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Shakespeare on Stage
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.
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Hamlet (Modern, based on the First Folio)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: David Bevington
Not Peer Reviewed

[4.5]

Enter Queen and Horatio.
2745Queen I will not speak with her.
Horatio She is importunate,
Indeed, distract. Her mood will needs be pitied.
Queen What would she have?
Horatio She speaks much of her father, says she hears
2750There'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 unshapèd use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
2755And 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 would be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
Queen 'Twere good she were spoken with,
2760For she may strew dangerous conjectures
In ill-breeding minds. Let her come in.
[Aside] To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
2765It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Enter Ophelia, distracted.
Ophelia Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
Queen How now, Ophelia?
Ophelia [She sings.]
How should I your true love know from another one?
2770By his cockle hat and staff, and his sandal shoon.
Queen Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
Ophelia Say you? Nay, pray you, mark.
[She sings.]
He is dead and gone, lady, he is dead and gone.
At his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone.
2775
Enter King.
Queen Nay, but Ophelia--
Ophelia Pray you, mark. [She sings. ]
White his shroud as the mountain snow--
Queen Alas, look here, my lord.
2780Ophelia [She sings.]
Larded with sweet flowers,
Which bewept to the ground did not go
With true-love showers.
King How do ye, pretty lady?
Ophelia Well God dild you. They say the owl was 2785a 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.
Ophelia Pray you, let's have no words of this, but when they ask you what it means, say you this:
2790[She sings.]
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donned his clothes, and dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid never departed more.
King Pretty Ophelia--
2795Ophelia Indeed, la! Without an oath I'll make an end on't.
[She sings.]
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't if they come to't;
By Cock, they are too blame.
2800Quoth she, "Before you tumbled me, you promised me to wed."
"So would I ha 'done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed."
King How long hath she been thus?
2805Ophelia I hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot choose 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, 2810good night, good night.
Exit.
King [To Horatio.] Follow her close. Give her good watch, I pray you.
[Exit Horatio.]
Oh, this is the poison of deep grief! It springs
All from her father's death. Oh, Gertrude, Gertrude,
2815When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalias. First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone, and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in thoughts and whispers
2820For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts;
Last, and as much containing as all these,
2825Her brother is in secret come from France,
Keeps on his 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 beggared,
2830Will nothing stick our persons to arraign
In ear and ear. Oh, my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.
A noise within. Enter a Messenger.
2835Queen Alack, what noise is this?
King Attend! Where are my Switzers,?
Let them guard the door. What is the matter?
Messenger Save yourself, my lord!
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
2840Eats not the flats with more impiteous haste
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord,
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
2845The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry, "Choose we! Laertes shall be king!"
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds:
"Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!"
Queen How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
2850Oh, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
Noise within. Enter Laertes.
King The doors are broke.
Laertes Where is this king?--Sirs, stand you all without.
All [Offstage] No let's come in.
2855Laertes I pray you, give me leave.
All [Offstage] We will, we will.
Laertes I thank you. Keep the door.-- O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
Queen Calmly, good Laertes.
2860Laertes That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries "Cuckold!" to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirchèd brow
Of my true mother.
2865King 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,
2870Acts little of his will.--Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed?--Let him go, Gertrude.--
Speak, man.
Laertes Where's my father?
King Dead.
2875Queen But not by him.
King Let him demand his fill.
Laertes 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!
2880I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes, only I'll be revenged
Most throughly for my father.
King Who shall stay you?
2885Laertes My will, not all the world.
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
2890Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
Laertes None but his enemies,
King Will you know them, then?
2895Laertes 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.
2900That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.
A noise within.
Let her come in.
2905
Enter Ophelia
Laertes How now, what noise is that?
O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight
2910Till our scale turns the beam. O rose of May,
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as a poor man's life?
Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine
2915It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
Ophelia [She sings.]
They bore him bare-faced on the bier,
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,
And in his grave rains many a tear.
2920Fare you well, my dove.
Laertes Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
Ophelia You must sing "down, a-down," an you call him "a-down-a." Oh, how the wheel becomes it!  It is 2925the false steward that stole his master's daughter.
Laertes This nothing's more than matter.
Ophelia There's rosemary; that's for remembrance.Pray, love, remember. And there is pansies; that's for thoughts.
2930Laertes A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
Ophelia There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We may call it herb-grace o'Sundays. Oh, you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy. I would 2935give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. They say he made a good end.
[She sings.]
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
.
Laertes Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself
2940She turns to favor and to prettiness.
Ophelia [She sings.]
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead, go to thy deathbed,
He never will come again.
2945His beard as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll.
He is gone, he is gone, and we cast away moan.
Gramercy on his soul!
and of all Christians' souls, I pray God.
2950God buy you!
Exeunt Ophelia [and the Queen, following her].
Laertes Do you see this, you gods?
King Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
2955And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touched, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
2960Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labor with your soul
To give it due content.
Laertes Let this be so.
His means of death, his obscure burial--
2965No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation--
Cry to be heard as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call in question.
King So you shall,
2970And where th'offense is, let the great ax fall.
I pray you go with me.
Exeunt.