Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

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Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.

He leaps into the grave

Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead

Till of this flat a mountain you have made

To o’ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head

Of blue Olympus.

HAMLET (coming forward) What is he whose grief

Bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow

Conjures the wand’ring stars and makes them stand

Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,

Hamlet the Dane.

⌈Hamlet leaps in after Laertes⌉

LAERTES The devil take thy soul.

HAMLET Thou pray’st not well.

I prithee take thy fingers from my throat,

For though I am not splenative and rash,

Yet have I something in me dangerous,

Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand.

KING CLAUDIUS (to Lords)

Pluck them asunder.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, Hamlet!

ALL ⌈THE LORDS⌉

Gentlemen!

HORATIO (to Hamlet) Good my lord, be quiet.

HAMLET

Why, I will fight with him upon this theme

Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

QUEEN GERTRUDE O my son, what theme?

HAMLET

I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum.—What wilt thou do for her?

KING CLAUDIUS O, he is mad, Laertes.

QUEEN GERTRUDE (to Laertes) For love of God, forbear him.

HAMLET (to Laertes) ‘Swounds, show me what thou’lt do.

Woot weep, woot fight, woot fast, woot tear thyself,

Woot drink up eisel, eat a crocodile?

I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine,

To outface me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will I.

And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres on us, till our ground,

Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, an thou’lt mouth,

I’ll rant as well as thou.

KING CLAUDIUS ⌈to Laertes⌉ This is mere madness,

And thus a while the fit will work on him.

Anon, as patient as the female dove

When that her golden couplets are disclosed,

His silence will sit drooping.

HAMLET (to Laertes)

Hear you, sir,

What is the reason that you use me thus?

I loved you ever. But it is no matter.

Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him. Exit Horatio

(To Laertes).Strengthen your patience in our last

night’s speech.

We’ll put the matter to the present push.—

Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.—

This grave shall have a living monument.

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter Prince Hamlet and Horatio

HAMLET

So much for this, sir. Now, let me see, the other.

You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO Remember it, my lord!

HAMLET

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting

That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly—

And praised be rashness for it: let us know

Our indiscretion sometime serves us well

When our dear plots do pall, and that should teach us

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will—

HORATIO That is most certain.

HAMLET Up from my cabin,

My sea-gown scarfed about me in the dark,

Groped I to find out them, had my desire,

Fingered their packet, and in fine withdrew

To mine own room again, making so bold,

My fears forgetting manners, to unseal

Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio—

O royal knavery!—an exact command,

Larded with many several sorts of reasons

Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s, too,

With ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,

That on the supervise, no leisure bated,

No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,

My head should be struck off.

HORATIO

Is’t possible?

HAMLET (giving it to him)

Here’s the commission. Read it at more leisure.

But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

HORATIO I beseech you.

HAMLET

Being thus benetted round with villainies—

Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,

They had begun the play—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 laboured much

How to forget that learning; but, sir, now

It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know

Th’effect of what I wrote?

HORATIO

Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET

An earnest conjuration from the King,

As England was his faithful tributary,

As love between them like the palm should flourish,

As peace should still 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 know of these contents,

Without debatement further more or less,

He should the bearers put to sudden death,

Not shriving-time allowed.

HORATIO

How was this sealed?

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 the form of th‘other,

Subscribed it, gave’t th’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.

HORATIO

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

HAMLET

Why, man, they did make love to this employment.

They are not near my conscience. Their defeat

Doth by their own insinuation grow.

’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes

Between the pass and fell incensed points

Of mighty opposites.

HORATIO

Why, what a king is this!

HAMLET

Does it not, think‘st thee, stand me now upon—

He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,

Popped in between th’election and my hopes,

Thrown out his angle for my proper life,

And with such coz’nage—is’t not perfect conscience

To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damned

To let this canker of our nature come

In further evil?

HORATIO

It must be shortly known to him from England

What is the issue of the business there.

HAMLET

It will be short. The interim’s mine,

And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘one’.

But I am very sorry, good Horatio,

That to Laertes I forgot myself;

For by the image of my cause I see

The portraiture of his. I’ll court his favours.

