Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,

Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,

Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,

Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,

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, 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,

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,--

[Enter a Messenger.]

How now! What news?

Mess.

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

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.

King.

Laertes, you shall hear them.

Leave us.

[Exit Messenger.]

[Reads]'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 occasions of my sudden and more strange return. HAMLET.'

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

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 didest 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'errule me to a peace.

King.

To thine own peace. If he be now return'd--

As checking at his voyage, and that he means

No more to undertake it,--I will work him

To exploit, now ripe in my device,

Under the which he shall not choose but fall:

And for his death no wind shall breathe;

But even his mother shall uncharge the practice

And call it accident.

Laer.

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,

Of the unworthiest siege.

Laer.

What part is that, my lord?

King.

A very riband 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,

Importing health and graveness.--Two months since,

Here was a gentleman of Normandy,--

I've seen myself, and serv'd against, the French,

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 had he been incorps'd and demi-natur'd

With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought

That I, 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 in your defence,

And for your rapier most especially,

That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed

If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation

He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,

If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report of his

Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy

That he could nothing do but wish and beg

Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him.

Now, out of this,--

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 love is begun by time,

And that I see, in passages of proof,

Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.

There lives within the very flame of love

A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;

And nothing is at a like goodness still;

For goodness, growing to a plurisy,

Dies in his own too much: that we would do,

We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes,

And hath abatements and delays as many

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;

And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,

That hurts by easing. But to the quick o' the ulcer:--

Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake

To show 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 on your heads: 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

A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,

Requite him for your father.

Laer.

I will do't:

And for that 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