{"id":208,"date":"2019-06-04T14:44:49","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T14:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/chapter\/hamlet-act-4\/"},"modified":"2019-08-28T19:22:31","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T19:22:31","slug":"hamlet-act-4","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/chapter\/hamlet-act-4\/","title":{"raw":"Hamlet: Act 4","rendered":"Hamlet: Act 4"},"content":{"raw":"Hamlet<\/em> (Modern, Editor\u2019s Version). Internet Shakespeare Editions<\/a>. University of Victoria. Editor: David Bevington. Adapted by James Sexton.\n

Scene 1<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]Location: The castle.[\/footnote] King, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nThere's matter[footnote]Significance, meaning.[\/footnote] in these sighs, these profound heaves.[footnote]Heaving of the breast and shoulders as the Queen sobs.[\/footnote]\nYou must translate;[footnote]i.e., explain why you are weeping.[\/footnote] 'tis fit we understand them.\n2590<\/sub>Where is your son?\n\n2590.1<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\n[To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]<\/em> Bestow this place on us a little while.\n[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]<\/em>\nAh, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!\n\nKing<\/strong>\nWhat, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nMad as the sea and wind when both contend\nWhich is the mightier. In his lawless fit,\n2595<\/sub>Behind the arras hearing something stir,\nWhips out his rapier, cries, \"A rat, a rat!\"\nAnd in this brainish apprehension[footnote]This brainsick misapprehension.[\/footnote] kills\nThe unseen good old man.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nOh, heavy[footnote]Grievous.[\/footnote] deed!\n2600<\/sub>It had been so with us had we[footnote]The royal plural.[\/footnote] been there.\nHis liberty is full of threats to all--\nTo you yourself, to us, to everyone.\nAlas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?[footnote]Explained, responded to, accounted for.[\/footnote]\nIt will be laid to us,[footnote]Laid at our (my) doorstep, blamed on me.[\/footnote] whose providence[footnote]Foresight.[\/footnote]\n2605<\/sub>Should have kept short,[footnote]Kept on a short leash.[\/footnote] restrained, and out of haunt[footnote]Secluded, away from public gatherings.[\/footnote]\nThis mad young man. But so much was our love,\nWe would not understand what was most fit,\nBut like the owner[footnote]Sufferer.[\/footnote] of a foul disease,\nTo keep it from divulging,[footnote]From being made publicly known.[\/footnote] let[footnote]We let.[\/footnote] it feed\n2610<\/sub>Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nTo draw apart the body he hath killed,\nO'er whom his very madness, like some ore\nAmong a mineral of metals base,\nShows itself pure:[footnote]The Queen argues that Hamlet's weeping over Polonius's dead body shows his madness to be like a vein of pure gold amidst a mine of baser metals, i.e., revealing his finer nature even though he has madly done this deed. The Queen is doing as she promised to Hamlet: keeping from her husband the knowledge that Hamlet's \"madness\" is only a cover.[\/footnote] 'a[footnote]He.[\/footnote] weeps for what is done.\n\n2615<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nOh, Gertrude, come away!\nThe sun no sooner shall the mountains touch\nBut we will ship him hence, and this vile deed\nWe must with all our majesty and skill\nBoth countenance and excuse.[footnote]Put the best face on and justify as well as we can.[\/footnote]--Ho, Guildenstern!\n2520<\/sub>Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em>\nFriends both, go join you with some further aid.[footnote]Take with you some others to help.[\/footnote]\nHamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,\nAnd from his mother's closet[footnote]Mother's private chamber.[\/footnote] hath he dragged him.\nGo seek him out, speak fair,[footnote]Speak gently and courteously to him.[\/footnote] and bring the body\n2625<\/sub>Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.\nExit Gentlemen [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].<\/em>\nCome, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends\nTo let them know both what we mean to do\nAnd what's untimely done. So envious slander,\n2628.1<\/sub>Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,\nAs level as the cannon to his blank,\nTransports his poisoned shot, may miss our name\nAnd hit the woundless air.[footnote]In that way, envious slander, spreading far and wide its poisonous whisper as if shot from a cannon at point-blank range, may be deflected from me as its target and expend itself harmlessly on the invulnerable air.[\/footnote] Oh, come away!\nMy soul is full of discord and dismay.\nExeunt.<\/em>\n

Scene 2<\/h1>\n2630<\/sub>Enter<\/em>[footnote]Location: The castle.[\/footnote] Hamlet.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nSafely stowed.\n\nRosencrantz and Guildenstern<\/strong>\n[within]<\/em> Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nBut soft, what noise? Who calls on Hamlet? Oh, here they come.\nEnter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em>\n\n2635<\/sub>Rosencrantz<\/strong>\nWhat have you done, my lord, with the dead body?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nCompounded[footnote]Mixed. Compare the Anglican \"Order for the Burial of the Dead\" in The Book of Common Prayer: \"we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.\"[\/footnote] it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nTell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence\nAnd bear it to the chapel.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nDo not believe it.\n\n2640<\/sub>Rosencrantz<\/strong>\nBelieve what?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nThat I can keep your counsel and not mine own.[footnote]i.e., Don't expect me to do as you bid me and not follow my own counsel.[\/footnote] Besides, to be demanded of[footnote]Interrogated by.[\/footnote]\na sponge, what replication[footnote]Reply.[\/footnote] should be made by the son of a king?\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nTake you me for a sponge, my lord?\n\n2645<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nAy, sir, that soaks up the King's countenance,[footnote]Favor.[\/footnote] his rewards, his authorities.[footnote]Influence.[\/footnote]\nBut such officers do the King best service in the end: he keeps them, like an\nape in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed to be last swallowed.[footnote]i.e., Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are kept in reserve by the King, always there but to be used only when it serves the King's purposes, not theirs.[\/footnote] When he\n2650<\/sub>needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall\nbe dry again.[footnote]i.e., the King will squeeze you dry, taking back the benefits he seemingly bestowed on you.[\/footnote]\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nI understand you not, my lord.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.[footnote]A crafty insult is not understood as such by a fool to whom the insult is directed.[\/footnote]\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\n2655<\/sub>My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the King.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nThe body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.[footnote]A chiasmic riddle, perhaps suggesting that although Claudius's body is necessarily a part of him, the essence of true kingship is not to be found there. Claudius can order the body of Polonius to be brought to him, but that also will not make him any more a true king than he really is. A reference to the doctrine of \"the King's two bodies,\" one political and one natural, thus differentiating the high office of kingship from any individual holder of the title, whose claim to true authority may be far less.[\/footnote] The King is a thing--\n\nGuildenstern<\/strong>\nA thing, my lord?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n2660<\/sub>Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after![footnote]This cry from the children's game of fox-and-hounds, similar to hide-and-seek, here signals Hamlet's running away from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.[\/footnote]\nExeunt.<\/em>\n

Scene 3<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]Location: The castle.[\/footnote] King, and two or three.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nI have sent to seek him and to find the body.\nHow dangerous is it that this man goes loose!\nYet must not we put the strong law on him;\n2665<\/sub>He's loved of the distracted multitude,[footnote]By the irrationally unstable commoners.[\/footnote]\nWho like not in their judgment but their eyes,[footnote]Who choose not rationally but by appearances.[\/footnote]\nAnd where 'tis so, th'offender's scourge is weighed,\nBut ne'er the offense.[footnote]And in such cases people are likely to censure the severity of the punishment without sufficiently considering the gravity of the offense.[\/footnote] To bear all smooth and even,[footnote]In order to manage the business without arousing suspicion.[\/footnote]\nThis sudden sending him away must seem\n2670<\/sub>Deliberate pause.[footnote]The result of careful planning, or of a careful postponing of judgment.[\/footnote] Diseases desperate grown\nBy desperate appliance[footnote]Applying of remedies.[\/footnote] are relieved,\nOr not at all.\nEnter Rosencrantz.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nHow now, what hath befall'n?[footnote]Now, what has happened?[\/footnote]\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nWhere the dead body is bestowed, my lord,\n2675<\/sub>We cannot get from him.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nBut where is he?\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nWithout,[footnote]Outside (the door).[\/footnote] my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nBring him before us.\n\n2680<\/sub>Rosencrantz<\/strong>\n[Calling]<\/em> Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.\nEnter Hamlet and Guildenstern [with Guards].<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nNow Hamlet, where's Polonius?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nAt supper.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nAt supper? Where?\n\n2685<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nNot where he eats, but where 'a is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms\nare e'en[footnote]Even now, just now.[\/footnote] at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet.[footnote]Worms are emperors in their diet in that they devour emperors and commoners alike. Compare the proverbial phrase, \"Food for worms.\"[\/footnote][footnote]Often taken to refer to the Imperial Diet of Worms, a famous \"convocation\" or assembly of the Holy Roman Empire convened in Worms, Germany on 28 January 1521, on the authority of the Emperor Charles V, for the purpose of requiring Martin Luther to renounce or recant his heretical views. Pope Leo X had condemned 41 of Luther's 95 theses or propositions in June 1520, and, after a delay affording Luther time to recant, had excommunicated him on 3 January 1521. The Edict of Worms, issued on 25 May 1521, forbade all loyal Christians to offer any support to Luther, declaring him to be an obstinate heretic. In the light of this seeming allusion, \"Not where 'a eats, but where 'a is eaten\" (TLN 2685) could refer to the ceremony of the Mass in which the eating of bread signifies the eating of Christ's body. \"Politic worms\" are crafty worms, such as might deal with a crafty spy like Polonius.[\/footnote] We fat all\ncreatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and\n2690<\/sub>your lean beggar is but variable service:[footnote]Various dishes or courses served at table. (Worms feed on kings and beggars alike.)[\/footnote] two dishes but to one table.[footnote]i.e., rich and poor alike come at last to serve as food for one grisly emperor, the worm.[\/footnote] That's the\nend.\n\n2690.1<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nAlas, alas!\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nA man may fish with the worm that hath eat[footnote]Has eaten.[\/footnote] of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nWhat dost thou mean by this?\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nNothing but to show you how a king may go a progress[footnote]Royal state journey.[\/footnote] through the guts of a beggar.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nWhere is Polonius?\n\n2695<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nIn heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek\nhim i'th' other place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within this month, you\nshall nose[footnote]Smell.[\/footnote] him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.\n\nKing<\/strong>\n[To some attendants]<\/em>[footnote]The persons addressed here could include Rosencrantz or Guildenstern together with one or more unnamed attendants, but in any case, at least one of those two gentlemen must remain to keep guard on Hamlet and exit with him at line 45.1.[\/footnote] Go seek him there.\n\n2700<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\n'A will stay till you come.\n[Exeunt attendants.]<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nHamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety--\nWhich we do tender,[footnote]Value, hold dear.[\/footnote] as we dearly[footnote]Intensely.[\/footnote] grieve\nFor that which thou hast done--must send thee hence\nWith fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.\n2705<\/sub>The bark[footnote]Sailing vessel.[\/footnote] is ready, and the wind at help,\nTh'associates tend,[footnote]Companions are waiting.[\/footnote] and everything is bent[footnote]Is in readiness.[\/footnote]\nFor England.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nFor England!\n\nKing<\/strong>\nAy, Hamlet.\n\n2710<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nGood.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nSo is it if thou knew'st our purposes.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nI see a cherub[footnote]Cherubim, in the second order of angels, were possessors of a special wisdom and knowledge that would enable them, in Hamlet's view, to perceive the full extent of Claudius's treachery.[\/footnote] that sees them. But come, for England! Farewell, dear mother.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nThy loving father, Hamlet.\n\n2715<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nMy mother. Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh,[footnote]Other editions cite Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5-6, and Mark 10:8.[\/footnote]\nand so, my mother. Come, for England!\nExit.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nFollow him at foot.[footnote]Close at his heels.[\/footnote] Tempt[footnote]Entice, persuade.[\/footnote] him with speed aboard.\n2720<\/sub>Delay it not. I'll have him hence tonight.\nAway! For everything is sealed and done\nThat else leans on th'affair.[footnote]Everything else that relates to this business is taken care of.[\/footnote] Pray you, make haste.\nExeunt all but the King.\nAnd England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,\nAs my great power thereof may give thee sense,\n2725<\/sub>Since yet thy cicatrice[footnote]Scar.[\/footnote] looks raw and red\nAfter the Danish sword, and thy free awe[footnote]Unconstrained show of respect and obedience.[\/footnote]\nPays homage to us, thou mayst not coldly set[footnote]Regard with indifference, ignore.[\/footnote]\nOur sovereign process,[footnote]Royal command.[\/footnote] which imports at full[footnote]Conveys in full detail its message.[\/footnote]\nBy letters congruing[footnote]Agreeing, conforming.[\/footnote] to that effect\n2730<\/sub>The present[footnote]Immediate.[\/footnote] death of Hamlet. Do it, England,\nFor like the hectic[footnote]Fluctuating but persistent fever.[\/footnote] in my blood he rages,\nAnd thou must cure me. Till I know 'tis done,\nHowe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.[footnote]Whatever else my fortunes might be, I cannot begin to be happy.[\/footnote]\nExit.<\/em>\n

