King.
Now must your conscience my acquittance 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,
Pursu'd my life.

Laer.
It well appears:—But tell me,
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirr'd up?

King.
O, for two special reasons;
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd,
And 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 is 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 publick count I might not go,
Is, the great love ^{4 note}the general gender bear him:
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
^{5 note}

Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind^{6 note},
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim'd them.

Laer.
And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms;
Whose worth, ^{7 note}if praises may go back again,
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^{8 note}

,
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:
I lov'd your father, and we love ourself;
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,—
How now? what news^{9 note}? Enter a Messenger.

Mess.
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet^{1 note}:
This to your majesty; this to the queen.

King.
From Hamlet! Who brought them?

Mess.
Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them not;
They were given me by Claudio, he receiv'd them

Of him that brought them^{2 note}.

King.
Laertes, you shall hear them:—
Leave us. [Exit Mess.

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.

Laer.
Know you the hand?

King.
'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,—
And, in a postscript here, he says, alone:
Can you advise me?

Laer.
I am 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 diddest thou.

King.
If it be so, Laertes,—
As how should it be so?—how otherwise?—
Will you be rul'd by me?

Laer.
Ay, my lord;
So you will not o'er-rule me to a peace.

King.
To thine own peace. If he be now return'd,—
^{3 note}

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 practice,
And call it, accident.

Laer.
^{4 note}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,
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,
^{5 note}

Laer.
What part is that, my lord?

King.
A very ribband 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,
^{6 note}

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 incorps'd and demy-natur'd
With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought,
That I, ^{7 note}in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.

Laer.
A Norman, was't?

King.
A Norman.

Laer.
Upon my life, Lamond.

King.
The very same.

Laer.
I know him well: he is the brooch, indeed,
And gem of all the nation.

King.
He made confession of you;
And gave you such a masterly report,
For art and exercise ^{8 note}in your defence,
And for your rapier most especial,
That he cried out, 'Twould be a sight indeed,
If one could match you: ^{9 note}

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.
Not that I think, you did not love your father;
But that I know, ^{1 note}love is begun by time;
And that I see, ^{2 note}in passages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives^{3 note} within the very flame of love
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
^{4 note}

Hamlet comes back; What would you undertake,
To shew yourself your father's son in deed
More than in words?

Laer.
To cut his throat i'the church.

King.
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 o'er your heads: ^{6 note}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

^{7 note}

Laer.
I will do't:
And, for the 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.
Let's further think of this;
Weigh, what convenience, both of time and means,
^{9 note}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 ^{1 note}