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Go back to [["The Fire Sermon" Annotations]] Act 4, Scene 7 SCENE VII. Another room in the castle. :Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES KING CLAUDIUS :Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal, :And you must put me in your heart for friend, :Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, :That he which hath your noble father slain :Pursued my life. LAERTES :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 stirr'd up. KING CLAUDIUS :O, for two special reasons; :Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd, :But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother :Lives almost by his looks; and for myself-- :My virtue or my plague, be it either which-- :She's 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 timber'd for so loud a wind, :Would have reverted to my bow again, :And not where I had aim'd them. LAERTES :And so have I a noble father lost; :A sister driven into desperate 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. KING CLAUDIUS :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-- :Enter a Messenger :How now! what news? Messenger :Letters, my lord, from Hamlet: :This to your majesty; this to the queen. KING CLAUDIUS :From Hamlet! who brought them? Messenger :Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not: :They were given me by Claudio; he received them :Of him that brought them. KING CLAUDIUS :Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us. :Exit Messenger :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? :Or is it some abuse, and no such thing? LAERTES :Know you the hand? KING CLAUDIUS :'Tis Hamlets character. 'Naked! :And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.' :Can you advise me? LAERTES :I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come; :It warms the very sickness in my heart, :That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, :'Thus didest thou.' KING CLAUDIUS :If it be so, Laertes-- :As how should it be so? how otherwise?-- :Will you be ruled by me? LAERTES :Ay, my lord; :So you will not o'errule me to a peace. KING CLAUDIUS :To thine own peace. If he be now return'd, :As checking at his voyage, and that he means :No more to undertake it, I will work him :To an exploit, now ripe in my device, :Under the which he shall not choose but fall: :And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe, :But even his mother shall uncharge the practise :And call it accident. 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 talk'd 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 riband 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. Two months since, :Here was a gentleman of Normandy:-- :I've seen myself, and served against, the French, :And they can well on horseback: but this gallant :Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his seat; :And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, :As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured :With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought, :That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks, :Come short of what he did. LAERTES :A Norman was't? KING CLAUDIUS :A Norman. LAERTES :Upon my life, Lamond. KING CLAUDIUS :The very same. LAERTES :I know him well: he is the brooch indeed :And gem of all the nation. KING CLAUDIUS :He made confession of you, :And gave you such a masterly report :For art and exercise in your defence :And for your rapier most especially, :That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed, :If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation, :He swore, had had neither motion, guard, nor eye, :If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his :Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy :That he could nothing do but wish and beg :Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him. :Now, out of this,-- LAERTES :What out of this, my lord? KING CLAUDIUS :Laertes, was your father dear to you? :Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, :A face without a heart? LAERTES :Why ask you this? KING CLAUDIUS :Not that I think you did not love your father; :But that I know love is begun by time; :And that I see, in passages of proof, :Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. :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 sigh, :That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:-- :Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake, :To show yourself your father's son in deed :More than in words? LAERTES :To cut his throat i' the church. KING CLAUDIUS :No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; :Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes, :Will you do this, keep close within your chamber. :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 on your heads: he, being remiss, :Most generous and free from all contriving, :Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease, :Or with a little shuffling, you may choose :A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise :Requite him for your father. LAERTES :I will do't: :And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword. :I bought an unction of a mountebank, :So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, :Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, :Collected from all simples that have virtue :Under the moon, can save the thing from death :That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point :With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, :It may be death. KING CLAUDIUS :Let's further think of this; :Weigh what convenience both of time and means :May fit us to our shape: if this should fail, :And that our drift look through our bad performance, :'Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project :Should have a back or second, that might hold, :If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see: :We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: I ha't. :When in your motion you are hot and dry-- :As make your bouts more violent to that end-- :And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepared him :A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping, :If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck, :Our purpose may hold there. :Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE :How now, sweet queen! QUEEN GERTRUDE :One woe doth tread upon another's heel, :So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes. LAERTES :Drown'd! O, where? QUEEN GERTRUDE :There is a willow grows aslant a 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 :That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, :But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: :There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds :Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; :When down her weedy trophies and herself :Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; :And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: :Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes; :As one incapable of her own distress, :Or like a creature native and indued :Unto that element: but long it could not be :Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, :Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay :To muddy death. LAERTES :Alas, then, she is drown'd? QUEEN GERTRUDE :Drown'd, drown'd. LAERTES :Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, :And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet :It is our trick; nature her custom holds, :Let shame say what it will: when these are gone, :The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord: :I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, :But that this folly douts it. :Exit KING CLAUDIUS :Let's follow, Gertrude: :How much I had to do to calm his rage! :Now fear I this will give it start again; :Therefore let's follow. :Exeunt
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''Hamlet'' (Act IV Scene VII)
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