Scene 4<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]The Danish coast.[\/footnote] Fortinbras [and a Captain] with his army over the stage.<\/em>[footnote]With his army, marching across the stage (and then exiting at line 9).[\/footnote]\n\n2735<\/sub>Fortinbras<\/strong>\nGo, captain, from me greet the Danish King.\nTell him that by his license[footnote]Permission.[\/footnote] Fortinbras\nCraves the conveyance[footnote]Unhindered and escorted passage; or, fulfillment of a promise made.[\/footnote] of a promised march\nOver his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.\nIf[footnote]If.[\/footnote] that his majesty would aught with us,[footnote]Wishes to confer with me for any reason.[\/footnote]\n2740<\/sub>We shall express our duty in his eye;[footnote]I will pay my respects in person.[\/footnote]\nAnd let him know so.\n\nCaptain<\/strong>\nI will do't, my lord.\n\nFortinbras<\/strong>\n[To his soldiers]<\/em> Go softly on.[footnote]Quietly, without creating a disturbance.[\/footnote]\n[Exeunt all but the Captain.]<\/em>\n2743.1<\/sub>Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] etc.<\/em>\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\n[To the Captain]<\/em> Good sir, whose powers[footnote]Soldiers, armed forces.[\/footnote] are these?\n\nCaptain<\/strong>\nThey are of Norway, sir.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nHow purposed, sir, I pray you?\n\n2743.5<\/sub>Captain<\/strong>\nAgainst some part of Poland.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWho commands them, sir?\n\nCaptain<\/strong>\nThe nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nGoes it[footnote]The army.[\/footnote] against the main[footnote]Major part, heart.[\/footnote] of Poland, sir,\nOr for some frontier?\n\n2743.10<\/sub>Captain<\/strong>\nTruly to speak, and with no addition,[footnote]Exaggeration.[\/footnote]\nWe go to gain a little patch of ground\nThat hath in it no profit but the name.[footnote]i.e., reputation to be gained by conquering it.[\/footnote]\nTo pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it,[footnote]i.e., I would not take a lease on it as tenant farmer even for a mere five ducats a year. (The ducat is a gold coin.)[\/footnote]\nNor will it yield to Norway or the Pole[footnote]The King of Norway or of Poland.[\/footnote]\n2743.15<\/sub>A ranker[footnote]Higher.[\/footnote] rate, should it be sold in fee.[footnote]Sold outright as a freehold, in \"fee simple.\"[\/footnote]\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nWhy then the Polack[footnote]The King of Poland (and his army).[\/footnote] never will defend it.\n\nCaptain<\/strong>\nYes, it is already garrisoned.\n\nHamlet<\/strong>\nTwo thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats\nWill not debate the question of this straw.[footnote]Appear to be insufficient stakes in a quarrel about such a trifling matter.[\/footnote]\n2743.20<\/sub>This is th'impostume[footnote]The abscess.[\/footnote] of much wealth and peace,\nThat inward breaks,[footnote]Festers within.[\/footnote] and shows no cause without[footnote]Externally.[\/footnote]\nWhy the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.\n\nCaptain<\/strong>\nGod b'wi' you, sir.\n[Exit.]<\/em>\n\nRosencrantz<\/strong>\nWill't please you go, my lord?\n\n2743.25<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>\nI'll be with you straight.[footnote]Right away.[\/footnote] Go a little before.\n[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]<\/em>\nHow all occasions do inform against[footnote]Accuse, denounce.[\/footnote] me,\nAnd spur my dull revenge! What is a man\nIf his chief good and market[footnote]Profit, advantage.[\/footnote] of his time\nBe but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.\n2743.30<\/sub>Sure he that made us with such large discourse,[footnote]Wide-ranging capacity for reasoning.[\/footnote]\nLooking before and after,[footnote]Able to recall past events and anticipate the future.[\/footnote] gave us not\nThat capability and godlike reason\nTo fust[footnote]Grow moldy.[\/footnote] in us unused. Now, whether it be\nBestial oblivion,[footnote]Forgetfulness and heedlessness of the sort one sees in animals.[\/footnote] or some craven[footnote]Cowardly.[\/footnote] scruple\n2743.35<\/sub>Of thinking too precisely on th'event--[footnote]Caused by thinking too scrupulously about what might happen as a consequence of one's actions.[\/footnote]\nA thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom\nAnd ever three parts coward--I do not know\nWhy yet I live to say this thing's to do,[footnote]Not yet accomplished, still to be done.[\/footnote]\nSith[footnote]Since.[\/footnote] I have cause, and will, and strength, and means\n2743.40<\/sub>To do't. Examples gross[footnote]Obvious.[\/footnote] as earth exhort me.\nWitness this army of such mass and charge,[footnote]Size and cost.[\/footnote]\nLed by a delicate and tender[footnote]Refined and youthful.[\/footnote] prince,\nWhose spirit with divine ambition puffed[footnote]Inspired.[\/footnote]\nMakes mouths[footnote]Presents a scornful face to unforeseeable outcomes.[\/footnote] at the invisible event,\n2743.45<\/sub>Exposing what is mortal and unsure\nTo all that fortune, death, and danger dare,[footnote]Can threaten him with.[\/footnote]\nEven for an eggshell.[footnote]A thing proverbially of no value.[\/footnote] Rightly to be great\nIs not to stir without great argument,\nBut greatly to find quarrel in a straw\n2743.50<\/sub>When honor's at the stake.[footnote]True greatness is not to be measured solely in terms of being moved to action by a great cause; rather, it is to respond stirringly even to an apparently trivial cause when honor is at stake. The metaphor is from bearbaiting.[\/footnote] How stand I, then,\nThat have a father killed, a mother stained,\nExcitements of my reason and my blood,[footnote]Enough cause to awaken a keen response in me that is both reasonable and passionate.[\/footnote]\nAnd let[footnote]And yet I let.[\/footnote] all sleep, while to my shame I see\nThe imminent death of twenty thousand men\n2743.55<\/sub>That for a fantasy and trick of fame[footnote]The illusory and trifling business of striving to gain a reputation for bravery.[\/footnote]\nGo to their graves like beds, fight for a plot[footnote]Plot of ground.[\/footnote]\nWhereon the numbers cannot try the cause,[footnote]Containing insufficient room for the bodies of the soldiers who are fighting over it.[\/footnote]\nWhich is not tomb enough and continent[footnote]Receptacle, container.[\/footnote]\nTo hide the slain? Oh, from this time forth,\n2743.60<\/sub>My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!\nExit.<\/em>\n

Scene 5<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]Location: The castle.[\/footnote] Queen and Horatio.<\/em>\n\n2745<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nI will not speak with her.\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nShe is importunate,\nIndeed, distract.[footnote]Distraught.[\/footnote] Her mood will needs be pitied.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nWhat would she have?\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nShe speaks much of her father, says she hears\n2750<\/sub>There's tricks[footnote]Deceptions.[\/footnote] i'th' world, and hems,[footnote]Clears her throat with a \"hem\" sound.[\/footnote] and beats her heart,[footnote]Breast.[\/footnote]\nSpurns enviously at straws,[footnote]Kicks bitterly, i.e., takes offense and reacts suspiciously, at trifles.[\/footnote] speaks things in doubt[footnote]Obscurely.[\/footnote]\nThat carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,\nYet the unshap\u00e8d use[footnote]Incoherent manner.[\/footnote] of it doth move\nThe hearers to collection;[footnote]Inference, guessing at some sort of meaning.[\/footnote] they yawn[footnote]Gape in wonderment; grasp.[\/footnote] at it,\n2755<\/sub>And botch[footnote]Patch.[\/footnote] the words up fit to[footnote]In such a way as to match.[\/footnote] their own thoughts,\nWhich,[footnote]Which words.[\/footnote] as her winks and nods and gestures yield[footnote]Deliver, represent.[\/footnote] them,\nIndeed would make one think there might be thought,\nThough nothing sure, yet much unhappily.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\n'Twere good she were spoken with,\n2760<\/sub>For she may strew dangerous conjectures\nIn ill-breeding[footnote]Maliciously inclined, prone to suspect the worst.[\/footnote] minds. Let her come in.\n[Horatio withdraws to admit Ophelia.]\n<\/em>[Aside]<\/em> To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,[footnote]As is the case in sin's true nature.[\/footnote]\nEach toy[footnote]Trifle.[\/footnote] seems prologue to some great amiss.[footnote]Calamity.[\/footnote]\nSo full of artless jealousy is guilt,\n2765<\/sub>It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.[footnote]Guilt is so burdened with a self-incriminating fear of detection that it betrays itself by the very fear of being detected.[\/footnote]\nEnter Ophelia distracted, playing on a lute, and her hair down, singing.<\/em>\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nWhere is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nHow now,[footnote]What's this.[\/footnote] Ophelia?\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\n[She sings.]<\/em>[footnote]As editors have noted, this is a version of a popular song about a woman whose lover has died.[\/footnote]\nHow should I your true love know\nFrom another one?\n2770<\/sub>By his cockle hat[footnote]Hat with cockleshell (a mollusk scallop-like shell) stuck in it as a sign (along with a walking staff and sandals) that the wearer has been a pilgrim to the shrine of Saint James of Compostella in Spain (often associated with forlorn lovers).[\/footnote] and staff,\nAnd his sandal shoon.[footnote]Shoes. (An archaic plural.)[\/footnote]\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nAlas, sweet lady, what imports[footnote]Signifies.[\/footnote] this song?\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nSay you? Nay, pray you, mark.[footnote]Listen, pay attention.[\/footnote]\n[Song.]<\/em>\nHe is dead and gone, lady,\nHe is dead and gone.\nAt his head a grass-green turf,\nAt his heels a stone.[footnote]Gravestone.[\/footnote]\n2774.1<\/sub>Oho![footnote]Evidently, a sigh.[\/footnote]\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nNay, but Ophelia--\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nPray you, mark.\n[Song.]<\/em>\nWhite his shroud as the mountain snow--\n2775<\/sub>Enter King.<\/em>\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nAlas, look here, my lord.\n\n2780<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>\n[Song.]<\/em>\nLarded[footnote]Strewn, bedecked.[\/footnote] with sweet flowers,\nWhich bewept to the grave did not go\nWith true-love showers.[footnote]i.e., tears.[\/footnote]\n\nKing<\/strong>\nHow do you, pretty lady?\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\n2785<\/sub>Well God'ield you.[footnote]God yield (i.e., reward) you.[\/footnote] They say the owl was a baker's daughter.[footnote]This refers to a folktale about a baker's daughter who, when Jesus entered a baker's shop in disguise asking for something to eat, insisted on letting the visitor have only half of the loaf that the shopkeeper's wife (or the baker himself in some versions) had intended to give in full. When the dough nonetheless swelled to enormous size, the daughter cried \"Heugh! heugh!\" and was transformed into an owl for her lack of charity.[\/footnote] Lord, we know\nwhat we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!\n\nKing<\/strong>\nConceit[footnote]Fantasy, brooding.[\/footnote] upon her father.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nPray you, let's have no words of this, but when they ask you what it means,\nsay you this:\n2790<\/sub>[Song.]<\/em>[footnote]No source is known for this song.[\/footnote]\nTomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day,[footnote]A feast day (February 14) in honor of Saint Valentine; traditionally a day on which the first person one meets is destined to be one's lovemate.[\/footnote]\nAll in the morning betime,[footnote]Early.[\/footnote]\nAnd I a maid at your window\nTo be your Valentine.\nThen up he rose, and donned his clothes\nAnd dupped[footnote]Did up, unlatched.[\/footnote] the chamber door,\nLet in the maid, that out a maid\nNever departed more.[footnote]Who, when she departed, was no longer a virgin.[\/footnote]\n\nKing<\/strong>\nPretty Ophelia--\n\n2795<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>\nIndeed, la? Without an oath I'll make an end on't.[footnote]Of it.[\/footnote]\n[Song.]<\/em>\nBy Gis and by Saint Charity,[footnote]By Jesus and in the name of Christian love and fellow feeling (a mild oath).[\/footnote]\nAlack, and fie for shame!\nYoung men will do't if they come to't;\nBy Cock,[footnote]A euphemism for \"By God\"; with verbal play on the slang term for \"penis.\"[\/footnote] they are to blame.\n2800<\/sub>Quoth she, \"Before you tumbled me,\nYou promised me to wed.\"\n2801.1<\/sub>He answers,\n\"So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,\nAn[footnote]If.[\/footnote] thou hadst not come to my bed.\"\n\nKing<\/strong>\nHow long hath she been thus?\n\n2805<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>\nI hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot choose but weep to\nthink they would lay him i'th' cold ground. My brother shall know of it. And\nso I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies,\n2810<\/sub>good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.\nExit.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\n[To Horatio.]<\/em> Follow her close. Give her good watch, I pray you.\n[Exit Horatio.]<\/em>\nOh, this is the poison of deep grief! It springs\nAll from her father's\ndeath, and now behold!\nOh, Gertrude, Gertrude,\n2815<\/sub>When sorrows come, they come not single spies\nBut in battalions.[footnote]When sorrows come, they come not one at a time but in swarms, or (militarily) battalions. (\"Spies\" are scouts sent in advance of the main army.) Compare the proverb, \"Misfortune (Evil) never (seldom) comes alone.\"[\/footnote] First, her father slain;\nNext, your son gone, and he most violent author\nOf his own just remove;[footnote]Justly deserved removal (to England).[\/footnote] the people muddied,[footnote]Stirred up, confused.[\/footnote]\nThick[footnote]Bewildered, muddled.[\/footnote] and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers\n2820<\/sub>For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly[footnote]Foolishly, naively.[\/footnote]\nIn hugger-mugger[footnote]Secret haste.[\/footnote] to inter him; poor Ophelia\nDivided from herself and her fair judgment,\nWithout the which we are pictures or mere beasts;\nLast, and as much containing[footnote]As serious.[\/footnote] as all these,\n2825<\/sub>Her brother is in secret come from France,\nFeeds on this wonder,[footnote]Feeds his feeling of resentment about this whole shocking turn of events.[\/footnote] keeps himself in clouds,[footnote]Behaves suspiciously and in ways that are hard to interpret or predict, arousing uncertainty and suspicion.[\/footnote]\nAnd wants not buzzers[footnote]Is not lacking in gossipers and scandal mongers.[\/footnote] to infect his ear\nWith pestilent speeches of his father's[footnote]Polonius's.[\/footnote] death,\nWherein necessity, of matter beggared,\n2830<\/sub>Will nothing stick our person to arraign\nIn ear and ear.[footnote]In which business, since they are unprovided with accurate information and yet long for some plausible explanation, they will not hesitate to whisper insinuations about me, their king.[\/footnote] O my dear Gertrude, this,\nLike to a murd'ring piece, in many places\nGives me superfluous death.[footnote]Kills me over and over.[\/footnote]\nA noise within.<\/em>\nEnter a Messenger.<\/em>\n\n2835<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nAlack, what noise is this?\n\nKing<\/strong>\nWhere are my Switzers?[footnote]Where are my Swiss guards, mercenaries. Swiss mercenaries were often employed as personal guards in the courts of Europe, as today, ceremonially, at the Vatican in Rome.[\/footnote] Let them guard the door.\nWhat is the matter?\n\nMessenger<\/strong>\nSave yourself, my lord!\nThe ocean, overpeering of his list,[footnote]Overflowing (literally, rising above and looking over) its shore or boundary.[\/footnote]\n2840<\/sub>Eats not the flats[footnote]Low-lying lands near shore.[\/footnote] with more impiteous[footnote]Violent, unrelenting, merciless.[\/footnote] haste\nThan young Laertes, in a riotous head,\nO'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord,\nAnd, as the world were now but to begin,\nAntiquity forgot, custom not known,\n2845<\/sub>The ratifiers and props of every word,[footnote]And, as if the world were to begin all over again, utterly neglecting all ancient traditional customs that should confirm and underprop everything that we say and promise.[\/footnote]\nThey cry, \"Choose we! Laertes shall be king!\"\nCaps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds:\n\"Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!\"\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nHow cheerfully on the false trail they cry![footnote]Bay loudly. (Said of hunting dogs.)[\/footnote]\nA noise within.\n2850<\/sub>Oh, this is counter,[footnote]Following a contrary or false scent. (The metaphor is from hunting game.)[\/footnote] you false Danish dogs!\n\nKing<\/strong>\nThe doors are broke.\nEnter Laertes with others.<\/em>\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nWhere is this king?--Sirs,[footnote]\"Sirs\" is a standard form of address to commoners.[\/footnote] stand you all without.[footnote]Outside.[\/footnote]\n\nAll<\/strong>[footnote]Laertes's followers.[\/footnote]\nNo, let's come in.\n\n2855<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>\nI pray you, give me leave.[footnote]i.e., leave matters to me, let me converse with the King alone.[\/footnote]\n\nAll<\/strong>\nWe will, we will.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nI thank you. Keep[footnote]Guard.[\/footnote] the door.\n[Exeunt followers.]<\/em>\nO thou vile king,\nGive me my father!\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nCalmly, good Laertes.\n\n2860<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>\nThat drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,\nCries \"Cuckold!\" to my father, brands the harlot\nEven here between the chaste unsmirch\u00e8d brow\nOf my true mother.\n\n2865<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nWhat is the cause, Laertes,\nThat thy rebellion looks so giant-like?--[footnote]Claudius may be thinking of the unsuccessful rebellion of the Giants against Zeus and the Olympian gods in Greek mythology.[\/footnote]\nLet him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.[footnote]Fear for my personal safety.[\/footnote]\nThere's such divinity doth hedge[footnote]That protects, surrounds defensively.[\/footnote] a king\nThat treason can but peep to what it would,[footnote]Can only peep furtively, as though a barrier, at what it wishes to accomplish.[\/footnote]\n2870<\/sub>Acts little of his will.[footnote]But performs little of what it intends.[\/footnote]--Tell me, Laertes,\nWhy thou art thus incensed?--Let him go, Gertrude.--\nSpeak, man.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nWhere is my father?\n\nKing<\/strong>\nDead.\n\n2875<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nBut not by him.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nLet him demand his fill.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nHow came he dead? I'll not be juggled with.[footnote]Deceived, played with.[\/footnote]\nTo hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!\nConscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!\n2880<\/sub>I dare damnation. To this point I stand,[footnote]I am resolved in this.[\/footnote]\nThat both the worlds I give to negligence,[footnote]That I disregard the consequences of my actions both in this world and in the life to come.[\/footnote]\nLet come what comes, only I'll be revenged\nMost throughly[footnote]Thoroughly.[\/footnote] for my father.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nWho shall stay[footnote]Prevent, hinder.[\/footnote] you?\n\n2885<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>\nMy will, not all the world's.[footnote]I will cease when my will is accomplished, not for anyone else's.[\/footnote]\nAnd for my means, I'll husband[footnote]Manage prudently and economically.[\/footnote] them so well\nThey shall go far with little.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nGood Laertes,\nIf you desire to know the certainty\n2890<\/sub>Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge\nThat, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,[footnote]i.e., is it set down in and required by your need for revenge that you will sweep up friend and foe indiscriminately, like a gambler in a sweepstake, winning all the stakes on the gambling table.[\/footnote]\nWinner and loser?\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nNone but his enemies,\n\nKing<\/strong>\nWill you know them, then?\n\n2895<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>\nTo his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms,\nAnd, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,\nRepast them with my blood.[footnote]The female pelican was popularly imagined to feed its young with its own blood. (\"Repast\" means \"feed.\")[\/footnote]\n\nKing<\/strong>\nWhy, now you speak\nLike a good child and a true gentleman.\n2900<\/sub>That I am guiltless of your father's death,\nAnd am most sensibly in grief[footnote]Grief-stricken.[\/footnote] for it,\nIt shall as level[footnote]Straightforward, plain.[\/footnote] to your judgment 'pear[footnote]Appear.[\/footnote]\nAs day does to your eye.\nA noise within.<\/em>\n\n[Voices Within]<\/strong>\nLet her come in!\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nHow now, what noise is that?\n2905<\/sub>Enter Ophelia, as before.<\/em>\nO heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt\nBurn out the sense and virtue[footnote]Function, power.[\/footnote] of mine eye!\nBy heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight[footnote]Avenged with equal gravity.[\/footnote]\n2910<\/sub>Till our scale turns the beam.[footnote]Until our cause of justice outweighs, as in a balance scales, the wrongful deed of the offender. A Senecan commonplace, that revenge must outdo the original offense.[\/footnote] O rose of May,\nDear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!\nO heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits\nShould be as mortal as an old man's life?\nNature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine\n2915<\/sub>It sends some precious instance of itself\nAfter the thing it loves.[footnote]Human nature's sensitivity in matters of love is such that it sends some precious part of itself after a lost object of that love. (In this case, Ophelia's sanity has deserted her under the burden of grief for her dead father.)[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\n[Song.]<\/em>\nThey bore him bare-faced[footnote]In an open coffin.[\/footnote] on the bier,[footnote]A litter on which a corpse or coffin is carried.[\/footnote]\nHey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,\nAnd on his grave rained many a tear.\n2920<\/sub>Fare you well, my dove.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nHadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade[footnote]Argue for, urge.[\/footnote] revenge,\nIt could not move thus.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nYou must sing \"a-down, a-down,\" an[footnote]If.[\/footnote] you call him \"a-down-a.\"[footnote]Ophelia madly assigns to those present the singing of the refrain to her song.[\/footnote] Oh, how the\n2925<\/sub>wheel[footnote]Perhaps Ophelia imagines a spinning wheel, where women might sit and work as they sang; or Fortune's wheel.[\/footnote] becomes it!It is the false steward[footnote]The story is unknown, but false stewards do sometimes steal their masters' daughters in romance tales. Perhaps Ophelia is madly fantasizing about her father's uneasy fear that Hamlet might in effect steal her away by seducing her.[\/footnote] that stole his master's daughter.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nThis nothing's more than matter.[footnote]Ophelia's ravings are more eloquent than ordinary sane utterance.[\/footnote]\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nThere's rosemary; that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there\nis pansies; that's for thoughts.\n\n2930<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>\nA document[footnote]Object lesson.[\/footnote] in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\nThere's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some\n2935<\/sub>for me; we may call it herb of grace o'Sundays. You may wear your rue\nwith a difference. There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they\nwithered all when my father died. They say 'a made a good end.[footnote]Rosemary, used as a symbol of remembrance at weddings and funerals, is aptly suited to Laertes and to Ophelia herself as wedded offspring of Polonius; pansies for thoughts (compare the French pens\u00e9es) are appropriate to courtship and love, or to remembering a dead father; fennel, associated with dissembling flattery, and columbines with marital infidelity and ingratitude, may apply to Claudius and Gertrude, though also to Ophelia's own sad story; rue, a bitter-tasting medicinal plant, betokens remorse and repentance, as indicated by its popular name, \"herb of grace\"; the daisy is conversely the flower of love and of amorous dissembling; and violets signify fidelity, the opposite of columbines. Ophelia may distribute these herbs to her listeners in a symbolically appropriate way. The text is unclear in most instances as to how Ophelia distributes the flowers to those who are with her, but one possibility is that Rosemary and pansies are for Laertes, fennel and columbine for the Queen, rue for Ophelia herself, the daisy and violets for the King.[\/footnote]\n[She sings.] <\/em>For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.[footnote]This appears to be from a song that is now lost.[\/footnote]\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nThought and afflictions,[footnote]Melancholy, sad thoughts.[\/footnote] passion,[footnote]Suffering.[\/footnote] hell itself\n2940<\/sub>She turns to favor[footnote]Grace, beauty.[\/footnote] and to prettiness.\n\nOphelia<\/strong>\n[Song.]<\/em>\nAnd will 'a not come again?\nAnd will 'a not come again?\nNo, no, he is dead,\nGo to thy deathbed,\nHe never will come again.\n2945<\/sub>His beard was as white as snow,\nAll flaxen was his poll.[footnote]His head of hair was as white as flax.[\/footnote]\nHe is gone, he is gone,\nAnd we cast away moan.[footnote]We loudly but unavailingly proclaim our grief.[\/footnote]\nGod 'a' mercy[footnote]God have mercy.[\/footnote] on his soul!\nAnd of all Christian souls, I pray God.\n2950<\/sub>God b'wi' you!\nExeunt Ophelia [and the Queen, following her.]<\/em>\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nDo you see this, O God?\n\nKing<\/strong>\nLaertes, I must commune with your grief,\nOr you deny me right. Go but apart,[footnote]Withdraw with me to some other place where we can talk privately.[\/footnote]\nMake choice of whom your[footnote]Of whichever of.[\/footnote] wisest friends you will,\n2955<\/sub>And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.\nIf by direct or by collateral hand[footnote]Indirect agency.[\/footnote]\nThey find us touched,[footnote]Me implicated.[\/footnote] we will our kingdom give,\nOur crown, our life, and all that we call ours\nTo you in satisfaction;[footnote]Recompense.[\/footnote] but if not,\n2960<\/sub>Be you content to lend your patience to us,\nAnd we shall jointly labor with your soul\nTo give it due content.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nLet this be so.\nHis means of death, his obscure burial--\n2965<\/sub>No trophy, sword, nor hatchment[footnote]Memorial display, sword betokening knightly prowess, or tablet displaying the coat of arms of the deceased.[\/footnote] o'er his bones,\nNo noble rite, nor formal ostentation--[footnote]Ceremony.[\/footnote]\nCry to be heard as 'twere from heaven to earth,\nThat I must call't in question.[footnote]So that I must demand an explanation for that.[\/footnote]\n\nKing<\/strong>\nSo you shall,\n2970<\/sub>And where th'offense is, let the great ax fall.\nI pray you go with me.\nExeunt.<\/em>\n

