The Tragedy of LEGO Hamlet, Prince of Denmark – Act 4, Scene 5
Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, and HORATIA
HORATIA
They aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures
yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
Exit HORATIA
Re-enter HORATIA, with OPHELIA
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, but, Ophelia,–
OPHELIA
Pray you, mark.
[Sings]
White his shroud as the mountain snow,–
Enter KING CLAUDIUS
KING CLAUDIUS
Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA
Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they
ask you what it means, say you this:
OPHELIA
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
KING CLAUDIUS
Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA
Indeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t:
OPHELIA
But I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him
i’ the cold ground. My brother shall know of it:
and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
coach!
Exit
KING CLAUDIUS
Follow her close; give her good watch,
I pray you.
Exit HORATIA
KING CLAUDIUS
And he most violent author
Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but greenly,
In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father’s death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.
A noise within
KING CLAUDIUS
Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
Enter LAERTES, armed;
LAERTES
That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.
KING CLAUDIUS
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.
KING CLAUDIUS
Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES
How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I’ll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.
KING CLAUDIUS
Who shall stay you?
LAERTES
My will, not all the world:
And for my means, I’ll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
KING CLAUDIUS
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge,
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
LAERTES
None but his enemies.
KING CLAUDIUS
Will you know them then?
LAERTES
To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
KING CLAUDIUS
Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father’s death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.
LAERTES
How now! what noise is that?
Re-enter OPHELIA
LAERTES
O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is’t possible, a young maid’s wits
Should be as moral as an old man’s life?
Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
LAERTES
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
LAERTES
This nothing’s more than matter.
OPHELIA
and there is pansies. that’s for thoughts.
LAERTES
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
OPHELIA
[Sings]
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
Exit
KING CLAUDIUS
Our crown, our life, and all that we can ours,
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.
Exeunt