King.
Where are my Switzers? let them guard the door.
What is the matter?

Mes.
Save your self, my lord.
The ocean over-peering of his list
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,
The ratifiers and props of every word;
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,
Oh this is counter, you false Danish dogs. [Noise within. Enter Laertes.

King.
The doors are broke.

Laer.
Where is the King? Sirs! stand you all without.

All.
No let's come in.

Laer.
I pray you give me leave.

All.
We will, we will.

Laer.
I thank you; keep the door.
O thou vile King, give me my father.

Queen.
Calmly, good Laertes.

Laer.
That drop of blood that's calm, proclaims me bastard,
Crys cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste and unsmich'd brow
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 incenst? 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 black 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's.
And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

King.
Good Laertes:
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father's death, 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-rendring 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 sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce,
As day does to your eye. [A Noise within.

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