Queen. Alas! look here, my lord.

Oph.

Larded with sweet flowers;

Which bewept to the grave did not go,

With true-love showers.

King. How do you, pretty lady?

Oph. Well, God 'ild you! They say, the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord! we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

King. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you

this:

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine:

Then, up he rose, and don'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia!

Oph. Indeed, la! without an oath, I'll make an end on 't:

By Gis, and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do 't, if they come to 't;

By cock, they are to blame.

He answers.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promis'd me to wed:

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

King. How long hath she been thus?

Oph. I hope, all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot choose but weep, to think, they would lay him i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies: good night, good night.

[Exit.

King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.
[Exit HORATIO.

O! this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. And now, behold,
O Gertrude, Gertrude!

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. First, her father slain;

Next, your son gone; 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 persons to arraign
In ear and ear. O, my dear Gertrude! this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.

Queen.

[A noise within.

Alack what noise is this?

King. Attend!

Enter a Gentleman.

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
What is the matter?

Gent.

Save yourself, my lord;

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste,

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O'erbears your officers! The rabble call him, lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry,

"Choose we; Laertes shall be king!' Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds, "Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!"

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry! O! this is counter, you false Danish dogs.

King. The doors are broke.

[Noise within.

Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following.

Laer. Where is this king? - Sirs, stand you all without.

Laer. 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.

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,

King. Let him demand his fill.

Laer. 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 reveng'd
Most throughly for my father.

King.

Who shall stay you?

Laer. My will, not all the world's :

And, for my means, I'll husband them so well,

They shall go far with little.

If you desire to know the certainty

Of your dear father's death, is 't writ in your revenge,
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?

Laer. None but his enemies.

King.

Will you know them, then?

Laer. To his good friends thus wide I 'll ope my arms; And, like the kind life-rendering pelican,

Repast them with my blood.

Why, now you speak

King.
Like a good child, and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment 'pear,
As day does to your eye.

Danes. [Within.] Let her come in.
Laer. How now! what noise is that?

Re-enter OPHELIA.

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 turns 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 mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love; and, where 't is fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

Oph. They bore him barefac'd on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny :
And in his grave rain'd many a tear;

Fare you well, my dove!

Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus.

Oph. You must sing, Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a. O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.

Laer. This nothing 's more than matter.

Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that 's for thoughts. Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines:

-

there 's rue for you; and here 's some for me: we may call it, herb of grace o'Sundays: you may wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you some violets; but they withered all when my father died. They say, he made a good

end,

-

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,

[Sings.

Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,

She turns to favour, and to prettiness.

Oph.

And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

[Sings.