SCENE VI. Another Room in the Palace. Enter KING and LAERTES. King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal; Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, Laer. And so have I a noble father lost; Stood challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections: But my revenge will come. King. 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. How now? what news? Enter BERNARDO. Ber.. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet : This to your majesty; this to the Queen. King. From Hamlet! who brought them? Ber. Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them not. King. Laertes, you shall hear them.— Leave us. [Exit BERNARDO. [Reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden, and more strange, return. HAMLET. What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? King. 'Tis Hamlet's character.-Naked,— But let him come; Laer. I am lost in it, my lord. King. If it be so, Laertes, Will you be rul❜d by me. Laer. Ay, my lord; So will not o'er-rule me to a peace. you King. To thine own peace. turn'd, If he be now re As checking at his voyage, and that he means Under the which he shall not choose but fall; Laer. My lord, I will be rul'd; The rather, if you could devise it so, That I might be the organ. King. It falls right. You have been talk'd of since your travel much, Wherein they say, you shine. Laer. What part is that, my lord? King. A very ribband in the cap of youth. H And gave you such a masterly report, That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed, This report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy, Laer. What out of this, my lord? King. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart? Laer. Why ask you this? King. Hamlet comes back :-What would you undertake, To show yourself in deed More than in words? your father's son Laer. To cut his throat i' the church. King. No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize. Hamlet, return'd, shall know you are come home: We'll put on those shall praise your excellence, And set a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, together, And wager o'er your heads: he, being remiss, Laer. I will do't: And, for the purpose, I'll anoint my sword. Collected from all simples that have virtue King. Let's further think of this :— We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings; Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow :-Your sister's drown'd, Laertes. Laer. Drown'd! O, where? Queen. There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples; Laer. I forbid my tears: But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Adieu, my lord! I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly drowns it. [Exit LAERTES. King. How much I had to do to calm his rage! Now fear I, this will give it start again. [Exeunt. ACT THE FIFTH. SCENE I. A Churchyard. Enter two GRAVEDIGGERS. 1. Graved. Is she to be buried in christian burial, that wilfully seeks her own salvation? 2 Graved. I tell thee, she is; therefore, make her grave straight: the crowner hath set on her, and finds it christian burial. 1 Graved. How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own defence? 2 Graved. Why, 'tis found so. 1 Graved. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform: Argal, she drowned herself wittingly. 2 Graved. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver ;1 Graved. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but, if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: Argal, he, that is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life. 2 Graved. But is this law? 1 Graved. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law. 2 Graved. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had |