Scene 6<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]Location: The castle, or possibly in Horatio's lodgings.[\/footnote] Horatio, with an Attendant [i.e., Servingman].<\/em>\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nWhat[footnote]What sort of men; who.[\/footnote] are they that would speak with me?\n\nServingman<\/strong>\nSailors, sir. They say they have letters[footnote]A letter.[\/footnote] for you.\n\n2975<\/sub>Horatio<\/strong>\nLet them come in.\n[Exit Servingman.]<\/em>\nI do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.\nEnter Sailors.<\/em>\n\nSailor<\/strong>\nGod bless you, sir.\n\n2980<\/sub>Horatio<\/strong>\nLet him bless thee too.\n\nSailor<\/strong>\n'A shall, sir, an't[footnote]If it.[\/footnote] please him. There's a letter for you, sir. It comes from\nth'ambassador[footnote]i.e., comes from Hamlet.[\/footnote] that was bound for England, if your name be Horatio, as I\nam let to know[footnote]Led or permitted to believe.[\/footnote] it is.\n[He gives a letter.]<\/em>\n\nHoratio<\/strong>\nReads the letter.<\/em>\n\nHoratio, when thou shalt have overlooked[footnote]Looked over, read.[\/footnote] this, give these fellows some\nmeans[footnote]Means of access.[\/footnote] to the King; they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old\nat sea,[footnote]Had been at sea for two days.[\/footnote] a pirate[footnote]Pirate ship.[\/footnote] of very warlike appointment[footnote]Equipment.[\/footnote] gave us chase. Finding\n2990<\/sub>ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valor, and in the grapple[footnote]And during the action in which the pirate ship bound us, its intended victim, to the attacking vessel by means of grappling irons to facilitate close combat.[\/footnote]\nI boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship, so I alone\nbecame their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy,[footnote]Merciful thieves.[\/footnote]\nbut they knew what they did:[footnote]i.e., they understood that I would be able to help them in return for their assisting me.<\/sub>[\/footnote] I am to do a good turn for them. Let the\n2995<\/sub>King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou[footnote]Come.[\/footnote] to me with as much\nhaste as thou wouldest fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will\nmake thee dumb, yet are they much too light for the bore[footnote]Calibre, size, importance.[\/footnote] of the matter.\nThese good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and\n3000<\/sub>Guildenstern hold their course for England. Of them I have much to tell\nthee. Farewell. He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet.\n\nCome, I will give you way[footnote]Means of access for delivery.[\/footnote] for these your letters,\nAnd do't the speedier that you may direct me\n3005<\/sub>To him from whom you brought them.\nExeunt.<\/em>\n

