Hamlet Page #19

repast them with my blood.

Why, now you speak

like a good child and a true gentleman.

[GERTRUDE PANTING]

That I am guiltless

of your father's death...

...and am most sensibly in grief for it...

...it shall as level to your judgment pierce

as day doth to your eye.

[OPHELIA SHOUTING]

HORATIO:

Let her come in.

LAERTES:

How now, what noise is that?

[OPHELIA GASPING]

O heat, dry up my brains.

Tears seven times salt

burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye.

[OPHELIA GIGGLING]

LAERTES:
By heaven, thy madness

shall be paid by weight...

...till our scale turns the beam.

LAERTES:

O rose of May, dear maid...

...kind sister, sweet Ophelia.

O heavens...

...is 't possible a young maid's wits

should be as mortal 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.

They bore him barefaced on the bier

[SINGING AND LAUGHING]

Hey, non nony, nony, hey, nony

And on his grave rained many a tear

Fare you well, my dove.

Hadst thou thy wits

and didst persuade revenge...

...it could not move thus.

You must sing:

Down, a-down, a-down, a-down

And you, call him:

A-down, a-down, a-down

O, how the wheel becomes it.

It was the false steward

that stole his master's daughter.

[OPHELIA SHUSHES]

This nothing's more than matter.

There's rosemary,

that's for remembrance.

Pray, love, remember.

And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

A document in madness...

...thoughts and remembrance fitted.

There's fennel for you...

...and columbines.

There's rue for you,

and here's some for me.

We may call herb o' grace o' Sundays.

OPHELIA:
O, you must wear your rue

with a difference.

There's a daisy.

OPHELIA:

I would give you some violets...

...but they withered all

when my father died.

OPHELIA:

They say a made a good end.

[SINGING]

For bonny sweet robin is all my joy

Thought and affliction,

passion, hell itself...

...she turns to favor and to prettiness.

And will a not come again?

No, no, he is dead

Go to thy deathbed

He never will come again

His beard as white as snow

All flaxen was his poll

He is gone, he is gone

And we cast away moan

God 'a' mercy on his soul

And of all Christian souls...

... I pray God.

God by you.

[SOBBING]

Do you see this, O God?

Laertes, I must commune with your grief,

or you deny me right.

Go but apart, make choice of whom

your wisest friends you will...

...and they shall hear

and judge 'twixt you and me.

If by direct or by collateral hand

they find us touched...

...we will our kingdom give, our crown,

our life, and all that we call ours...

...to you in satisfaction.

But if not, be you content

to lend your patience to us...

...and we shall jointly labor with your soul

to give it due content.

Let this be so.

His means of death...

...his obscure burial--

No trophy, sword,

nor hatchment o'er his bones...

...no noble rite nor formal ostentation.

--cry to be heard,

as 'twere from heaven to earth...

...that I must call 't in question.

So you shall.

And where th' offense is,

let the great ax fall.

I pray you, go with me.

HORATIO:

What are they that would speak with me?

Sailors, sir.

They say they have letters for you.

[WATER SPLASHING

AND OPHELIA SCREAMING]

I do not know from what part of the world

I should be greeted if not from Lord Hamlet.

MAN:
God bless you.

-Let him bless thee too.

He shall, sir, an 't please him.

There's a letter for you, sir.

It comes from th' ambassador

that was bound for England...

...if your name be Horatio,

as I am led to know it is.

"Horatio, when thou shalt

have overlooked this...

...give these fellows some means

to the king. They have letters for him.

Ere we were two days old at sea...

...a pirate of very warlike appointment

gave us chase.

Finding ourselves too slow of sail...

...we put on a compelled valor,

and in the grapple I boarded them.

On the instant they got clear of our ship,

so I alone became their prisoner.

They have dealt with me

like thieves of mercy...

...but they knew what they did:

I am to do a good turn for them.

Let the king have the letters

I have sent...

...and repair thou to me with as much haste

as thou wouldst fly death.

I have words to speak in thine ear

will make thee dumb...

...yet they are much too light

for the bore of the matter.

These good fellows

will bring thee where I am.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

hold their course for England.

Of them I have much to tell thee.

Farewell.

He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet."

Come, I will give you way

for these your letters...

...and do 't the speedier

that you may direct me...

...to him from whom you brought them.

Now must your conscience

my acquittance seal...

...and you must put me

in your heart for friend...

...since you have heard,

and with a knowing ear...

...that he which hath your noble father slain

pursued my life.

It well appears. But tell me...

...why you proceeded

not against these feats...

...so crimeful and so capital in nature,

as by your safety...

...wisdom, all things else,

you mainly were stirred up.

O, for two special reasons

which may to you seem much unsinewed...

...but yet to me they're strong.

The queen his mother

lives almost by his looks.

And for myself--

My virtue or my plague,

be it either which.

--she is so conjunctive

to my life and soul...

...that, as the star moves not

but in his sphere...

... I could not but by her.

The other motive

why to a public count I might not go...

...is the great love

the general gender bear him...

...who, dipping all his faults

in their affection...

...would, like the spring

that turneth wood to stone...

...convert his gyves to graces...

...so that my arrows,

too slightly timbered for so loud a wind...

...would have reverted to my bow again,

but not where I had aimed them.

And so have I a noble father lost.

A sister driven into desp'rate terms...

...whose worth,

if praises may go back again...

...stood challenger, on mount...

...of all the age for her perfections.

-But my revenge will come.

-Break not your sleeps for that.

You must not think

that we are made of stuff so flat and dull...

...that we can let our beard be shook

with danger, and think it pastime.

You shortly shall hear more.

I loved your father, and we love ourself.

And that, I hope,

will teach you to imagine--

CLAUDIUS:

How now? What news?

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.

This is to Your Majesty,

this to the queen.

From Hamlet? Who brought them?

Sailors, my lord, they say.

I saw them not.

They were given me by Claudio.

He received them

of him that brought them.

CLAUDIUS:
Laertes, you shall hear them.

Leave us.

"High and mighty, you shall know

that I am set naked on your kingdom.

Tomorrow shall I beg leave

to see your kingly eyes...

...when I shall, first asking your pardon,

thereunto recount th' occasions...

...of my sudden and more strange return.

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