Hear you, sir,

What is the reason that you use me thus?

I loved you ever. But it is no matter.

Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. Exit

KING CLAUDIUS

I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him. Exit Horatio

(To Laertes).Strengthen your patience in our last

night’s speech.

We’ll put the matter to the present push.—

Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.—

This grave shall have a living monument.

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter Prince Hamlet and Horatio

HAMLET

So much for this, sir. Now, let me see, the other.

You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO Remember it, my lord!

HAMLET

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting

That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly—

And praised be rashness for it: let us know

Our indiscretion sometime serves us well

When our dear plots do pall, and that should teach us

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will—

HORATIO That is most certain.

HAMLET Up from my cabin,

My sea-gown scarfed about me in the dark,

Groped I to find out them, had my desire,

Fingered their packet, and in fine withdrew

To mine own room again, making so bold,

My fears forgetting manners, to unseal

Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio—

O royal knavery!—an exact command,

Larded with many several sorts of reasons

Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s, too,

With ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,

That on the supervise, no leisure bated,

No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,

My head should be struck off.

HORATIO

Is’t possible?

HAMLET (giving it to him)

Here’s the commission. Read it at more leisure.

But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

HORATIO I beseech you.

HAMLET

Being thus benetted round with villainies—

Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,

They had begun the play—sat me down,

Devised a new commission, wrote it fair.

I once did hold it, as our statists do,

A baseness to write fair, and laboured much

How to forget that learning; but, sir, now

It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know

Th’effect of what I wrote?

HORATIO

Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET

An earnest conjuration from the King,

As England was his faithful tributary,

As love between them like the palm should flourish,

As peace should still her wheaten garland wear

And stand a comma ‘tween their amities,

And many such like ‘as’es of great charge,

That on the view and know of these contents,

Without debatement further more or less,

He should the bearers put to sudden death,

Not shriving-time allowed.

HORATIO

How was this sealed?

HAMLET

Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.

I had my father’s signet in my purse,

Which was the model of that Danish seal;

Folded the writ up in the form of th‘other,

Subscribed it, gave’t th’impression, placed it safely,

The changeling never known. Now the next day

Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent

Thou know’st already.

HORATIO

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

HAMLET

Why, man, they did make love to this employment.

They are not near my conscience. Their defeat

Doth by their own insinuation grow.

’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes

Between the pass and fell incensed points

Of mighty opposites.

HORATIO

Why, what a king is this!

HAMLET

Does it not, think‘st thee, stand me now upon—

He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,

Popped in between th’election and my hopes,

Thrown out his angle for my proper life,

And with such coz’nage—is’t not perfect conscience

To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damned

To let this canker of our nature come

In further evil?

HORATIO

It must be shortly known to him from England

What is the issue of the business there.

HAMLET

It will be short. The interim’s mine,

And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘one’.

But I am very sorry, good Horatio,

That to Laertes I forgot myself;

For by the image of my cause I see

The portraiture of his. I’ll court his favours.

But sure, the bravery of his grief did put me

Into a tow’ring passion.

HORATIO

Peace, who comes here?

Enter young Osric, a courtier, ⌈taking off his hat⌉

OSRIC

Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLET I humbly thank you, sir. (To Horatio) Dost know this water-fly?

HORATIO No, my good lord.

HAMLET Thy state is the more gracious, for ‘tis a vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile. Let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king’s mess. ’Tis a chuff, but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

OSRIC Sweet lord, if your friendship were at leisure I should impart a thing to you from his majesty.