Scene 7<\/h1>\nEnter<\/em>[footnote]Location: The King's private apartments in the castle.[\/footnote] King and Laertes.<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nNow must your conscience my acquittance seal,[footnote]Confirm my release from a suspicion of having been guilty of Polonius's death.[\/footnote]\nAnd you must put me in your heart for friend,\nSith[footnote]Since.[\/footnote] you have heard, and with a knowing ear,\n3010<\/sub>That he which hath your noble father slain\nPursued my life.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nIt well appears. But tell me\nWhy you proceeded not against these feats[footnote]Acts.[\/footnote]\nSo crimeful[footnote]Punishable by death.[\/footnote] and so capital in nature,\n3015<\/sub>As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else,\nYou mainly[footnote]Greatly.[\/footnote] were stirred up.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nOh for two special reasons,\nWhich may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed,[footnote]Weak, lacking sinew.[\/footnote]\nAnd yet to me they're strong. The Queen his mother\n3020<\/sub>Lives almost by his looks, and for myself--\nMy virtue or my plague, be it either which--[footnote]Whichever it may be. Claudius sees his passionate attachment to Gertrude as either an admirable thing or a sign of weakness.[\/footnote]\nShe's so conjunctive[footnote]She is so closely united. (A metaphor from astronomy; two or more celestial bodies meeting or passing in the same degree of the zodiac are said to be in conjunction.)[\/footnote] to my life and soul\nThat, as the star moves not but in his[footnote]Its. (The Ptolemaic astronomical concept here is of the planets revolving around the earth in concentric spheres or transparent globes.)[\/footnote] sphere,\nI could not but by her. The other motive\n3025<\/sub>Why to a public count[footnote]Accounting, indictment.[\/footnote] I might not go\nIs the great love the general gender[footnote]Common people.[\/footnote] bear him,\nWho, dipping all his faults in their affection,[footnote]i.e., Who, testing all his faults by the forgiving standard of their affection for him.[\/footnote]\nWould, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,[footnote]Like a spring water with such a heavy concentration of lime that it can in effect petrify a piece of wood and thus make it more perfect and unflawed.[\/footnote]\nConvert his gyves[footnote]Fetters; here signifying \"crimes,\" \"faults.\"[\/footnote] to graces, so that my arrows,\n3030<\/sub>Too slightly timbered for so loud a wind,[footnote]Provided with too slight a shaft of wood to be able to cope with so mighty a gust of popular opposition.[\/footnote]\nWould have reverted to my bow again,\nAnd not where I had aimed them.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nAnd so have I a noble father lost,\nA sister driven into desp'rate terms,[footnote]Condition, circumstances.[\/footnote]\n3035<\/sub>Whose worth, if praises may go back again,[footnote]Can recall what she once was.[\/footnote]\nStood challenger on mount of all the age\nFor her perfections.[footnote]Stood like a supreme challenger daring the world to match her perfections.[\/footnote] But my revenge will come.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nBreak not your sleeps for that. You must not think\n3040<\/sub>That we are made of stuff so flat and dull\nThat we can let our beard be shook with danger[footnote]That I would allow anyone to threaten and insult me with shaking or plucking my beard. Plucking or disparaging a beard was considered a grave insult.[\/footnote]\nAnd think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.\nI loved your father, and we love ourself,\nAnd that, I hope, will teach you to imagine--\n3045<\/sub>Enter a Messenger with letters.\n<\/em>How now? What news?\n\nMessenger<\/strong>\nLetters, my lord, from Hamlet.\nThis to your majesty, this to the Queen.\n[He gives letters.]<\/em>\n\nKing<\/strong>\nFrom Hamlet! Who brought them?\n\n3050<\/sub>Messenger<\/strong>\nSailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not.\nThey were given me by Claudio. He received them.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nLaertes, you shall hear them. [To the Messenger]<\/em> Leave us.\nExit Messenger.<\/em>\n[He reads.]<\/em>\n\n3055<\/sub>High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked[footnote]Unarmed; without possessions or followers.[\/footnote] on your\nkingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes, when I\nshall first, asking your pardon thereunto,[footnote]i.e., your pardon for having returned without permission. Hamlet writes sardonically, with mock politeness.[\/footnote] recount the occasion of my\nsudden and more strange return. Hamlet.\n\nWhat should this mean? Are all the rest come back?\n3060<\/sub>Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?[footnote]Or is it a deception, and not at all what the letter says.[\/footnote]\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nKnow you the hand?\n\nKing<\/strong>\n'Tis Hamlet's character.[footnote]Handwriting, style.[\/footnote] \"Naked!\"\nAnd in a postscript here he says \"alone.\"\nCan you advise me?[footnote]Explain this to me.[\/footnote]\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nI am lost in it, my lord. But let him come.\n3065<\/sub>It warms the very sickness in my heart\nThat I shall live and tell him to his teeth\n\"Thus diddest thou.\"\n\nKing<\/strong>\nIf it be so, Laertes--\nAs how should it be so, how otherwise?--[footnote]i.e., How could it be true that Hamlet has returned, and yet could it be otherwise than true since we have this letter from him?[\/footnote]\nWill you be ruled by me?\n\n3070<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>\nAy, my lord,\nIf so you'll[footnote]Yes, my lord, so long as you will.[\/footnote] not o'errule me to a peace.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nTo thine own peace. If he be now returned\nAs checking at his voyage,[footnote]As one who has been diverted from his journey (like a falcon turning away from its intended quarry to fly at a chance bird).[\/footnote] and that[footnote]And if it is the case that.[\/footnote] he means\nNo more to undertake it, I will work him\nTo an exploit, now ripe in my device,[footnote]Devising.[\/footnote]\n3075<\/sub>Under the which he shall not choose but fall;[footnote]From which he cannot possibly escape.[\/footnote]\nAnd for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,\nBut even his mother shall uncharge the practice\nAnd call it accident.\n\n3078.1<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>\nMy lord, I will be ruled,\nThe rather if you could devise it so\nThat I might be the organ.[footnote]Agent, instrument.[\/footnote]\n\nKing<\/strong>\nIt falls right.\n3078.5<\/sub>You have been talked of since your travel much,\nAnd that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality\nWherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts[footnote]All your other admirable qualities.[\/footnote]\nDid not together pluck such envy from him\nAs did that one, and that, in my regard,\n3078.10<\/sub>Of the unworthiest siege.[footnote]Least worthy in rank of importance.[\/footnote]\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nWhat part is that, my lord?\n\nKing<\/strong>\nA very ribbon[footnote]i.e., decorative touch (one that is suitable to young men, flashy and handsome).[\/footnote] in the cap of youth,\nYet needful too, for youth no less becomes\nThe light and careless livery that it wears\n3078.15<\/sub>Than settled age his sables and his weeds\nImporting health and graveness.[footnote]Youth and stylishly informal dress suit each other admirably, just as rich fur-lined robes and other sober garments are well suited to the concern for good health and the grave dignity of men in advancing years.[\/footnote] Two months since\nHere was a gentleman of Normandy.\n3080<\/sub>I have seen myself, and served against, the French,\nAnd they can well on horseback,[footnote]Are skillful riders.[\/footnote] but this gallant[footnote]Dashing young man.[\/footnote]\nHad witchcraft in't;[footnote]In horsemanship.[\/footnote] he grew into his seat,\nAnd to such wondrous doing brought his horse\nAs had he been incorpsed and demi-natured\n3085<\/sub>With the brave beast.[footnote]As if he had become one body with the horse (like the fabled centaur, with the torso and legs of a horse and the head and arms of a man).[\/footnote] So far he passed my thought[footnote]Surpassed my expectation.[\/footnote]\nThat I in forgery of shapes and tricks[footnote]In my imagining what devices and feats might be possible (in horsemanship).[\/footnote]\nCome short of what he did.\n\nLartes<\/strong>\nA Norman[footnote]One who hails from Normandy.[\/footnote] was't?\n\nKing<\/strong>\nA Norman.\n\n3090<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>\nUpon my life, Lamord.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nThe very same.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nI know him well. He is the brooch[footnote]Ornament.[\/footnote] indeed\nAnd gem of all the nation.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nHe made confession of you,[footnote]He testified to and conceded your superior ability.[\/footnote]\n3095<\/sub>And gave you such a masterly report\nFor art and exercise in your defense,[footnote]With respect to your skill and practice in the art of self-defense.[\/footnote]\nAnd for your rapier most especially,\nThat he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed\nIf one could match you. Th'escrimers of their nation,\n3099.1<\/sub>He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye[footnote]Movement, defensive strategy, or visual acuity.[\/footnote]\nIf you opposed them.[footnote]The fencers (French: escrimeurs<\/em>) of Normandy, he swore, would be seen as having no grace or skill in fencing if compared with you as a fencing opponent.[\/footnote] Sir, this report of his\n3100<\/sub>Did Hamlet so envenom[footnote]Embitter, poison.[\/footnote] with his envy\nThat he could nothing do but wish and beg\nYour sudden coming o'er to play with him.[footnote]That you would quickly come from France and fence with him.[\/footnote]\nNow, out of this--\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nWhat out of this,[footnote]Why are you saying \"out of this\"?[\/footnote] my lord?\n\n3105<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nLaertes, was your father dear to you?\nOr are you like the painting of a sorrow,\nA face without a heart?\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nWhy ask you this?\n\nKing<\/strong>\nNot that I think you did not love your father,\n3110<\/sub>But that I know love is begun by time,[footnote]Comes into being at the right moment (and is subject to change).[\/footnote]\nAnd that I see, in passages of proof,[footnote]Circumstances that have tested that love.[\/footnote]\nTime qualifies[footnote]Weakens, moderates.[\/footnote] the spark and fire of it.\n3112.1<\/sub>There lives within the very flame of love\nA kind of wick or snuff[footnote]The charred end of the candlewick that needs occasional trimming to improve the light and reduce smoke. (Love is like a candle in that it consumes itself in its own ardor.)[\/footnote] that will abate it,\nAnd nothing is at a like goodness still,[footnote]Nothing remains always at a constant level of goodness.[\/footnote]\nFor goodness, growing to a pleurisy,[footnote]Excess, plethora. (Literally, an inflammation of the chest.) Pleurisy, occasionally spelled \"plurisy,\" was sometimes erroneously supposed to be derived from the Latin plus, pluris, \"more,\" thus suggesting here an excess of humors, one of the four bodily fluids.[\/footnote]\n3112.5<\/sub>Dies in his own too much.[footnote]Of its own excess.[\/footnote] That[footnote]That which.[\/footnote] we would do\nWe should do when we would, for this \"would\" changes\nAnd hath abatements[footnote]Diminutions.[\/footnote] and delays as many\nAs there are tongues, are hands, are accidents,[footnote]As there are tongues to dissuade, hands to prevent, and chance events to intervene.[\/footnote]\nAnd then this \"should\" is like a spendthrift's sigh,[footnote]The regretful sigh of one who has squandered his wealth. Alludes to the common belief that a sigh cost the heart a drop of blood.[\/footnote]\n3112.10<\/sub>That hurts by easing.[footnote]i.e., That costs the heart a drop of blood even while it affords emotional relief.[\/footnote] But to the quick of th'ulcer:[footnote]i.e., heart of the disease.[\/footnote]\nHamlet comes back. What would you undertake\nTo show yourself your father's son in deed\n3115<\/sub>More than in words?\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nTo cut his throat i'th' church.\n\nKing<\/strong>\nNo place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize.[footnote]Shield from punishment, by offering the shelter of the church. By custom, churches could provide offer sanctuary for those in need of shelter from the law for many criminal offenses. The King here argues that the demands of revenge should trump such a customary privilege; Laertes should be licensed to kill Hamlet, even inside a church.[\/footnote]\nRevenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,\nWill you do this:[footnote]If you will do this.[\/footnote] keep close[footnote]Remain out of sight.[\/footnote] within your chamber.\n3120<\/sub>Hamlet returned shall know you are come home.\nWe'll put on those shall[footnote]I will arrange for some people to.[\/footnote] praise your excellence\nAnd set a double varnish on the fame[footnote]And enhance the lustrous reputation.[\/footnote]\nThe Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine[footnote]Finally, in conclusion.[\/footnote] together,\nAnd wager on your heads. He being remiss,[footnote]Carelessly unwary.[\/footnote]\n3125<\/sub>Most generous,[footnote]Noble-minded.[\/footnote] and free from all contriving,\nWill not peruse the foils,[footnote]Fencing weapons, normally buttoned at the tip to prevent stabbing.[\/footnote] so that with ease,\nOr with a little shuffling, you may choose\nA sword unbated,[footnote]Not blunted by a button at its tip.[\/footnote] and in a pass of practice[footnote]Treacherous thrust instead of what should have been a conventional fencing move.[\/footnote]\nRequite him for your father.\n\n3130<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>\nI will do't,\nAnd for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.\nI bought an unction[footnote]Ointment.[\/footnote] of a mountebank[footnote]Quack, charlatan.[\/footnote]\nSo mortal that, but dip[footnote]So deadly that if one were merely to dip.[\/footnote] a knife in it,\nWhere it draws blood no cataplasm[footnote]Medicinal plaster or poultice.[\/footnote] so rare,[footnote]Excellent, distinctive; uncommon, seldom found.[\/footnote]\n3135<\/sub>Collected from all simples that have virtue[footnote]Composed of herbs with potent healing properties.[\/footnote]\nUnder the moon,[footnote]i.e., Anywhere on earth in the sublunary sphere beneath the moon.[\/footnote] can save the thing from death\nThat is but scratched withal. I'll touch my point\nWith this contagion, that if I gall[footnote]Graze, wound.[\/footnote] him slightly,\nIt may be death.\n\n3140<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nLets further think of this,\nWeigh what convenience both of time and means\nMay fit us to our shape.[footnote]To the roles we propose to act.[\/footnote] If this should fail,\nAnd that our drift look through our bad performance,[footnote]And if our intentions should be betrayed by our inept performance.[\/footnote]\n'Twere better not essayed.[footnote]Attempted.[\/footnote] Therefore this project\n3145<\/sub>Should have a back or second, that might hold\nIf this should blast in proof.[footnote]If this plot should come to grief (literally, blow up in our faces) when put to the test.[\/footnote] Soft,[footnote]Gently, wait a minute.[\/footnote] let me see.\nWe'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings--[footnote]Your respective skills.[\/footnote]\nI ha't![footnote]I have it, I have a plan.[\/footnote]\nWhen in your motion you are hot and dry--\nAs make your bouts more violent to that end--\n3150<\/sub>And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared[footnote]Offered.[\/footnote] him\nA chalice for the nonce,[footnote]A drinking cup just for this occasion.[\/footnote] whereon but sipping,\nIf he by chance escape your venomed stuck,[footnote]Sword thrust. Compare the fencing term stoccado.[\/footnote]\nOur purpose may hold there.\nEnter Queen.<\/em>\nHow [now], sweet queen?\n\n3155<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>\nOne woe doth tread upon another's heel,\nSo fast they follow. Your sister's drowned, Laertes.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nDrowned! Oh, where?\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nThere is a willow grows aslant a[footnote]Obliquely, across the.[\/footnote] brook\nThat shows his hoar leaves[footnote]Leaves with grey-white undersides. Willows were traditionally associated with mourning or unrequited love.[\/footnote] in the glassy stream.\n3160<\/sub>Therewith fantastic garlands did she make\nOf crowflowers,[footnote]Wild buttercups, bluebells, or ragged robins.[\/footnote] nettles, daisies, and long purples,[footnote]Early purple wild orchids. These flowers were often associated with fertility.[\/footnote]\nThat liberal[footnote]Free-speaking, hedonistic.[\/footnote] shepherds give a grosser name,[footnote]A more indecent name (such as \"dogstones\" or \"cullions,\" in reference to the testicle-shaped tubers of some of these flowers). \"Orchis\" also means \"testicle\" in Greek.[\/footnote]\nBut our cold[footnote]Chaste.[\/footnote] maids do dead men's fingers call them.\nThere on the pendent[footnote]Overhanging.[\/footnote] boughs her crownet weeds[footnote]Coronet-like garland of wild flowers. A coronet is literally a smaller or lesser crown, usually signifying a noble rank below that of royal majesty.[\/footnote]\n3165<\/sub>Clamb'ring to hang,[footnote]Persons forsaken in love traditionally hung garlands of this sort on willow trees.[\/footnote] an envious sliver[footnote]Malicious branch. Literally, a sliver is a twig.[\/footnote] broke,\nWhen down her weedy trophies[footnote]Her garland of wild flowers.[\/footnote] and herself\nFell in the weeping brook.[footnote]The brook, with its gently flowing water, is personified as weeping for Ophelia's distress.[\/footnote] Her clothes spread wide,\nAnd mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,\nWhich time[footnote]During which time.[\/footnote] she chanted snatches of old lauds,[footnote]Hymns.[\/footnote]\n3170<\/sub>As one incapable of[footnote]Lacking the ability to comprehend or do anything about.[\/footnote] her own distress,\nOr like a creature native and endued\nUnto that element.[footnote]Naturally adapted to a watery existence.[\/footnote] But long it could not be\nTill that[footnote]Until.[\/footnote] her garments, heavy with their drink,\nPulled the poor wretch[footnote]Here, as often, a term of endearment and pity.[\/footnote] from her melodious lay[footnote]Song.[\/footnote]\n3175<\/sub>To muddy death.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nAlas, then she is drowned.\n\nQueen<\/strong>\nDrowned, drowned.\n\nLaertes<\/strong>\nToo much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,\nAnd therefore I forbid my tears. But yet\n3180<\/sub>It is our trick; nature her custom holds,[footnote]Weeping is the natural and characteristic way for us humans to express grief; nature holds to her customary course.[\/footnote]\nLet shame say what it will. [He weeps.]<\/em> When these are gone,\nThe woman will be out.[footnote]When my tears are all shed, this womanly weakness in me will have run its course.[\/footnote] Adieu, my lord.\nI have a speech of fire that fain[footnote]Willingly, eagerly.[\/footnote] would blaze,\nBut that this folly douts[footnote]Douses, extinguishes.[\/footnote] it.\nExit.<\/em>\n\n3185<\/sub>King<\/strong>\nLet's follow, Gertrude.\nHow much I had to do to calm his rage!\nNow fear I this will give it start again;\nTherefore let's follow.\nExeunt.<\/em>","rendered":"

Hamlet<\/em> (Modern, Editor\u2019s Version). Internet Shakespeare Editions<\/a>. University of Victoria. Editor: David Bevington. Adapted by James Sexton.<\/p>\n

Scene 1<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[1]<\/sup><\/a> King, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nThere’s matter[2]<\/sup><\/a> in these sighs, these profound heaves.[3]<\/sup><\/a>
\nYou must translate;[4]<\/sup><\/a> ’tis fit we understand them.
\n2590<\/sub>Where is your son?<\/p>\n

2590.1<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\n[To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]<\/em> Bestow this place on us a little while.
\n[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]<\/em>
\nAh, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nWhat, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nMad as the sea and wind when both contend
\nWhich is the mightier. In his lawless fit,
\n2595<\/sub>Behind the arras hearing something stir,
\nWhips out his rapier, cries, “A rat, a rat!”
\nAnd in this brainish apprehension[5]<\/sup><\/a> kills
\nThe unseen good old man.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nOh, heavy[6]<\/sup><\/a> deed!
\n2600<\/sub>It had been so with us had we[7]<\/sup><\/a> been there.
\nHis liberty is full of threats to all–
\nTo you yourself, to us, to everyone.
\nAlas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?[8]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIt will be laid to us,[9]<\/sup><\/a> whose providence[10]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2605<\/sub>Should have kept short,[11]<\/sup><\/a> restrained, and out of haunt[12]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThis mad young man. But so much was our love,
\nWe would not understand what was most fit,
\nBut like the owner[13]<\/sup><\/a> of a foul disease,
\nTo keep it from divulging,[14]<\/sup><\/a> let[15]<\/sup><\/a> it feed
\n2610<\/sub>Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nTo draw apart the body he hath killed,
\nO’er whom his very madness, like some ore
\nAmong a mineral of metals base,
\nShows itself pure:[16]<\/sup><\/a> ‘a[17]<\/sup><\/a> weeps for what is done.<\/p>\n

