the age
[p]For her perfections. But my
revenge will come.
Claudius : Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think
[p]That we are made
of stuff so flat and dull
[p]That we can let our beard be shook with
danger,
[p]And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.
[p]I
lov'd your father, and we love ourself,
[p]And that, I hope, will
teach you to imagine-
[p][Enter a Messenger with letters.]
[p]How
now? What news?
Messenger : Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:
[p]This to your Majesty; this to the
Queen.
Claudius : From Hamlet? Who brought them?
Messenger : Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.
[p]They were given me by
Claudio; he receiv'd them
[p]Of him that brought them.
Claudius : Laertes, you shall hear them.
[p]Leave us.
[p][Exit
Messenger.]
[p][Reads]'High and Mighty,-You shall know I am set naked
on your
[p]kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly
eyes;
[p]when I shall (first asking your pardon thereunto) recount
the
[p]occasion of my sudden and more strange return.
'HAMLET.'
[p]What should this mean? Are all the rest come
back?
[p]Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?
Laertes : Know you the hand?
Claudius : 'Tis Hamlet's character. 'Naked!'
[p]And in a postscript here, he says
'alone.'
[p]Can you advise me?
Laertes : I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come!
[p]It warms the very
sickness in my heart
[p]That I shall live and tell him to his
teeth,
[p]'Thus didest thou.'
Claudius : If it be so, Laertes
[p](As how should it be so? how
otherwise?),
[p]Will you be rul'd by me?
Laertes : Ay my lord,
[p]So you will not o'errule me to a peace.
Claudius : To thine own peace. If he be now return'd
[p]As checking at his
voyage, and that he means
[p]No more to undertake it, I will work
him
[p]To exploit now ripe in my device,
[p]Under the which he shall
not choose but fall;
[p]And for his death no wind shall breathe
[p]But
even his mother shall uncharge the practice
[p]And call it accident.
Laertes : My lord, I will be rul'd;
[p]The rather, if you could devise it
so
[p]That I might be the organ.
Claudius : It falls right.
[p]You have been talk'd of since your travel
much,
[p]And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
[p]Wherein they
say you shine, Your sum of parts
[p]Did not together pluck such envy
from him
[p]As did that one; and that, in my regard,
[p]Of the
unworthiest siege.
Laertes : What part is that, my lord?
Claudius : A very riband in the cap of youth-
[p]Yet needfull too; for youth no
less becomes
[p]The light and careless livery that it wears
[p]Than
settled age his sables and his weeds,
[p]Importing health and
graveness. Two months since
[p]Here was a gentleman of Normandy.
[p]I
have seen myself, and serv'd against, the French,
[p]And they can well
on horseback; but this gallant
[p]Had witchcraft in't. He grew unto
his seat,
[p]And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
[p]As had he
been incorps'd and demi-natur'd
[p]With the brave beast. So far he
topp'd my thought
[p]That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,
[p]Come
short of what he did.
Laertes : A Norman was't?
Claudius : A Norman.
Laertes : Upon my life, Lamound.
Claudius : The very same.
Laertes : I know him well. He is the broach indeed
[p]And gem of all the
nation.
Claudius : He made confession of you;
[p]And gave you such a masterly
report
[p]For art and exercise in your defence,
[p]And for your rapier
most especially,
[p]That he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed
[p]If
one could match you. The scrimers of their nation
[p]He swore had
neither motion, guard, nor eye,
[p]If you oppos'd them. Sir, this
report of his
[p]Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
[p]That he could
nothing do but wish and beg
[p]Your sudden coming o'er to play with
you.
[p]Now, out of this-
Laertes : What out of this, my lord?
Claudius : Laertes, was your father dear to you?
[p]Or are you like the painting
of a sorrow,
[p]A face without a heart,'
Laertes : Why ask you this?
Claudius : Not that I think you did not love your father;
[p]But that I know love
is begun by time,
[p]And that I see, in passages of proof,
[p]Time
qualifies the spark and fire of it.
[p]There lives within the very
flame of love
[p]A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
[p]And
nothing is at a like goodness still;
[p]For goodness, growing to a
plurisy,
[p]Dies in his own too-much. That we would do,
[p]We should
do when we would; for this 'would' changes,
[p]And hath abatements and
delays as many
[p]As there are tongues, are hands, are
accidents;
[p]And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift
sigh,
[p]That hurts by easing. But to the quick o' th'
ulcer!
[p]Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake
[p]To show
yourself your father's son in deed
[p]More than in words?
Laertes : To cut his throat i' th' church!
Claudius : No place indeed should murther sanctuarize;
[p]Revenge should have no
bounds. But, good Laertes,
[p]Will you do this? Keep close within your
chamber.
[p]Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home.
[p]We'll put
on those shall praise your excellence
[p]And set a double varnish on
the fame
[p]The Frenchman gave you; bring you in fine together
[p]And
wager on your heads. He, being remiss,
[p]Most generous, and free from
all contriving,
[p]Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,
[p]Or
with a little shuffling, you may choose
[p]A sword unbated, and, in a
pass of practice,
[p]Requite him for your father.
Laertes : I will do't!
[p]And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.
[p]I bought
an unction of a mountebank,
[p]So mortal that, but dip a knife in
it,
[p]Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
[p]Collected from
all simples that have virtue
[p]Under the moon, can save the thing
from death
[p]This is but scratch'd withal. I'll touch my
point
[p]With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
[p]It may
be death.
Claudius : Let's further think of this,
[p]Weigh what convenience both of time
and means
[p]May fit us to our shape. If this should fall,
[p]And that
our drift look through our bad performance.
[p]'Twere better not
assay'd. Therefore this project
[p]Should have a back or second, that
might hold
[p]If this did blast in proof. Soft! let me see.
[p]We'll
make a solemn wager on your cunnings-
[p]I ha't!
[p]When in your
motion you are hot and dry-
[p]As make your bouts more violent to
that end-
[p]And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him
[p]A
chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,
[p]If he by chance escape
your venom'd stuck,
[p]Our purpose may hold there.- But stay, what
noise,
[p][Enter Queen.]
[p]How now, sweet queen?
Gertrude : One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
[p]So fast they follow. Your
sister's drown'd, Laertes.
Laertes : Drown'd! O, where?
Gertrude : There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
[p]That shows his hoar leaves
in the glassy stream.
[p]There with fantastic garlands did she
come
[p]Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
[p]That
liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
[p]But our cold maids do dead
men's fingers call them.
[p]There on the pendant boughs her coronet
weeds
[p]Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
[p]When down
her weedy trophies and herself
[p]Fell in the weeping brook. Her
clothes spread wide
[p]And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her
up;
[p]Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,
[p]As one
incapable of her own distress,
[p]Or like a creature native and
indued
[p]Unto that element; but long it could not be
[p]Till that her
garments, heavy with their drink,
[p]Pull'd the poor wretch from her
melodious lay
[p]To muddy death.
Laertes : Alas, then she is drown'd?
Gertrude : Drown'd, drown'd.
Laertes : Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
[p]And therefore I forbid
my tears; but yet
[p]It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
[p]Let
shame say what it will. When these are gone,
[p]The woman will be out.
Adieu, my lord.
[p]I have a speech of fire, that fain would
blaze
[p]But that this folly douts it. Exit.
Claudius : Let's follow, Gertrude.
[p]How much I had to do to calm his rage
I
[p]Now fear I this will give it start again;
[p]Therefore let's
follow.
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Next: Act 5 - Scene 1
