SCENE V.
A Palace.
Enter Queen, Horatio, and a Gentleman.
Queen.
I will not speak with her.
Gent.
She is importunate,
Indeed distract; her mood will needs be pitied.
Queen.
What would she have?
Gent.
She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There's tricks i'th' world, and hems, and beats her heart,
Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,
Which as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought;
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
Hor.
'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strow
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Let her come in—
Queen.
To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss,
So full of artless jealousie is guilt,
It spills it self in fearing to be spilt.
Enter Ophelia distracted.
Oph.
Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
Queen.
How now, Ophelia?
Oph.
How should I your true love know from another one?
By his cockle hat and staff, and his sandal shoon.
[Singing.
-- 436 --
Queen.
Alas, sweet lady; what imports this song?
Oph.
Say you? nay, pray you mark.
He's dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone,
At his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone.
Enter King.
Queen.
Nay, but Ophelia.—
Oph.
Pray you mark.
White his shrowd as the mountain snow.
Queen.
Alas, look here, my lord.
Oph.
Larded with sweet flowers:
Which bewept to the grave did go,
With true-love showers.
King.
How do ye, pretty lady?
Oph.
Well, God dil'd you. They say the owl was a baker's
daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what
we may be. God be at your table.
King.
Conceit upon her father.
Oph.
Pray let us have no words of this; but when they ask
you what it means, say you this:
To-morrow is St. Valentine's day, all in the morn betime,
And I a maid at your window, to be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and don'd his cloaths, and dupt the chamber-door;
Let in a maid, that out a maid never departed more.
King.
Pretty Ophelia!
Oph.
Indeed? without an oath, I'll make an end on't.
By Gis, and by S. Charity;
Alack, and fie for shame,
Young men will do't, if they come to't,
By cock they are to blame
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promis'd me to wed:
-- 437 --
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
And thou hadst not come to my bed.
King.
How long hath she been thus?
Oph.
I hope all will be well. We must be patient, but I cannot
chuse but weep, to think they should lay him i'th' cold ground;
my brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good
counsel. Come, my coach; good-night, ladies; good-night,
sweet ladies; good-night, good-night.
[Exit.
King.
Follow her close, give her good watch, I pray you;
This is the poison of deep grief, it springs
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude!
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. First, her father slain,
Next your son gone, and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and unwholsome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death. We've done but greenly,
In private to inter him; poor Ophelia
Divided from her self, and her fair judgment,
(Without the which we're pictures, or mere beasts:)
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on this wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our persons to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece in many places,
Gives me superfluous death!
[A Noise within.
-- 438 --
George Sewell [1723–5], The works of Shakespear in six [seven] volumes. Collated and Corrected by the former Editions, By Mr. Pope ([Vol. 7] Printed by J. Darby, for A. Bettesworth [and] F. Fayram [etc.], London) [word count] [S11101].