2615<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nOh, Gertrude, come away!
\nThe sun no sooner shall the mountains touch
\nBut we will ship him hence, and this vile deed
\nWe must with all our majesty and skill
\nBoth countenance and excuse.[18]<\/sup><\/a>–Ho, Guildenstern!
\n2520<\/sub>Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em>
\nFriends both, go join you with some further aid.[19]<\/sup><\/a>
\nHamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
\nAnd from his mother’s closet[20]<\/sup><\/a> hath he dragged him.
\nGo seek him out, speak fair,[21]<\/sup><\/a> and bring the body
\n2625<\/sub>Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.
\nExit Gentlemen [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].<\/em>
\nCome, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends
\nTo let them know both what we mean to do
\nAnd what’s untimely done. So envious slander,
\n2628.1<\/sub>Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,
\nAs level as the cannon to his blank,
\nTransports his poisoned shot, may miss our name
\nAnd hit the woundless air.[22]<\/sup><\/a> Oh, come away!
\nMy soul is full of discord and dismay.
\nExeunt.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scene 2<\/h1>\n

2630<\/sub>Enter<\/em>[23]<\/sup><\/a> Hamlet.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nSafely stowed.<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern<\/strong>
\n[within]<\/em> Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nBut soft, what noise? Who calls on Hamlet? Oh, here they come.
\nEnter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.<\/em><\/p>\n

2635<\/sub>Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nWhat have you done, my lord, with the dead body?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nCompounded[24]<\/sup><\/a> it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nTell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence
\nAnd bear it to the chapel.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nDo not believe it.<\/p>\n

2640<\/sub>Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nBelieve what?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nThat I can keep your counsel and not mine own.[25]<\/sup><\/a> Besides, to be demanded of[26]<\/sup><\/a>
\na sponge, what replication[27]<\/sup><\/a> should be made by the son of a king?<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nTake you me for a sponge, my lord?<\/p>\n

2645<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAy, sir, that soaks up the King’s countenance,[28]<\/sup><\/a> his rewards, his authorities.[29]<\/sup><\/a>
\nBut such officers do the King best service in the end: he keeps them, like an
\nape in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed to be last swallowed.[30]<\/sup><\/a> When he
\n2650<\/sub>needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall
\nbe dry again.[31]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nI understand you not, my lord.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.[32]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\n2655<\/sub>My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the King.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nThe body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.[33]<\/sup><\/a> The King is a thing–<\/p>\n

Guildenstern<\/strong>
\nA thing, my lord?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n2660<\/sub>Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after![34]<\/sup><\/a>
\nExeunt.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scene 3<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[35]<\/sup><\/a> King, and two or three.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nI have sent to seek him and to find the body.
\nHow dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
\nYet must not we put the strong law on him;
\n2665<\/sub>He’s loved of the distracted multitude,[36]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWho like not in their judgment but their eyes,[37]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weighed,
\nBut ne’er the offense.[38]<\/sup><\/a> To bear all smooth and even,[39]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThis sudden sending him away must seem
\n2670<\/sub>Deliberate pause.[40]<\/sup><\/a> Diseases desperate grown
\nBy desperate appliance[41]<\/sup><\/a> are relieved,
\nOr not at all.
\nEnter Rosencrantz.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nHow now, what hath befall’n?[42]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nWhere the dead body is bestowed, my lord,
\n2675<\/sub>We cannot get from him.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nBut where is he?<\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nWithout,[43]<\/sup><\/a> my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nBring him before us.<\/p>\n

2680<\/sub>Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\n[Calling]<\/em> Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.
\nEnter Hamlet and Guildenstern [with Guards].<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nNow Hamlet, where’s Polonius?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nAt supper.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nAt supper? Where?<\/p>\n

2685<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNot where he eats, but where ‘a is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms
\nare e’en[44]<\/sup><\/a> at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet.[45]<\/sup><\/a>[46]<\/sup><\/a> We fat all
\ncreatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and
\n2690<\/sub>your lean beggar is but variable service:[47]<\/sup><\/a> two dishes but to one table.[48]<\/sup><\/a> That’s the
\nend.<\/p>\n

2690.1<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nAlas, alas!<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nA man may fish with the worm that hath eat[49]<\/sup><\/a> of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nWhat dost thou mean by this?<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nNothing but to show you how a king may go a progress[50]<\/sup><\/a> through the guts of a beggar.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nWhere is Polonius?<\/p>\n

2695<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nIn heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek
\nhim i’th’ other place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within this month, you
\nshall nose[51]<\/sup><\/a> him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\n[To some attendants]<\/em>[52]<\/sup><\/a> Go seek him there.<\/p>\n

2700<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\n‘A will stay till you come.
\n[Exeunt attendants.]<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nHamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety–
\nWhich we do tender,[53]<\/sup><\/a> as we dearly[54]<\/sup><\/a> grieve
\nFor that which thou hast done–must send thee hence
\nWith fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.
\n2705<\/sub>The bark[55]<\/sup><\/a> is ready, and the wind at help,
\nTh’associates tend,[56]<\/sup><\/a> and everything is bent[57]<\/sup><\/a>
\nFor England.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nFor England!<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nAy, Hamlet.<\/p>\n

2710<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nGood.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nSo is it if thou knew’st our purposes.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI see a cherub[58]<\/sup><\/a> that sees them. But come, for England! Farewell, dear mother.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nThy loving father, Hamlet.<\/p>\n

2715<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nMy mother. Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh,[59]<\/sup><\/a>
\nand so, my mother. Come, for England!
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nFollow him at foot.[60]<\/sup><\/a> Tempt[61]<\/sup><\/a> him with speed aboard.
\n2720<\/sub>Delay it not. I’ll have him hence tonight.
\nAway! For everything is sealed and done
\nThat else leans on th’affair.[62]<\/sup><\/a> Pray you, make haste.
\nExeunt all but the King.
\nAnd England, if my love thou hold’st at aught,
\nAs my great power thereof may give thee sense,
\n2725<\/sub>Since yet thy cicatrice[63]<\/sup><\/a> looks raw and red
\nAfter the Danish sword, and thy free awe[64]<\/sup><\/a>
\nPays homage to us, thou mayst not coldly set[65]<\/sup><\/a>
\nOur sovereign process,[66]<\/sup><\/a> which imports at full[67]<\/sup><\/a>
\nBy letters congruing[68]<\/sup><\/a> to that effect
\n2730<\/sub>The present[69]<\/sup><\/a> death of Hamlet. Do it, England,
\nFor like the hectic[70]<\/sup><\/a> in my blood he rages,
\nAnd thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done,
\nHowe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.[71]<\/sup><\/a>
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scene 4<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[72]<\/sup><\/a> Fortinbras [and a Captain] with his army over the stage.<\/em>[73]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

2735<\/sub>Fortinbras<\/strong>
\nGo, captain, from me greet the Danish King.
\nTell him that by his license[74]<\/sup><\/a> Fortinbras
\nCraves the conveyance[75]<\/sup><\/a> of a promised march
\nOver his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
\nIf[76]<\/sup><\/a> that his majesty would aught with us,[77]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2740<\/sub>We shall express our duty in his eye;[78]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd let him know so.<\/p>\n

Captain<\/strong>
\nI will do’t, my lord.<\/p>\n

Fortinbras<\/strong>
\n[To his soldiers]<\/em> Go softly on.[79]<\/sup><\/a>
\n[Exeunt all but the Captain.]<\/em>
\n2743.1<\/sub>Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] etc.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\n[To the Captain]<\/em> Good sir, whose powers[80]<\/sup><\/a> are these?<\/p>\n

Captain<\/strong>
\nThey are of Norway, sir.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nHow purposed, sir, I pray you?<\/p>\n

2743.5<\/sub>Captain<\/strong>
\nAgainst some part of Poland.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWho commands them, sir?<\/p>\n

Captain<\/strong>
\nThe nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nGoes it[81]<\/sup><\/a> against the main[82]<\/sup><\/a> of Poland, sir,
\nOr for some frontier?<\/p>\n

2743.10<\/sub>Captain<\/strong>
\nTruly to speak, and with no addition,[83]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWe go to gain a little patch of ground
\nThat hath in it no profit but the name.[84]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTo pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it,[85]<\/sup><\/a>
\nNor will it yield to Norway or the Pole[86]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2743.15<\/sub>A ranker[87]<\/sup><\/a> rate, should it be sold in fee.[88]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nWhy then the Polack[89]<\/sup><\/a> never will defend it.<\/p>\n

Captain<\/strong>
\nYes, it is already garrisoned.<\/p>\n

Hamlet<\/strong>
\nTwo thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
\nWill not debate the question of this straw.[90]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2743.20<\/sub>This is th’impostume[91]<\/sup><\/a> of much wealth and peace,
\nThat inward breaks,[92]<\/sup><\/a> and shows no cause without[93]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhy the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.<\/p>\n

Captain<\/strong>
\nGod b’wi’ you, sir.
\n[Exit.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Rosencrantz<\/strong>
\nWill’t please you go, my lord?<\/p>\n

2743.25<\/sub>Hamlet<\/strong>
\nI’ll be with you straight.[94]<\/sup><\/a> Go a little before.
\n[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]<\/em>
\nHow all occasions do inform against[95]<\/sup><\/a> me,
\nAnd spur my dull revenge! What is a man
\nIf his chief good and market[96]<\/sup><\/a> of his time
\nBe but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
\n2743.30<\/sub>Sure he that made us with such large discourse,[97]<\/sup><\/a>
\nLooking before and after,[98]<\/sup><\/a> gave us not
\nThat capability and godlike reason
\nTo fust[99]<\/sup><\/a> in us unused. Now, whether it be
\nBestial oblivion,[100]<\/sup><\/a> or some craven[101]<\/sup><\/a> scruple
\n2743.35<\/sub>Of thinking too precisely on th’event–[102]<\/sup><\/a>
\nA thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom
\nAnd ever three parts coward–I do not know
\nWhy yet I live to say this thing’s to do,[103]<\/sup><\/a>
\nSith[104]<\/sup><\/a> I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
\n2743.40<\/sub>To do’t. Examples gross[105]<\/sup><\/a> as earth exhort me.
\nWitness this army of such mass and charge,[106]<\/sup><\/a>
\nLed by a delicate and tender[107]<\/sup><\/a> prince,
\nWhose spirit with divine ambition puffed[108]<\/sup><\/a>
\nMakes mouths[109]<\/sup><\/a> at the invisible event,
\n2743.45<\/sub>Exposing what is mortal and unsure
\nTo all that fortune, death, and danger dare,[110]<\/sup><\/a>
\nEven for an eggshell.[111]<\/sup><\/a> Rightly to be great
\nIs not to stir without great argument,
\nBut greatly to find quarrel in a straw
\n2743.50<\/sub>When honor’s at the stake.[112]<\/sup><\/a> How stand I, then,
\nThat have a father killed, a mother stained,
\nExcitements of my reason and my blood,[113]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd let[114]<\/sup><\/a> all sleep, while to my shame I see
\nThe imminent death of twenty thousand men
\n2743.55<\/sub>That for a fantasy and trick of fame[115]<\/sup><\/a>
\nGo to their graves like beds, fight for a plot[116]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhereon the numbers cannot try the cause,[117]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhich is not tomb enough and continent[118]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTo hide the slain? Oh, from this time forth,
\n2743.60<\/sub>My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scene 5<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[119]<\/sup><\/a> Queen and Horatio.<\/em><\/p>\n

2745<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nI will not speak with her.<\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nShe is importunate,
\nIndeed, distract.[120]<\/sup><\/a> Her mood will needs be pitied.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nWhat would she have?<\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nShe speaks much of her father, says she hears
\n2750<\/sub>There’s tricks[121]<\/sup><\/a> i’th’ world, and hems,[122]<\/sup><\/a> and beats her heart,[123]<\/sup><\/a>
\nSpurns enviously at straws,[124]<\/sup><\/a> speaks things in doubt[125]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
\nYet the unshap\u00e8d use[126]<\/sup><\/a> of it doth move
\nThe hearers to collection;[127]<\/sup><\/a> they yawn[128]<\/sup><\/a> at it,
\n2755<\/sub>And botch[129]<\/sup><\/a> the words up fit to[130]<\/sup><\/a> their own thoughts,
\nWhich,[131]<\/sup><\/a> as her winks and nods and gestures yield[132]<\/sup><\/a> them,
\nIndeed would make one think there might be thought,
\nThough nothing sure, yet much unhappily.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\n‘Twere good she were spoken with,
\n2760<\/sub>For she may strew dangerous conjectures
\nIn ill-breeding[133]<\/sup><\/a> minds. Let her come in.
\n[Horatio withdraws to admit Ophelia.]
\n<\/em>[Aside]<\/em> To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is,[134]<\/sup><\/a>
\nEach toy[135]<\/sup><\/a> seems prologue to some great amiss.[136]<\/sup><\/a>
\nSo full of artless jealousy is guilt,
\n2765<\/sub>It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.[137]<\/sup><\/a>
\nEnter Ophelia distracted, playing on a lute, and her hair down, singing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nWhere is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nHow now,[138]<\/sup><\/a> Ophelia?<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\n[She sings.]<\/em>[139]<\/sup><\/a>
\nHow should I your true love know
\nFrom another one?
\n2770<\/sub>By his cockle hat[140]<\/sup><\/a> and staff,
\nAnd his sandal shoon.[141]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nAlas, sweet lady, what imports[142]<\/sup><\/a> this song?<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nSay you? Nay, pray you, mark.[143]<\/sup><\/a>
\n[Song.]<\/em>
\nHe is dead and gone, lady,
\nHe is dead and gone.
\nAt his head a grass-green turf,
\nAt his heels a stone.[144]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2774.1<\/sub>Oho![145]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nNay, but Ophelia–<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nPray you, mark.
\n[Song.]<\/em>
\nWhite his shroud as the mountain snow–
\n2775<\/sub>Enter King.<\/em><\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nAlas, look here, my lord.<\/p>\n

2780<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>
\n[Song.]<\/em>
\nLarded[146]<\/sup><\/a> with sweet flowers,
\nWhich bewept to the grave did not go
\nWith true-love showers.[147]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nHow do you, pretty lady?<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\n2785<\/sub>Well God’ield you.[148]<\/sup><\/a> They say the owl was a baker’s daughter.[149]<\/sup><\/a> Lord, we know
\nwhat we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nConceit[150]<\/sup><\/a> upon her father.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nPray you, let’s have no words of this, but when they ask you what it means,
\nsay you this:
\n2790<\/sub>[Song.]<\/em>[151]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day,[152]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAll in the morning betime,[153]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd I a maid at your window
\nTo be your Valentine.
\nThen up he rose, and donned his clothes
\nAnd dupped[154]<\/sup><\/a> the chamber door,
\nLet in the maid, that out a maid
\nNever departed more.[155]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nPretty Ophelia–<\/p>\n

2795<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>
\nIndeed, la? Without an oath I’ll make an end on’t.[156]<\/sup><\/a>
\n[Song.]<\/em>
\nBy Gis and by Saint Charity,[157]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAlack, and fie for shame!
\nYoung men will do’t if they come to’t;
\nBy Cock,[158]<\/sup><\/a> they are to blame.
\n2800<\/sub>Quoth she, “Before you tumbled me,
\nYou promised me to wed.”
\n2801.1<\/sub>He answers,
\n“So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
\nAn[159]<\/sup><\/a> thou hadst not come to my bed.”<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nHow long hath she been thus?<\/p>\n

