SCENE VI.
Enter a Messenger.
King.
Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
What is the matter?
Mes.
Save yourself, my Lord.
1 noteThe ocean, over-peering of his list,
-- 262 --
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste,
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O'er-bears your officers. The rabble call him Lord;
And as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
2 note
The ratifiers and props of every Ward;
They cry, “Chuse we Laertes for our King.”
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the Clouds;
“Laertes shall be King, Laertes King!”
Queen.
How chearfully on the false trail they cry!
3 noteOh, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.
[Noise within.
Enter Laertes, with a Party at the Door.
King.
The doors are broke.
-- 263 --
Laer.
Where is this King? Sirs! stand you all without.
All.
No, let's come in.
Laer.
I pray you, give me leave.
All.
We will, we will.
[Exeunt.
Laer.
I thank you. Keep the door.
O thou vile King, give me my father.
Queen.
Calmly, good Laertes.
[Laying hold on him.
Laer.
That drop of blood that's calm, proclaims me bastard;
Cries cuckold to my father; brands the harlot
Ev'n here, between the chaste and unsmirch'd brows
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 its will. Tell me, Laertes,
Why are you thus incens'd?—Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.
Laer.
Where is my father?
King.
Dead.
Queen.
But not by him.
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;
And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
-- 264 --
King.
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father, is't writ in your revenge,
That, sweep-stake, 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-rend'ring pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
King.
Why, now you speak
Like a good child, and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level 4 note
to your judgment 'pear,
As day does to your eye.
Crowd within.
Let her come in.
Laer.
How now, what noise is that?
Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