But sure, the bravery of his grief did put me

Into a tow’ring passion.

HORATIO

Peace, who comes here?

Enter young Osric, a courtier, ⌈taking off his hat⌉

OSRIC

Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLET I humbly thank you, sir. (To Horatio) Dost know this water-fly?

HORATIO 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 chuff, but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

OSRIC Sweet lord, if your friendship were at leisure I should impart a thing to you from his majesty.

HAMLET I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit.

Put your bonnet to his right use; ’tis for the head.

OSRIC I thank your lordship, ’tis very hot.

HAMLET No, believe me, ’tis very cold. The wind is northerly.

OSRIC It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

HAMLET 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 a 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. Sir, you are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is at his weapon.

HAMLET What’s his weapon?

OSRIC Rapier and dagger.

HAMLET That’s two of his weapons. But well.

OSRIC The King, sir, hath wagered with him six Barbary horses, against the which he imponed, as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns as girdle, hanger, or so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit.

HAMLET What call you the carriages?

OSRIC The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

HAMLET The phrase would be more germane to the matter if we could carry cannon by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then. But on: six Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages—that’s the French bet against the Danish. Why is this ‘imponed’, as you call it?

OSRIC The King, sir, hath laid, sir, that in a dozen passes between you and him he shall not exceed you three hits. He hath on’t twelve for nine, and it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.

HAMLET How if I answer no?

OSRIC I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

HAMLET Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his majesty, ‘tis the breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be brought; the gentleman willing, an the King hold his purpose, I will win for him an I can. If not, I’ll gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits. OSRIC Shall I re-deliver you e’en so?

HAMLET To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.

OSRIC I commend my duty to your lordship.

HAMLET Yours, yours.

Exit Osric

He does well to commend it himself; there are no tongues else for ’s turn.

HORATIO This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

HAMLET A did comply with his dug before a sucked it. Thus has he—and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on—only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter, a kind of yeasty collection which carries them through and through the most fanned and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.

HORATIO You will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLET I do not think so. Since he went into France, I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how all here about my heart—but it is no matter.

HORATIO Nay, good my lord—

HAMLET It is but foolery, but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would perhaps trouble a woman.

HORATIO If your mind dislike anything, 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

lords, with Osric and other attendants with

⌈trumpets, drums, cushions⌉, foils, and gauntlets; a

table, and flagons of wine on it

KING CLAUDIUS

Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

HAMLET (to Laertes)

Give me your pardon, sir. I’ve done you wrong;

But pardon’t as you are a gentleman.

This presence knows,

And you must needs have heard, how I am punished

With sore distraction. What I have done

That might your nature, honour, and exception

Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.

Was’t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet.

If Hamlet from himself be ta‘en away,

And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,

Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.

Who does it then? His madness. If’t be so,

Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged.

His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.

Sir, in this audience

Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil

Free me so far in your most generous thoughts

That I have shot mine arrow o’er the house

And hurt my brother.

LAERTES

I am satisfied in nature,

Whose motive in this case should stir me most

To my revenge. But in my terms of honour

I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement

Till by some elder masters of known honour

I have a voice and precedent of peace

To keep my name ungored; but till that time

I do receive your offered love like love,

And will not wrong it.

HAMLET

I do embrace it freely,

And will this brothers’ wager frankly play.—

(To attendants) Give us the foils. Come on.

LAERTES (to attendants)

Come, one for me.

HAMLET

I’ll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance

Your skill shall, like a star i’th’ darkest night,

Stick fiery off indeed.

LAERTES You mock me, sir.

HAMLET No, by this hand.

KING CLAUDIUS

Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,

You know the wager?

HAMLET

Very well, my lord.

Your grace hath laid the odds o’th’ weaker side.

KING CLAUDIUS

I do not fear it; I have seen you both.

But since he is bettered, we have therefore odds.

LAERTES (taking a foil)

This is too heavy; let me see another.

HAMLET (taking a foil)

This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

OSRIC Ay, my good lord.