2805<\/sub>Ophelia<\/strong>
\nI hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot choose but weep to
\nthink they would lay him i’th’ cold ground. My brother shall know of it. And
\nso I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies,
\n2810<\/sub>good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\n[To Horatio.]<\/em> Follow her close. Give her good watch, I pray you.
\n[Exit Horatio.]<\/em>
\nOh, this is the poison of deep grief! It springs
\nAll from her father’s
\ndeath, and now behold!
\nOh, Gertrude, Gertrude,
\n2815<\/sub>When sorrows come, they come not single spies
\nBut in battalions.[160]<\/sup><\/a> First, her father slain;
\nNext, your son gone, and he most violent author
\nOf his own just remove;[161]<\/sup><\/a> the people muddied,[162]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThick[163]<\/sup><\/a> and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
\n2820<\/sub>For good Polonius’ death, and we have done but greenly[164]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIn hugger-mugger[165]<\/sup><\/a> to inter him; poor Ophelia
\nDivided from herself and her fair judgment,
\nWithout the which we are pictures or mere beasts;
\nLast, and as much containing[166]<\/sup><\/a> as all these,
\n2825<\/sub>Her brother is in secret come from France,
\nFeeds on this wonder,[167]<\/sup><\/a> keeps himself in clouds,[168]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd wants not buzzers[169]<\/sup><\/a> to infect his ear
\nWith pestilent speeches of his father’s[170]<\/sup><\/a> death,
\nWherein necessity, of matter beggared,
\n2830<\/sub>Will nothing stick our person to arraign
\nIn ear and ear.[171]<\/sup><\/a> O my dear Gertrude, this,
\nLike to a murd’ring piece, in many places
\nGives me superfluous death.[172]<\/sup><\/a>
\nA noise within.<\/em>
\nEnter a Messenger.<\/em><\/p>\n

2835<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nAlack, what noise is this?<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nWhere are my Switzers?[173]<\/sup><\/a> Let them guard the door.
\nWhat is the matter?<\/p>\n

Messenger<\/strong>
\nSave yourself, my lord!
\nThe ocean, overpeering of his list,[174]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2840<\/sub>Eats not the flats[175]<\/sup><\/a> with more impiteous[176]<\/sup><\/a> haste
\nThan young Laertes, in a riotous head,
\nO’erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord,
\nAnd, as the world were now but to begin,
\nAntiquity forgot, custom not known,
\n2845<\/sub>The ratifiers and props of every word,[177]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThey cry, “Choose we! Laertes shall be king!”
\nCaps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds:
\n“Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!”<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nHow cheerfully on the false trail they cry![178]<\/sup><\/a>
\nA noise within.
\n2850<\/sub>Oh, this is counter,[179]<\/sup><\/a> you false Danish dogs!<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nThe doors are broke.
\nEnter Laertes with others.<\/em><\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nWhere is this king?–Sirs,[180]<\/sup><\/a> stand you all without.[181]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

All<\/strong>[182]<\/sup><\/a>
\nNo, let’s come in.<\/p>\n

2855<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>
\nI pray you, give me leave.[183]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

All<\/strong>
\nWe will, we will.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nI thank you. Keep[184]<\/sup><\/a> the door.
\n[Exeunt followers.]<\/em>
\nO thou vile king,
\nGive me my father!<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nCalmly, good Laertes.<\/p>\n

2860<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>
\nThat drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard,
\nCries “Cuckold!” to my father, brands the harlot
\nEven here between the chaste unsmirch\u00e8d brow
\nOf my true mother.<\/p>\n

2865<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nWhat is the cause, Laertes,
\nThat thy rebellion looks so giant-like?–[185]<\/sup><\/a>
\nLet him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.[186]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThere’s such divinity doth hedge[187]<\/sup><\/a> a king
\nThat treason can but peep to what it would,[188]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2870<\/sub>Acts little of his will.[189]<\/sup><\/a>–Tell me, Laertes,
\nWhy thou art thus incensed?–Let him go, Gertrude.–
\nSpeak, man.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nWhere is my father?<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nDead.<\/p>\n

2875<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nBut not by him.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nLet him demand his fill.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nHow came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with.[190]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTo hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!
\nConscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
\n2880<\/sub>I dare damnation. To this point I stand,[191]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat both the worlds I give to negligence,[192]<\/sup><\/a>
\nLet come what comes, only I’ll be revenged
\nMost throughly[193]<\/sup><\/a> for my father.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nWho shall stay[194]<\/sup><\/a> you?<\/p>\n

2885<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>
\nMy will, not all the world’s.[195]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd for my means, I’ll husband[196]<\/sup><\/a> them so well
\nThey shall go far with little.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nGood Laertes,
\nIf you desire to know the certainty
\n2890<\/sub>Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge
\nThat, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,[197]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWinner and loser?<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nNone but his enemies,<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nWill you know them, then?<\/p>\n

2895<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>
\nTo his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms,
\nAnd, like the kind life-rend’ring pelican,
\nRepast them with my blood.[198]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nWhy, now you speak
\nLike a good child and a true gentleman.
\n2900<\/sub>That I am guiltless of your father’s death,
\nAnd am most sensibly in grief[199]<\/sup><\/a> for it,
\nIt shall as level[200]<\/sup><\/a> to your judgment ‘pear[201]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAs day does to your eye.
\nA noise within.<\/em><\/p>\n

[Voices Within]<\/strong>
\nLet her come in!<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nHow now, what noise is that?
\n2905<\/sub>Enter Ophelia, as before.<\/em>
\nO heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt
\nBurn out the sense and virtue[202]<\/sup><\/a> of mine eye!
\nBy heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight[203]<\/sup><\/a>
\n2910<\/sub>Till our scale turns the beam.[204]<\/sup><\/a> O rose of May,
\nDear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
\nO heavens, is’t possible a young maid’s wits
\nShould be as mortal as an old man’s life?
\nNature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine
\n2915<\/sub>It sends some precious instance of itself
\nAfter the thing it loves.[205]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\n[Song.]<\/em>
\nThey bore him bare-faced[206]<\/sup><\/a> on the bier,[207]<\/sup><\/a>
\nHey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,
\nAnd on his grave rained many a tear.
\n2920<\/sub>Fare you well, my dove.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nHadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade[208]<\/sup><\/a> revenge,
\nIt could not move thus.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nYou must sing “a-down, a-down,” an[209]<\/sup><\/a> you call him “a-down-a.”[210]<\/sup><\/a> Oh, how the
\n2925<\/sub>wheel[211]<\/sup><\/a> becomes it!It is the false steward[212]<\/sup><\/a> that stole his master’s daughter.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nThis nothing’s more than matter.[213]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nThere’s rosemary; that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there
\nis pansies; that’s for thoughts.<\/p>\n

2930<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>
\nA document[214]<\/sup><\/a> in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\nThere’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some
\n2935<\/sub>for me; we may call it herb of grace o’Sundays. You may wear your rue
\nwith a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they
\nwithered all when my father died. They say ‘a made a good end.[215]<\/sup><\/a>
\n[She sings.] <\/em>For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.[216]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nThought and afflictions,[217]<\/sup><\/a> passion,[218]<\/sup><\/a> hell itself
\n2940<\/sub>She turns to favor[219]<\/sup><\/a> and to prettiness.<\/p>\n

Ophelia<\/strong>
\n[Song.]<\/em>
\nAnd will ‘a not come again?
\nAnd will ‘a not come again?
\nNo, no, he is dead,
\nGo to thy deathbed,
\nHe never will come again.
\n2945<\/sub>His beard was as white as snow,
\nAll flaxen was his poll.[220]<\/sup><\/a>
\nHe is gone, he is gone,
\nAnd we cast away moan.[221]<\/sup><\/a>
\nGod ‘a’ mercy[222]<\/sup><\/a> on his soul!
\nAnd of all Christian souls, I pray God.
\n2950<\/sub>God b’wi’ you!
\nExeunt Ophelia [and the Queen, following her.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nDo you see this, O God?<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nLaertes, I must commune with your grief,
\nOr you deny me right. Go but apart,[223]<\/sup><\/a>
\nMake choice of whom your[224]<\/sup><\/a> wisest friends you will,
\n2955<\/sub>And they shall hear and judge ‘twixt you and me.
\nIf by direct or by collateral hand[225]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThey find us touched,[226]<\/sup><\/a> we will our kingdom give,
\nOur crown, our life, and all that we call ours
\nTo you in satisfaction;[227]<\/sup><\/a> but if not,
\n2960<\/sub>Be you content to lend your patience to us,
\nAnd we shall jointly labor with your soul
\nTo give it due content.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nLet this be so.
\nHis means of death, his obscure burial–
\n2965<\/sub>No trophy, sword, nor hatchment[228]<\/sup><\/a> o’er his bones,
\nNo noble rite, nor formal ostentation–[229]<\/sup><\/a>
\nCry to be heard as ’twere from heaven to earth,
\nThat I must call’t in question.[230]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nSo you shall,
\n2970<\/sub>And where th’offense is, let the great ax fall.
\nI pray you go with me.
\nExeunt.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scene 6<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[231]<\/sup><\/a> Horatio, with an Attendant [i.e., Servingman].<\/em><\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nWhat[232]<\/sup><\/a> are they that would speak with me?<\/p>\n

Servingman<\/strong>
\nSailors, sir. They say they have letters[233]<\/sup><\/a> for you.<\/p>\n

2975<\/sub>Horatio<\/strong>
\nLet them come in.
\n[Exit Servingman.]<\/em>
\nI do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.
\nEnter Sailors.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sailor<\/strong>
\nGod bless you, sir.<\/p>\n

2980<\/sub>Horatio<\/strong>
\nLet him bless thee too.<\/p>\n

Sailor<\/strong>
\n‘A shall, sir, an’t[234]<\/sup><\/a> please him. There’s a letter for you, sir. It comes from
\nth’ambassador[235]<\/sup><\/a> that was bound for England, if your name be Horatio, as I
\nam let to know[236]<\/sup><\/a> it is.
\n[He gives a letter.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Horatio<\/strong>
\nReads the letter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked[237]<\/sup><\/a> this, give these fellows some
\nmeans[238]<\/sup><\/a> to the King; they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old
\nat sea,[239]<\/sup><\/a> a pirate[240]<\/sup><\/a> of very warlike appointment[241]<\/sup><\/a> gave us chase. Finding
\n2990<\/sub>ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valor, and in the grapple[242]<\/sup><\/a>
\nI boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship, so I alone
\nbecame their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy,[243]<\/sup><\/a>
\nbut they knew what they did:[244]<\/sup><\/a> I am to do a good turn for them. Let the
\n2995<\/sub>King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou[245]<\/sup><\/a> to me with as much
\nhaste as thou wouldest fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will
\nmake thee dumb, yet are they much too light for the bore[246]<\/sup><\/a> of the matter.
\nThese good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and
\n3000<\/sub>Guildenstern hold their course for England. Of them I have much to tell
\nthee. Farewell. He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet.<\/p>\n

Come, I will give you way[247]<\/sup><\/a> for these your letters,
\nAnd do’t the speedier that you may direct me
\n3005<\/sub>To him from whom you brought them.
\nExeunt.<\/em><\/p>\n

Scene 7<\/h1>\n

Enter<\/em>[248]<\/sup><\/a> King and Laertes.<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nNow must your conscience my acquittance seal,[249]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd you must put me in your heart for friend,
\nSith[250]<\/sup><\/a> you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
\n3010<\/sub>That he which hath your noble father slain
\nPursued my life.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nIt well appears. But tell me
\nWhy you proceeded not against these feats[251]<\/sup><\/a>
\nSo crimeful[252]<\/sup><\/a> and so capital in nature,
\n3015<\/sub>As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else,
\nYou mainly[253]<\/sup><\/a> were stirred up.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nOh for two special reasons,
\nWhich may to you perhaps seem much unsinewed,[254]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd yet to me they’re strong. The Queen his mother
\n3020<\/sub>Lives almost by his looks, and for myself–
\nMy virtue or my plague, be it either which–[255]<\/sup><\/a>
\nShe’s so conjunctive[256]<\/sup><\/a> to my life and soul
\nThat, as the star moves not but in his[257]<\/sup><\/a> sphere,
\nI could not but by her. The other motive
\n3025<\/sub>Why to a public count[258]<\/sup><\/a> I might not go
\nIs the great love the general gender[259]<\/sup><\/a> bear him,
\nWho, dipping all his faults in their affection,[260]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWould, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,[261]<\/sup><\/a>
\nConvert his gyves[262]<\/sup><\/a> to graces, so that my arrows,
\n3030<\/sub>Too slightly timbered for so loud a wind,[263]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWould have reverted to my bow again,
\nAnd not where I had aimed them.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nAnd so have I a noble father lost,
\nA sister driven into desp’rate terms,[264]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3035<\/sub>Whose worth, if praises may go back again,[265]<\/sup><\/a>
\nStood challenger on mount of all the age
\nFor her perfections.[266]<\/sup><\/a> But my revenge will come.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nBreak not your sleeps for that. You must not think
\n3040<\/sub>That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
\nThat we can let our beard be shook with danger[267]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.
\nI loved your father, and we love ourself,
\nAnd that, I hope, will teach you to imagine–
\n3045<\/sub>Enter a Messenger with letters.
\n<\/em>How now? What news?<\/p>\n

Messenger<\/strong>
\nLetters, my lord, from Hamlet.
\nThis to your majesty, this to the Queen.
\n[He gives letters.]<\/em><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nFrom Hamlet! Who brought them?<\/p>\n

3050<\/sub>Messenger<\/strong>
\nSailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not.
\nThey were given me by Claudio. He received them.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nLaertes, you shall hear them. [To the Messenger]<\/em> Leave us.
\nExit Messenger.<\/em>
\n[He reads.]<\/em><\/p>\n

3055<\/sub>High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked[268]<\/sup><\/a> on your
\nkingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes, when I
\nshall first, asking your pardon thereunto,[269]<\/sup><\/a> recount the occasion of my
\nsudden and more strange return. Hamlet.<\/p>\n

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
\n3060<\/sub>Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?[270]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nKnow you the hand?<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\n‘Tis Hamlet’s character.[271]<\/sup><\/a> “Naked!”
\nAnd in a postscript here he says “alone.”
\nCan you advise me?[272]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nI am lost in it, my lord. But let him come.
\n3065<\/sub>It warms the very sickness in my heart
\nThat I shall live and tell him to his teeth
\n“Thus diddest thou.”<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nIf it be so, Laertes–
\nAs how should it be so, how otherwise?–[273]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWill you be ruled by me?<\/p>\n

3070<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>
\nAy, my lord,
\nIf so you’ll[274]<\/sup><\/a> not o’errule me to a peace.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nTo thine own peace. If he be now returned
\nAs checking at his voyage,[275]<\/sup><\/a> and that[276]<\/sup><\/a> he means
\nNo more to undertake it, I will work him
\nTo an exploit, now ripe in my device,[277]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3075<\/sub>Under the which he shall not choose but fall;[278]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
\nBut even his mother shall uncharge the practice
\nAnd call it accident.<\/p>\n

