The Tragedy of LEGO Hamlet, Prince of Denmark – Act 5, Scene 2, Part 1
Enter HAMLET and HORATIA
HAMLET
When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will,–
HORATIA
That is most certain.
HAMLET
Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark
Groped I to find out them; had my desire.
Finger’d their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again; making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
HAMLET
Being thus be-netted round with villanies,–
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play–I sat me down,
Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair and labour’d much
How to forget that learning, but, sir, now
It did me yeoman’s service: wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?
HORATIA
Ay, good my lord.
HAMLET
An earnest conjuration from the king,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should stiff her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma ‘tween their amities,
And many such-like ‘As’es of great charge,
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow’d.
HORATIA
How was this seal’d?
HAMLET
Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father’s signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal;
Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gave’t the impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent
Thou know’st already.
HORATIA
Why, what a king is this!
HAMLET
Does it not, think’st thee, stand me now upon–
He that hath kill’d my king and whored my mother,
Popp’d in between the election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage–is’t not perfect conscience,
To quit him with this arm? and is’t not to be damn’d,
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?
HORATIA
It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there.
Enter OSRIC
OSRIC
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.
HAMLET
I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?
HORATIA
No, my good lord.
HAMLET
Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a vice to
know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let a
beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at
the king’s mess: ’tis a chough; but, as I say,
spacious in the possession of dirt.
HAMLET
But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my
complexion.
OSRIC
Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,–as
’twere,–I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his
majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter,–
HAMLET
I beseech you, remember–
OSRIC
Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith.
OSRIC
indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or
calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the
continent of what part a gentleman would see.
HAMLET
But, in the
verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of
great article; and his infusion of such dearth and
rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his
semblable is his mirror; and who else would trace
him, his umbrage, nothing more.
OSRIC
Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.
HAMLET
The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap the gentleman
in our more rawer breath?
OSRIC
Sir?
HORATIA
Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue?
You will do’t, sir, really.
HAMLET
What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
OSRIC
Of Laertes?
HORATIA
His purse is empty already; all’s golden words are spent.
HAMLET
Of him, sir.
OSRIC
I know you are not ignorant–
HAMLET
I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did,
it would not much approve me. Well, sir?
OSRIC
I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation
laid on him by them, in his meed he’s unfellowed.
HAMLET
That’s two of his weapons: but, well.
Exit OSRIC
HAMLET
He does well to commend it himself; there are no
tongues else for’s turn.
HORATIA
This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.
HAMLET
He did comply with his dug, before he sucked it.
Thus has he–and many more of the same bevy that I
know the dressy age dotes on–only got the tune of
the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of
yesty collection, which carries them through and
through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do
but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.
HAMLET
It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of
gain-giving, as would perhaps trouble a woman.
HORATIA
If your mind dislike any thing, obey it: I will
forestall their repair hither, and say you are not
fit.
HAMLET
Not a whit, we defy augury: there’s a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he
leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, LAERTES, and OSRIC.
KING CLAUDIUS puts LAERTES’ hand into HAMLET’s