Hamlet and Laertes prepare to play

KING CLAUDIUS (to attendants)

Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.

If Hamlet give the first or second hit,

Or quit in answer of the third exchange,

Let all the battlements their ordnance fire.

The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath,

And in the cup an union shall he throw

Richer than that which four successive kings

In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups,

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,

The trumpet to the cannoneer without,

The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,

‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet’.

Trumpets the while he drinks

Come, begin.

And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

HAMLET (to Laertes) Come on, sir.

LAERTES Come, my lord.

They play

HAMLET One.

LAERTES No.

HAMLET (to Osric) Judgement.

OSRIC A hit, a very palpable hit.

LAERTES Well, again.

KING CLAUDIUS

Stay. Give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine.

Here’s to thy health.—

⌈Drum and⌉ trumpets sound, and shot goes off Give him the cup.

HAMLET

I’ll play this bout first. Set it by a while.—

Come.

They play again

Another hit. What say you?

LAERTES

A touch, a touch, I do confess.

KING CLAUDIUS

Our son shall win.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

He’s fat and scant of breath.—

Here, Hamlet, take my napkin. Rub thy brows.

The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

HAMLET

Good madam.

KING CLAUDIUS Gertrude, do not drink.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I will, my lord, I pray you pardon me.

She drinks, then offers the cup to Hamlet

KING CLAUDIUS (aside)

It is the poisoned cup; it is too late.

HAMLET

I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.

QUEEN GERTRUDE (to Hamlet) Come, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTES (aside to Claudius) My lord, I’ll hit him now.

KING CLAUDIUS (aside to Laertes) I do not think’t.

LAERTES (aside)

And yet ‘tis almost ’gainst my conscience.

HAMLET

Come for the third, Laertes, you but dally.

I pray you pass with your best violence.

I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

LAERTES

Say you so? Come on.

They play

OSRIC

Nothing neither way.

LAERTES (to Hamlet)

Have at you now!

⌈Laertes wounds Hamlet.⌉ In scuffling, they change

rapiers, ⌈and Hamlet wounds Laertes⌉

KING CLAUDIUS (to attendants)

Part them, they are incensed.

HAMLET (to Laertes)

Nay, come again.

⌈The Queen falls down⌉

OSRIC

Look to the Queen there, ho!

HORATIO

They bleed on both sides. (To Hamlet) How is’t, my lord?

OSRIC How is’t, Laertes?

LAERTES

Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.

I am justly killed with mine own treachery.

HAMLET

How does the Queen?

KING CLAUDIUS

She swoons to see them bleed.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet,

The drink, the drink—I am poisoned. ⌈She dies⌉

HAMLET

O villainy! Ho! Let the door be locked! ⌈Exit Osric⌉

Treachery, seek it out.

LAERTES

It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain.

No med’cine in the world can do thee good.

In thee there is not half an hour of life.

The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,

Unbated and envenomed. The foul practice

Hath turned itself on me. Lo, here I lie,

Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poisoned.

I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.

HAMLET

The point envenomed too? Then, venom, to thy work.

He hurts King Claudius

ALL THE COURTIERS Treason, treason!

KING CLAUDIUS

O yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.

HAMLET

Here, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damned Dane,

Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?

Follow my mother. King Claudius dies

LAERTES He is justly served.

It is a poison tempered by himself.

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.

Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,

Nor thine on me. He dies

HAMLET

Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.

I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu!

You that look pale and tremble at this chance,

That are but mutes or audience to this act,

Had I but time—as this fell sergeant Death

Is strict in his arrest—O, I could tell you—

But let it be. Horatio, I am dead,

Thou liv’st. Report me and my cause aright

To the unsatisfied.

HORATIO

Never believe it.

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.

Here’s yet some liquor left.

HAMLET As thou’rt a man,

Give me the cup. Let go. By heaven, I’ll ha’t.

O God, Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,

Absent thee from felicity a while,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain

To tell my story.

March afar off, and shout within

What warlike noise is this?

Enter Osric

OSRIC

Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,

To th’ambassadors of England gives

This warlike volley.