3078.1<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>
\nMy lord, I will be ruled,
\nThe rather if you could devise it so
\nThat I might be the organ.[279]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nIt falls right.
\n3078.5<\/sub>You have been talked of since your travel much,
\nAnd that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality
\nWherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts[280]<\/sup><\/a>
\nDid not together pluck such envy from him
\nAs did that one, and that, in my regard,
\n3078.10<\/sub>Of the unworthiest siege.[281]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nWhat part is that, my lord?<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nA very ribbon[282]<\/sup><\/a> in the cap of youth,
\nYet needful too, for youth no less becomes
\nThe light and careless livery that it wears
\n3078.15<\/sub>Than settled age his sables and his weeds
\nImporting health and graveness.[283]<\/sup><\/a> Two months since
\nHere was a gentleman of Normandy.
\n3080<\/sub>I have seen myself, and served against, the French,
\nAnd they can well on horseback,[284]<\/sup><\/a> but this gallant[285]<\/sup><\/a>
\nHad witchcraft in’t;[286]<\/sup><\/a> he grew into his seat,
\nAnd to such wondrous doing brought his horse
\nAs had he been incorpsed and demi-natured
\n3085<\/sub>With the brave beast.[287]<\/sup><\/a> So far he passed my thought[288]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat I in forgery of shapes and tricks[289]<\/sup><\/a>
\nCome short of what he did.<\/p>\n

Lartes<\/strong>
\nA Norman[290]<\/sup><\/a> was’t?<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nA Norman.<\/p>\n

3090<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>
\nUpon my life, Lamord.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nThe very same.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nI know him well. He is the brooch[291]<\/sup><\/a> indeed
\nAnd gem of all the nation.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nHe made confession of you,[292]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3095<\/sub>And gave you such a masterly report
\nFor art and exercise in your defense,[293]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd for your rapier most especially,
\nThat he cried out ‘twould be a sight indeed
\nIf one could match you. Th’escrimers of their nation,
\n3099.1<\/sub>He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye[294]<\/sup><\/a>
\nIf you opposed them.[295]<\/sup><\/a> Sir, this report of his
\n3100<\/sub>Did Hamlet so envenom[296]<\/sup><\/a> with his envy
\nThat he could nothing do but wish and beg
\nYour sudden coming o’er to play with him.[297]<\/sup><\/a>
\nNow, out of this–<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nWhat out of this,[298]<\/sup><\/a> my lord?<\/p>\n

3105<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nLaertes, was your father dear to you?
\nOr are you like the painting of a sorrow,
\nA face without a heart?<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nWhy ask you this?<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nNot that I think you did not love your father,
\n3110<\/sub>But that I know love is begun by time,[299]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd that I see, in passages of proof,[300]<\/sup><\/a>
\nTime qualifies[301]<\/sup><\/a> the spark and fire of it.
\n3112.1<\/sub>There lives within the very flame of love
\nA kind of wick or snuff[302]<\/sup><\/a> that will abate it,
\nAnd nothing is at a like goodness still,[303]<\/sup><\/a>
\nFor goodness, growing to a pleurisy,[304]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3112.5<\/sub>Dies in his own too much.[305]<\/sup><\/a> That[306]<\/sup><\/a> we would do
\nWe should do when we would, for this “would” changes
\nAnd hath abatements[307]<\/sup><\/a> and delays as many
\nAs there are tongues, are hands, are accidents,[308]<\/sup><\/a>
\nAnd then this “should” is like a spendthrift’s sigh,[309]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3112.10<\/sub>That hurts by easing.[310]<\/sup><\/a> But to the quick of th’ulcer:[311]<\/sup><\/a>
\nHamlet comes back. What would you undertake
\nTo show yourself your father’s son in deed
\n3115<\/sub>More than in words?<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nTo cut his throat i’th’ church.<\/p>\n

King<\/strong>
\nNo place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize.[312]<\/sup><\/a>
\nRevenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,
\nWill you do this:[313]<\/sup><\/a> keep close[314]<\/sup><\/a> within your chamber.
\n3120<\/sub>Hamlet returned shall know you are come home.
\nWe’ll put on those shall[315]<\/sup><\/a> praise your excellence
\nAnd set a double varnish on the fame[316]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThe Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine[317]<\/sup><\/a> together,
\nAnd wager on your heads. He being remiss,[318]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3125<\/sub>Most generous,[319]<\/sup><\/a> and free from all contriving,
\nWill not peruse the foils,[320]<\/sup><\/a> so that with ease,
\nOr with a little shuffling, you may choose
\nA sword unbated,[321]<\/sup><\/a> and in a pass of practice[322]<\/sup><\/a>
\nRequite him for your father.<\/p>\n

3130<\/sub>Laertes<\/strong>
\nI will do’t,
\nAnd for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword.
\nI bought an unction[323]<\/sup><\/a> of a mountebank[324]<\/sup><\/a>
\nSo mortal that, but dip[325]<\/sup><\/a> a knife in it,
\nWhere it draws blood no cataplasm[326]<\/sup><\/a> so rare,[327]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3135<\/sub>Collected from all simples that have virtue[328]<\/sup><\/a>
\nUnder the moon,[329]<\/sup><\/a> can save the thing from death
\nThat is but scratched withal. I’ll touch my point
\nWith this contagion, that if I gall[330]<\/sup><\/a> him slightly,
\nIt may be death.<\/p>\n

3140<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nLets further think of this,
\nWeigh what convenience both of time and means
\nMay fit us to our shape.[331]<\/sup><\/a> If this should fail,
\nAnd that our drift look through our bad performance,[332]<\/sup><\/a>
\n‘Twere better not essayed.[333]<\/sup><\/a> Therefore this project
\n3145<\/sub>Should have a back or second, that might hold
\nIf this should blast in proof.[334]<\/sup><\/a> Soft,[335]<\/sup><\/a> let me see.
\nWe’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings–[336]<\/sup><\/a>
\nI ha’t![337]<\/sup><\/a>
\nWhen in your motion you are hot and dry–
\nAs make your bouts more violent to that end–
\n3150<\/sub>And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared[338]<\/sup><\/a> him
\nA chalice for the nonce,[339]<\/sup><\/a> whereon but sipping,
\nIf he by chance escape your venomed stuck,[340]<\/sup><\/a>
\nOur purpose may hold there.
\nEnter Queen.<\/em>
\nHow [now], sweet queen?<\/p>\n

3155<\/sub>Queen<\/strong>
\nOne woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
\nSo fast they follow. Your sister’s drowned, Laertes.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nDrowned! Oh, where?<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nThere is a willow grows aslant a[341]<\/sup><\/a> brook
\nThat shows his hoar leaves[342]<\/sup><\/a> in the glassy stream.
\n3160<\/sub>Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
\nOf crowflowers,[343]<\/sup><\/a> nettles, daisies, and long purples,[344]<\/sup><\/a>
\nThat liberal[345]<\/sup><\/a> shepherds give a grosser name,[346]<\/sup><\/a>
\nBut our cold[347]<\/sup><\/a> maids do dead men’s fingers call them.
\nThere on the pendent[348]<\/sup><\/a> boughs her crownet weeds[349]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3165<\/sub>Clamb’ring to hang,[350]<\/sup><\/a> an envious sliver[351]<\/sup><\/a> broke,
\nWhen down her weedy trophies[352]<\/sup><\/a> and herself
\nFell in the weeping brook.[353]<\/sup><\/a> Her clothes spread wide,
\nAnd mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,
\nWhich time[354]<\/sup><\/a> she chanted snatches of old lauds,[355]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3170<\/sub>As one incapable of[356]<\/sup><\/a> her own distress,
\nOr like a creature native and endued
\nUnto that element.[357]<\/sup><\/a> But long it could not be
\nTill that[358]<\/sup><\/a> her garments, heavy with their drink,
\nPulled the poor wretch[359]<\/sup><\/a> from her melodious lay[360]<\/sup><\/a>
\n3175<\/sub>To muddy death.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nAlas, then she is drowned.<\/p>\n

Queen<\/strong>
\nDrowned, drowned.<\/p>\n

Laertes<\/strong>
\nToo much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
\nAnd therefore I forbid my tears. But yet
\n3180<\/sub>It is our trick; nature her custom holds,[361]<\/sup><\/a>
\nLet shame say what it will. [He weeps.]<\/em> When these are gone,
\nThe woman will be out.[362]<\/sup><\/a> Adieu, my lord.
\nI have a speech of fire that fain[363]<\/sup><\/a> would blaze,
\nBut that this folly douts[364]<\/sup><\/a> it.
\nExit.<\/em><\/p>\n

3185<\/sub>King<\/strong>
\nLet’s follow, Gertrude.
\nHow much I had to do to calm his rage!
\nNow fear I this will give it start again;
\nTherefore let’s follow.
\nExeunt.<\/em><\/p>\n

