Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.

If that his majesty would aught with us,

We shall express our duty in his eye,

And let him know so.

CAPTAIN I will do’t, my lord.

⌈Exit⌉

FORTINBRAS Go safely on.

Exeunt marching

4.5 Enter Queen Gertrude and Horatio

QUEEN GERTRUDE

I will not speak with her.

HORATIO

She is importunate,

Indeed distraught. Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN GERTRUDE What would she have?

HORATIO

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 unshapèd 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.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Let her come in.

⌈Horatio withdraws to admit Ophelia⌉

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,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Enter Ophelia mad, ⌈her hair down, with a lute⌉

OPHELIA

Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN GERTRUDE How now, Ophelia?

OPHELIA (sings)

How should I your true love know

From another one?—

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA Say you? Nay, pray you, mark. (Sings)

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone.

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.

QUEEN GERTRUDE Nay, but Ophelia—

OPHELIA Pray you, mark.

(Sings)

White his shroud as the mountain snow—

Enter King Claudius

QUEEN GERTRUDE Alas, look here, my lord.

OPHELIA (sings)

Larded with sweet flowers,

Which bewept to the grave did—not—go

With true-love showers.

KING CLAUDIUS How do ye, pretty lady?

OPHELIA Well, God’ield 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 CLAUDIUS (to Gertrude) 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. (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 CLAUDIUS Pretty Ophelia—

OPHELIA Indeed, la? Without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t.

(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 to blame.

Quoth she ‘Before you tumbled me,

You promised me to wed.’

So would I ‘a’ done, by yonder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.

KING CLAUDIUS (to Gertrude) How long hath she been thus?

OPHELIA 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, good night, good night. Exit

KING CLAUDIUS (to Horatio)

Follow her close. Give her good watch, I pray you.

Exit Horatio

O, 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 unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers

For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but

greenly

In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia

Divided from herself and her fair judgement,

Without the which we are 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 beggared,

Will nothing stick our persons to arraign

In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,

Like to a murd’ring-piece, in many places

Gives me superfluous death.

A noise within

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Alack, what noise is this?

KING CLAUDIUS

Where is my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

Enter a Messenger

What is the matter?

MESSENGER

Save yourself, my lord.

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impetuous 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,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes shall be king.’