HAMLET

O, I die, Horatio!

The potent poison quite o‘ercrows my spirit.

I cannot live to hear the news from England,

But I do prophesy th’election lights

On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.

So tell him, with th’occurrents, more and less,

Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

O, O, O, O!

He dies

HORATIO

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.—

Why does the drum come hither?

Enter Fortinbras with the English ⌈Ambassadors⌉, with a drummer, colours, and attendants

FORTINBRAS Where is this sight?

HORATIO What is it ye would see?

If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

FORTINBRAS

This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,

What feast is toward in thine eternal cell

That thou so many princes at a shot

So bloodily hast struck!

AMBASSADOR

The sight is dismal,

And our affairs from England come too late.

The ears are senseless that should give us hearing

To tell him his commandment is fulfilled,

That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIO

Not from his mouth,

Had it th‘ability of life to thank you.

He never gave commandment for their death.

But since so jump upon this bloody question

You from the Polack wars, and you from England,

Are here arrived, give order that these bodies

High on a stage be placed to the view;

And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world

How these things came about. So shall you hear

Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,

Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,

Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause;

And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fall’n on th’inventors’ heads. All this can I

Truly deliver.

FORTINBRAS Let us haste to hear it,

And call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.

I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,

Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

HORATIO

Of that I shall have also cause to speak,

And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.

But let this same be presently performed,

Even whiles men’s minds are wild, lest more

mischance

On plots and errors happen.

FORTINBRAS

Let four captains

Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,

For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have proved most royally; and for his passage,

The soldiers’ music and the rites of war

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the body. Such a sight as this

Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

Exeunt, marching, with the bodies; after the which, a peal of ordnance are shot off

ADDITIONAL PASSAGES

A. Just before the second entrance of the Ghost in 1.1 (l. 106.1), Q2 has these additional lines:

BARNARDO

I think it be no other but e’en so.

Well may it sort that this portentous figure

Comes armed through our watch so like the king

That was and is the question of these wars.

HORATIO

A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets

At stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,

Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

And even the like precurse of feared events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates,

And prologue to the omen coming on,

Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

Unto our climature and countrymen.

B. Just before the entrance of the Ghost in 1.4 (l. 18.1),

Q2 has these additional lines continuing Hamlet’s speech:

This heavy-headed revel east and west

Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations.

They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase

Soil our addition; and indeed it takes

From our achievements, though performed at height,

So, oft it chances in particular men

That, for some vicious mole of nature in them—

As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty,

Since nature cannot choose his origin,

By the o‘ergrowth of some complexion,

Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,

Or by some habit that too much o’erleavens

The form of plausive manners—that these men,

Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,

Being nature’s livery or fortune’s star,

His virtues else be they as pure as grace,

As infinite as man may undergo,

Shall in the general censure take corruption

From that particular fault. The dram of evil

Doth all the noble substance over-daub

To his own scandal.

C. After 1.4.55, Q2 has these additional lines continuing Horatio’s speech:

The very place puts toys of desperation,

Without more motive, into every brain

That looks so many fathoms to the sea

And hears it roar beneath.

D. After 3.2.163, Q2 has this additional couplet concluding the Player Queen’s speech:

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

E. After 3.2.208, Q2 has this additional couplet in the middle of the Player Queen’s speech:

To desperation turn my trust and hope;

An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope.

F. After ‘this?’ in 3.4.70, Q2 has this more expansive version of Hamlet’s lines of which F retains only ‘what devil . . . blind’:

Sense sure you have,

Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense

Is apoplexed, for madness would not err,

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled

But it reserved some quantity of choice

To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t

That thus hath cozened you at hoodman-blind?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope.

G. After 3.4.151, Q2 has this more expansive version of Hamlet’s lines of which F retains only ‘refrain . . . abstinence’:

That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,

Of habits devilish, is angel yet in this:

That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery

That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence, the next more easy—

For use almost can change the stamp of nature—

And either in the devil, or throw him out

With wondrous potency.