  1. Location: The castle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  2. Significance, meaning. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  3. Heaving of the breast and shoulders as the Queen sobs. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  4. i.e., explain why you are weeping. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  5. This brainsick misapprehension. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  6. Grievous. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  7. The royal plural. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  8. Explained, responded to, accounted for. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  9. Laid at our (my) doorstep, blamed on me. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  10. Foresight. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  11. Kept on a short leash. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  12. Secluded, away from public gatherings. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  13. Sufferer. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  14. From being made publicly known. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  15. We let. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  16. The Queen argues that Hamlet's weeping over Polonius's dead body shows his madness to be like a vein of pure gold amidst a mine of baser metals, i.e., revealing his finer nature even though he has madly done this deed. The Queen is doing as she promised to Hamlet: keeping from her husband the knowledge that Hamlet's \"madness\" is only a cover. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  17. He. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  18. Put the best face on and justify as well as we can. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  19. Take with you some others to help. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  20. Mother's private chamber. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  21. Speak gently and courteously to him. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  22. In that way, envious slander, spreading far and wide its poisonous whisper as if shot from a cannon at point-blank range, may be deflected from me as its target and expend itself harmlessly on the invulnerable air. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  23. Location: The castle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  24. Mixed. Compare the Anglican \"Order for the Burial of the Dead\" in The Book of Common Prayer: \"we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  25. i.e., Don't expect me to do as you bid me and not follow my own counsel. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  26. Interrogated by. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  27. Reply. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  28. Favor. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  29. Influence. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  30. i.e., Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are kept in reserve by the King, always there but to be used only when it serves the King's purposes, not theirs. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  31. i.e., the King will squeeze you dry, taking back the benefits he seemingly bestowed on you. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  32. A crafty insult is not understood as such by a fool to whom the insult is directed. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  33. A chiasmic riddle, perhaps suggesting that although Claudius's body is necessarily a part of him, the essence of true kingship is not to be found there. Claudius can order the body of Polonius to be brought to him, but that also will not make him any more a true king than he really is. A reference to the doctrine of \"the King's two bodies,\" one political and one natural, thus differentiating the high office of kingship from any individual holder of the title, whose claim to true authority may be far less. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  34. This cry from the children's game of fox-and-hounds, similar to hide-and-seek, here signals Hamlet's running away from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  35. Location: The castle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  36. By the irrationally unstable commoners. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  37. Who choose not rationally but by appearances. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  38. And in such cases people are likely to censure the severity of the punishment without sufficiently considering the gravity of the offense. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  39. In order to manage the business without arousing suspicion. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  40. The result of careful planning, or of a careful postponing of judgment. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  41. Applying of remedies. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  42. Now, what has happened? ↵<\/a><\/li>
  43. Outside (the door). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  44. Even now, just now. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  45. Worms are emperors in their diet in that they devour emperors and commoners alike. Compare the proverbial phrase, \"Food for worms.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  46. Often taken to refer to the Imperial Diet of Worms, a famous \"convocation\" or assembly of the Holy Roman Empire convened in Worms, Germany on 28 January 1521, on the authority of the Emperor Charles V, for the purpose of requiring Martin Luther to renounce or recant his heretical views. Pope Leo X had condemned 41 of Luther's 95 theses or propositions in June 1520, and, after a delay affording Luther time to recant, had excommunicated him on 3 January 1521. The Edict of Worms, issued on 25 May 1521, forbade all loyal Christians to offer any support to Luther, declaring him to be an obstinate heretic. In the light of this seeming allusion, \"Not where 'a eats, but where 'a is eaten\" (TLN 2685) could refer to the ceremony of the Mass in which the eating of bread signifies the eating of Christ's body. \"Politic worms\" are crafty worms, such as might deal with a crafty spy like Polonius. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  47. Various dishes or courses served at table. (Worms feed on kings and beggars alike.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  48. i.e., rich and poor alike come at last to serve as food for one grisly emperor, the worm. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  49. Has eaten. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  50. Royal state journey. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  51. Smell. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  52. The persons addressed here could include Rosencrantz or Guildenstern together with one or more unnamed attendants, but in any case, at least one of those two gentlemen must remain to keep guard on Hamlet and exit with him at line 45.1. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  53. Value, hold dear. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  54. Intensely. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  55. Sailing vessel. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  56. Companions are waiting. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  57. Is in readiness. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  58. Cherubim, in the second order of angels, were possessors of a special wisdom and knowledge that would enable them, in Hamlet's view, to perceive the full extent of Claudius's treachery. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  59. Other editions cite Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5-6, and Mark 10:8. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  60. Close at his heels. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  61. Entice, persuade. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  62. Everything else that relates to this business is taken care of. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  63. Scar. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  64. Unconstrained show of respect and obedience. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  65. Regard with indifference, ignore. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  66. Royal command. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  67. Conveys in full detail its message. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  68. Agreeing, conforming. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  69. Immediate. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  70. Fluctuating but persistent fever. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  71. Whatever else my fortunes might be, I cannot begin to be happy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  72. The Danish coast. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  73. With his army, marching across the stage (and then exiting at line 9). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  74. Permission. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  75. Unhindered and escorted passage; or, fulfillment of a promise made. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  76. If. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  77. Wishes to confer with me for any reason. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  78. I will pay my respects in person. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  79. Quietly, without creating a disturbance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  80. Soldiers, armed forces. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  81. The army. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  82. Major part, heart. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  83. Exaggeration. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  84. i.e., reputation to be gained by conquering it. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  85. i.e., I would not take a lease on it as tenant farmer even for a mere five ducats a year. (The ducat is a gold coin.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  86. The King of Norway or of Poland. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  87. Higher. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  88. Sold outright as a freehold, in \"fee simple.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  89. The King of Poland (and his army). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  90. Appear to be insufficient stakes in a quarrel about such a trifling matter. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  91. The abscess. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  92. Festers within. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  93. Externally. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  94. Right away. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  95. Accuse, denounce. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  96. Profit, advantage. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  97. Wide-ranging capacity for reasoning. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  98. Able to recall past events and anticipate the future. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  99. Grow moldy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  100. Forgetfulness and heedlessness of the sort one sees in animals. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  101. Cowardly. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  102. Caused by thinking too scrupulously about what might happen as a consequence of one's actions. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  103. Not yet accomplished, still to be done. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  104. Since. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  105. Obvious. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  106. Size and cost. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  107. Refined and youthful. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  108. Inspired. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  109. Presents a scornful face to unforeseeable outcomes. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  110. Can threaten him with. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  111. A thing proverbially of no value. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  112. True greatness is not to be measured solely in terms of being moved to action by a great cause; rather, it is to respond stirringly even to an apparently trivial cause when honor is at stake. The metaphor is from bearbaiting. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  113. Enough cause to awaken a keen response in me that is both reasonable and passionate. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  114. And yet I let. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  115. The illusory and trifling business of striving to gain a reputation for bravery. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  116. Plot of ground. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  117. Containing insufficient room for the bodies of the soldiers who are fighting over it. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  118. Receptacle, container. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  119. Location: The castle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  120. Distraught. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  121. Deceptions. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  122. Clears her throat with a \"hem\" sound. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  123. Breast. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  124. Kicks bitterly, i.e., takes offense and reacts suspiciously, at trifles. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  125. Obscurely. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  126. Incoherent manner. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  127. Inference, guessing at some sort of meaning. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  128. Gape in wonderment; grasp. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  129. Patch. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  130. In such a way as to match. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  131. Which words. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  132. Deliver, represent. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  133. Maliciously inclined, prone to suspect the worst. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  134. As is the case in sin's true nature. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  135. Trifle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  136. Calamity. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  137. Guilt is so burdened with a self-incriminating fear of detection that it betrays itself by the very fear of being detected. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  138. What's this. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  139. As editors have noted, this is a version of a popular song about a woman whose lover has died. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  140. Hat with cockleshell (a mollusk scallop-like shell) stuck in it as a sign (along with a walking staff and sandals) that the wearer has been a pilgrim to the shrine of Saint James of Compostella in Spain (often associated with forlorn lovers). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  141. Shoes. (An archaic plural.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  142. Signifies. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  143. Listen, pay attention. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  144. Gravestone. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  145. Evidently, a sigh. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  146. Strewn, bedecked. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  147. i.e., tears. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  148. God yield (i.e., reward) you. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  149. This refers to a folktale about a baker's daughter who, when Jesus entered a baker's shop in disguise asking for something to eat, insisted on letting the visitor have only half of the loaf that the shopkeeper's wife (or the baker himself in some versions) had intended to give in full. When the dough nonetheless swelled to enormous size, the daughter cried \"Heugh! heugh!\" and was transformed into an owl for her lack of charity. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  150. Fantasy, brooding. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  151. No source is known for this song. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  152. A feast day (February 14) in honor of Saint Valentine; traditionally a day on which the first person one meets is destined to be one's lovemate. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  153. Early. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  154. Did up, unlatched. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  155. Who, when she departed, was no longer a virgin. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  156. Of it. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  157. By Jesus and in the name of Christian love and fellow feeling (a mild oath). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  158. A euphemism for \"By God\"; with verbal play on the slang term for \"penis.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  159. If. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  160. When sorrows come, they come not one at a time but in swarms, or (militarily) battalions. (\"Spies\" are scouts sent in advance of the main army.) Compare the proverb, \"Misfortune (Evil) never (seldom) comes alone.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  161. Justly deserved removal (to England). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  162. Stirred up, confused. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  163. Bewildered, muddled. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  164. Foolishly, naively. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  165. Secret haste. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  166. As serious. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  167. Feeds his feeling of resentment about this whole shocking turn of events. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  168. Behaves suspiciously and in ways that are hard to interpret or predict, arousing uncertainty and suspicion. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  169. Is not lacking in gossipers and scandal mongers. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  170. Polonius's. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  171. In which business, since they are unprovided with accurate information and yet long for some plausible explanation, they will not hesitate to whisper insinuations about me, their king. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  172. Kills me over and over. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  173. Where are my Swiss guards, mercenaries. Swiss mercenaries were often employed as personal guards in the courts of Europe, as today, ceremonially, at the Vatican in Rome. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  174. Overflowing (literally, rising above and looking over) its shore or boundary. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  175. Low-lying lands near shore. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  176. Violent, unrelenting, merciless. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  177. And, as if the world were to begin all over again, utterly neglecting all ancient traditional customs that should confirm and underprop everything that we say and promise. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  178. Bay loudly. (Said of hunting dogs.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  179. Following a contrary or false scent. (The metaphor is from hunting game.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  180. \"Sirs\" is a standard form of address to commoners. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  181. Outside. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  182. Laertes's followers. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  183. i.e., leave matters to me, let me converse with the King alone. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  184. Guard. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  185. Claudius may be thinking of the unsuccessful rebellion of the Giants against Zeus and the Olympian gods in Greek mythology. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  186. Fear for my personal safety. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  187. That protects, surrounds defensively. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  188. Can only peep furtively, as though a barrier, at what it wishes to accomplish. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  189. But performs little of what it intends. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  190. Deceived, played with. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  191. I am resolved in this. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  192. That I disregard the consequences of my actions both in this world and in the life to come. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  193. Thoroughly. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  194. Prevent, hinder. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  195. I will cease when my will is accomplished, not for anyone else's. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  196. Manage prudently and economically. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  197. i.e., is it set down in and required by your need for revenge that you will sweep up friend and foe indiscriminately, like a gambler in a sweepstake, winning all the stakes on the gambling table. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  198. The female pelican was popularly imagined to feed its young with its own blood. (\"Repast\" means \"feed.\") ↵<\/a><\/li>
  199. Grief-stricken. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  200. Straightforward, plain. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  201. Appear. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  202. Function, power. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  203. Avenged with equal gravity. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  204. Until our cause of justice outweighs, as in a balance scales, the wrongful deed of the offender. A Senecan commonplace, that revenge must outdo the original offense. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  205. Human nature's sensitivity in matters of love is such that it sends some precious part of itself after a lost object of that love. (In this case, Ophelia's sanity has deserted her under the burden of grief for her dead father.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  206. In an open coffin. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  207. A litter on which a corpse or coffin is carried. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  208. Argue for, urge. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  209. If. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  210. Ophelia madly assigns to those present the singing of the refrain to her song. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  211. Perhaps Ophelia imagines a spinning wheel, where women might sit and work as they sang; or Fortune's wheel. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  212. The story is unknown, but false stewards do sometimes steal their masters' daughters in romance tales. Perhaps Ophelia is madly fantasizing about her father's uneasy fear that Hamlet might in effect steal her away by seducing her. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  213. Ophelia's ravings are more eloquent than ordinary sane utterance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  214. Object lesson. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  215. Rosemary, used as a symbol of remembrance at weddings and funerals, is aptly suited to Laertes and to Ophelia herself as wedded offspring of Polonius; pansies for thoughts (compare the French pens\u00e9es) are appropriate to courtship and love, or to remembering a dead father; fennel, associated with dissembling flattery, and columbines with marital infidelity and ingratitude, may apply to Claudius and Gertrude, though also to Ophelia's own sad story; rue, a bitter-tasting medicinal plant, betokens remorse and repentance, as indicated by its popular name, \"herb of grace\"; the daisy is conversely the flower of love and of amorous dissembling; and violets signify fidelity, the opposite of columbines. Ophelia may distribute these herbs to her listeners in a symbolically appropriate way. The text is unclear in most instances as to how Ophelia distributes the flowers to those who are with her, but one possibility is that Rosemary and pansies are for Laertes, fennel and columbine for the Queen, rue for Ophelia herself, the daisy and violets for the King. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  216. This appears to be from a song that is now lost. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  217. Melancholy, sad thoughts. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  218. Suffering. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  219. Grace, beauty. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  220. His head of hair was as white as flax. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  221. We loudly but unavailingly proclaim our grief. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  222. God have mercy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  223. Withdraw with me to some other place where we can talk privately. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  224. Of whichever of. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  225. Indirect agency. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  226. Me implicated. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  227. Recompense. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  228. Memorial display, sword betokening knightly prowess, or tablet displaying the coat of arms of the deceased. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  229. Ceremony. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  230. So that I must demand an explanation for that. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  231. Location: The castle, or possibly in Horatio's lodgings. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  232. What sort of men; who. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  233. A letter. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  234. If it. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  235. i.e., comes from Hamlet. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  236. Led or permitted to believe. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  237. Looked over, read. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  238. Means of access. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  239. Had been at sea for two days. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  240. Pirate ship. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  241. Equipment. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  242. And during the action in which the pirate ship bound us, its intended victim, to the attacking vessel by means of grappling irons to facilitate close combat. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  243. Merciful thieves. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  244. i.e., they understood that I would be able to help them in return for their assisting me.<\/sub> ↵<\/a><\/li>
  245. Come. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  246. Calibre, size, importance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  247. Means of access for delivery. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  248. Location: The King's private apartments in the castle. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  249. Confirm my release from a suspicion of having been guilty of Polonius's death. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  250. Since. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  251. Acts. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  252. Punishable by death. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  253. Greatly. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  254. Weak, lacking sinew. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  255. Whichever it may be. Claudius sees his passionate attachment to Gertrude as either an admirable thing or a sign of weakness. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  256. She is so closely united. (A metaphor from astronomy; two or more celestial bodies meeting or passing in the same degree of the zodiac are said to be in conjunction.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  257. Its. (The Ptolemaic astronomical concept here is of the planets revolving around the earth in concentric spheres or transparent globes.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  258. Accounting, indictment. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  259. Common people. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  260. i.e., Who, testing all his faults by the forgiving standard of their affection for him. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  261. Like a spring water with such a heavy concentration of lime that it can in effect petrify a piece of wood and thus make it more perfect and unflawed. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  262. Fetters; here signifying \"crimes,\" \"faults.\" ↵<\/a><\/li>
  263. Provided with too slight a shaft of wood to be able to cope with so mighty a gust of popular opposition. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  264. Condition, circumstances. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  265. Can recall what she once was. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  266. Stood like a supreme challenger daring the world to match her perfections. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  267. That I would allow anyone to threaten and insult me with shaking or plucking my beard. Plucking or disparaging a beard was considered a grave insult. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  268. Unarmed; without possessions or followers. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  269. i.e., your pardon for having returned without permission. Hamlet writes sardonically, with mock politeness. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  270. Or is it a deception, and not at all what the letter says. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  271. Handwriting, style. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  272. Explain this to me. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  273. i.e., How could it be true that Hamlet has returned, and yet could it be otherwise than true since we have this letter from him? ↵<\/a><\/li>
  274. Yes, my lord, so long as you will. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  275. As one who has been diverted from his journey (like a falcon turning away from its intended quarry to fly at a chance bird). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  276. And if it is the case that. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  277. Devising. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  278. From which he cannot possibly escape. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  279. Agent, instrument. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  280. All your other admirable qualities. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  281. Least worthy in rank of importance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  282. i.e., decorative touch (one that is suitable to young men, flashy and handsome). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  283. Youth and stylishly informal dress suit each other admirably, just as rich fur-lined robes and other sober garments are well suited to the concern for good health and the grave dignity of men in advancing years. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  284. Are skillful riders. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  285. Dashing young man. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  286. In horsemanship. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  287. As if he had become one body with the horse (like the fabled centaur, with the torso and legs of a horse and the head and arms of a man). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  288. Surpassed my expectation. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  289. In my imagining what devices and feats might be possible (in horsemanship). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  290. One who hails from Normandy. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  291. Ornament. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  292. He testified to and conceded your superior ability. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  293. With respect to your skill and practice in the art of self-defense. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  294. Movement, defensive strategy, or visual acuity. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  295. The fencers (French: escrimeurs<\/em>) of Normandy, he swore, would be seen as having no grace or skill in fencing if compared with you as a fencing opponent. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  296. Embitter, poison. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  297. That you would quickly come from France and fence with him. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  298. Why are you saying \"out of this\"? ↵<\/a><\/li>
  299. Comes into being at the right moment (and is subject to change). ↵<\/a><\/li>
  300. Circumstances that have tested that love. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  301. Weakens, moderates. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  302. The charred end of the candlewick that needs occasional trimming to improve the light and reduce smoke. (Love is like a candle in that it consumes itself in its own ardor.) ↵<\/a><\/li>
  303. Nothing remains always at a constant level of goodness. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  304. Excess, plethora. (Literally, an inflammation of the chest.) Pleurisy, occasionally spelled \"plurisy,\" was sometimes erroneously supposed to be derived from the Latin plus, pluris, \"more,\" thus suggesting here an excess of humors, one of the four bodily fluids. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  305. Of its own excess. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  306. That which. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  307. Diminutions. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  308. As there are tongues to dissuade, hands to prevent, and chance events to intervene. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  309. The regretful sigh of one who has squandered his wealth. Alludes to the common belief that a sigh cost the heart a drop of blood. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  310. i.e., That costs the heart a drop of blood even while it affords emotional relief. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  311. i.e., heart of the disease. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  312. Shield from punishment, by offering the shelter of the church. By custom, churches could provide offer sanctuary for those in need of shelter from the law for many criminal offenses. The King here argues that the demands of revenge should trump such a customary privilege; Laertes should be licensed to kill Hamlet, even inside a church. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  313. If you will do this. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  314. Remain out of sight. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  315. I will arrange for some people to. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  316. And enhance the lustrous reputation. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  317. Finally, in conclusion. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  318. Carelessly unwary. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  319. Noble-minded. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  320. Fencing weapons, normally buttoned at the tip to prevent stabbing. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  321. Not blunted by a button at its tip. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  322. Treacherous thrust instead of what should have been a conventional fencing move. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  323. Ointment. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  324. Quack, charlatan. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  325. So deadly that if one were merely to dip. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  326. Medicinal plaster or poultice. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  327. Excellent, distinctive; uncommon, seldom found. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  328. Composed of herbs with potent healing properties. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  329. i.e., Anywhere on earth in the sublunary sphere beneath the moon. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  330. Graze, wound. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  331. To the roles we propose to act. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  332. And if our intentions should be betrayed by our inept performance. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  333. Attempted. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  334. If this plot should come to grief (literally, blow up in our faces) when put to the test. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  335. Gently, wait a minute. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  336. Your respective skills. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  337. I have it, I have a plan. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  338. Offered. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  339. A drinking cup just for this occasion. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  340. Sword thrust. Compare the fencing term stoccado. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  341. Obliquely, across the. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  342. Leaves with grey-white undersides. Willows were traditionally associated with mourning or unrequited love. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  343. Wild buttercups, bluebells, or ragged robins. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  344. Early purple wild orchids. These flowers were often associated with fertility. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  345. Free-speaking, hedonistic. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  346. A more indecent name (such as \"dogstones\" or \"cullions,\" in reference to the testicle-shaped tubers of some of these flowers). \"Orchis\" also means \"testicle\" in Greek. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  347. Chaste. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  348. Overhanging. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  349. Coronet-like garland of wild flowers. A coronet is literally a smaller or lesser crown, usually signifying a noble rank below that of royal majesty. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  350. Persons forsaken in love traditionally hung garlands of this sort on willow trees. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  351. Malicious branch. Literally, a sliver is a twig. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  352. Her garland of wild flowers. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  353. The brook, with its gently flowing water, is personified as weeping for Ophelia's distress. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  354. During which time. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  355. Hymns. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  356. Lacking the ability to comprehend or do anything about. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  357. Naturally adapted to a watery existence. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  358. Until. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  359. Here, as often, a term of endearment and pity. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  360. Song. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  361. Weeping is the natural and characteristic way for us humans to express grief; nature holds to her customary course. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  362. When my tears are all shed, this womanly weakness in me will have run its course. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  363. Willingly, eagerly. ↵<\/a><\/li>
  364. Douses, extinguishes. ↵<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":90,"menu_order":10,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["william-shakespeare"],"pb_section_license":"cc-by"},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[60],"license":[52],"class_list":["post-208","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-william-shakespeare","license-cc-by"],"part":188,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/208\/revisions\/209"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/188"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/208\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/provincialenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}