''Hamlet'' (Act IV Scene VII)
From The Waste Land Wiki
(Created page with "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 ...") |
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SCENE VII. Another room in the castle. | SCENE VII. Another room in the castle. | ||
| − | + | :Enter KING CLAUDIUS and LAERTES | |
KING CLAUDIUS | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | Messenger | ||
| − | + | :Letters, my lord, from Hamlet: | |
| − | + | :This to your majesty; this to the queen. | |
KING CLAUDIUS | KING CLAUDIUS | ||
| − | + | :From Hamlet! who brought them? | |
Messenger | 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 | 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 | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :Know you the hand? | |
KING CLAUDIUS | KING CLAUDIUS | ||
| − | + | :'Tis Hamlets character. 'Naked! | |
| − | + | :And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.' | |
| − | + | :Can you advise me? | |
LAERTES | 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 | KING CLAUDIUS | ||
| − | + | :If it be so, Laertes-- | |
| − | + | :As how should it be so? how otherwise?-- | |
| − | + | :Will you be ruled by me? | |
LAERTES | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :Ay, my lord; | |
| − | + | :So you will not o'errule me to a peace. | |
KING CLAUDIUS | 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 | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :My lord, I will be ruled; | |
| − | + | :The rather, if you could devise it so | |
| − | + | :That I might be the organ. | |
KING CLAUDIUS | 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 | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :What part is that, my lord? | |
KING CLAUDIUS | 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 | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :A Norman was't? | |
KING CLAUDIUS | KING CLAUDIUS | ||
| − | + | :A Norman. | |
LAERTES | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :Upon my life, Lamond. | |
KING CLAUDIUS | KING CLAUDIUS | ||
| − | + | :The very same. | |
LAERTES | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :I know him well: he is the brooch indeed | |
| − | + | :And gem of all the nation. | |
KING CLAUDIUS | 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 | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :What out of this, my lord? | |
KING CLAUDIUS | KING CLAUDIUS | ||
| − | + | :Laertes, was your father dear to you? | |
| − | + | :Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, | |
| − | + | :A face without a heart? | |
LAERTES | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :Why ask you this? | |
KING CLAUDIUS | 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 | LAERTES | ||
| − | + | :To cut his throat i' the church. | |
KING CLAUDIUS | 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 | 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 | 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, | :If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck, | ||
:Our purpose may hold there. | :Our purpose may hold there. | ||