H. At 3.4.185, Q2 has these additional lines before ‘This man . . .’:

HAMLET

There’s letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows—

Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged—

They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,

For ‘tis the sport to have the engineer

Hoised with his own petard; and’t shall go hard

But I will delve one yard below their mines

And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet

When in one line two crafts directly meet.

1. After ‘done’ in 4.1.39, Q2 has these additional lines continuing the King’s speech (the first three words are an editorial conjecture):

So envious slander,

Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,

As level as the cannon to his blank,

Transports his poisoned shot, may miss our name

And hit the woundless air.

J. Q2 has this more expansive version of the ending of 4.4:

CAPTAIN I will do’t, my lord.

FORTINBRAS

Go softly on.

Exit with his army

Enter Prince Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, etc.

HAMLET (to the Captain) Good sir, whose powers are these?

CAPTAIN

They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLET

How purposed, sir, I pray you?

CAPTAIN

Against some part of Poland.

HAMLET

Who commands them, sir?

CAPTAIN

The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAMLET

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?

CAPTAIN

Truly to speak, and with no addition,

We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it,

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

HAMLET

Why then, the Polack never will defend it.

CAPTAIN

Yes, it is already garrisoned.

HAMLET

Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will now debate the question of this straw.

This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace,

That inward breaks and shows no cause without

Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

CAPTAIN

God buy you, sir. Exit

ROSENCRANTZ Will’t please you go, my lord?

HAMLET

I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.

Exeunt all but Hamlet

How all occasions do inform against me

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed?—a beast, no more.

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused. Now whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th‘event—

A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward—I do not know

Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do’,

Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means,

To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me,

Witness this army of such mass and charge,

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour’s at the stake. How stand I, then,

That have a father killed, a mother stained,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep while, to my shame, I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain. O, from this time forth

My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!

Exit

K. After ‘accident’ at 4.7.67, Q2 has these additional lines:

LAERTES

My lord, I will be ruled,

The rather if you could devise it so

That I might be the organ.

KING CLAUDIUS

It falls right.

You have been talked of, since your travel, much,

And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality

Wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts

Did not together pluck such envy from him

As did that one, and that, in my regard,

Of the unworthiest siege.

LAERTES

What part is that, my lord?

KING CLAUDIUS

A very ribbon in the cap of youth,

Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes

The light and careless livery that it wears

Than settled age his sables and his weeds

Importing health and graveness.

L. After ‘match you’ at 4.7.85, Q2 has these additional lines continuing the King’s speech:

Th’escrimers of their nation

He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye

If you opposed them.

M. After 4.7.96, Q2 has these additional lines continuing the King’s speech:

There lives within the very flame of love

A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it,

And nothing is at a like goodness still,

For goodness, growing to a plurisy,

Dies in his own too much. That we would do

We should do when we would, for this ‘would’ changes,

And hath abatements and delays as many

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;

And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift’s sigh,

That hurts by easing. But to the quick of th’ulcer—

N. After ‘Sir’ at 5.2.107, Q2 has these lines (in place of F’s ‘you are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is at his weapon’):

here is newly come to court Laertes, believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing. 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 Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you, though I know to divide him inventorially would dizzy th’arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw neither in respect of his quick sail. 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?

HORATIO Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue? You will to’t, sir, rarely.

HAMLET What imports the nomination of this gentleman? OSRIC Of Laertes?

HORATIO (aside to Hamlet) His purse is empty already; all ’s golden words are spent.

HAMLET (to Osric) 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 You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is.

HAMLET I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence. But to know a man well were to know himself.

OSRIC I mean, sir, for his weapon. But in the imputation laid on him by them, in his meed he’s unfellowed.

O. After 5.2.118, Q2 has the following additional speech:

HORATIO (aside to Hamlet) I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done.

P. After 5.2.154, Q2 has the following (in place of F’s ‘HORATIO You will lose this wager, my lord’):

Enter a Lord

LORD (to Hamlet) My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in the hall. He sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time.

HAMLET I am constant to my purposes; they follow the King’s pleasure. If his fitness speaks, mine is ready, now or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.

LORD The King and Queen and all are coming down.