Hor. No, my good lord.

Ham. 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 chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

Osr. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his majesty. Ham. I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit: Your bonnet to his right use; 'tis for the head.

Osr. I thank your lordship, 'tis very hot.

Ham. No, believe me, 'tís very cold; the wind

Ham. Being thus benetted round with villanies, is northerly.

Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play:-I sat me down;
Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,

A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning: but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service: Wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?

Osr. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

Ham. But yet, methinks, it is very sultry and hot; or my complexion

Osr. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,一 as 'twere, I cannot tell how. -My lord, his majesty bade me signify to you, that he has laid a great wager on your head: Sir, this is the matter,Ham. I beseech you, remember

(Hamlet moves him to put on his hat.) Osr. Nay, good my lord; for my ease, in good faith. Sir, here is newly come to court, Laertes: believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society, and great shewing: Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.

Ham. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you;-though, I know, to divide him inventorially, would dizzy the arithmetic of memory; and yet but raw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article; and his infusion of such dearth and rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror; and, who else would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.

Osr. Yourlordship speaks most infallibly of him.
Ham. The concernancy, sir? why do we wrap
the gentleman in our more rawer breath?
Osr. Sir?

Hor. Is't not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do't, sir, really.

Ham. What imports the nomination of this gen-
Osr. Of Laertes?

[tleman?

Hor. His purse is empty already; all his golden

words are spent.

Ham. Of him, sir.

Osr. I know, you are not ignorant-
Ham. I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you
did, it would not much approve me;-Well, sir.
Osr. You are not ignorant of what excellence

Laertes is

Ham. I dare not confess that, lest I should cómpare with him in excellence; but, to know a man well, were to know himself.

Osr. I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him by them, in his meed he's

Hor. It must be shortly known to him from unfellowed.

England,

What is the issue of the business there.

Ham. It will be short: the interim is 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 count his favours:
But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me

Into a towering passion.

Hor.

Peace; who comes here?

Enter OSRIC.

Osr. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

Ham. I humbly thank you, sir.- Dost know this water-fly?

Ham. What's his weapon?
Osr. Rapier and dagger.

Ham. That's two of his weapons: but, well.
Osr. The king, sir, hath wagered with him six
Barbary horses: against the which he has im-
pawned, as I take it, six French rapiers and po-
niards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and
so: Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear
to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate
carriages, and of very liberal conceit.
Ham. What call you the carriages?

Hor. I knew, you must be edified by the margent, ere you had done.

Osr. The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

Ham. The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we could carry a cannon by our sides; I would, it might be hangers till then. But, on:

(Trumpets sound; and cannon shot off within.
Ham. I'll play this bout first, set it by awhile
Come.-Another hit; What say you? (They play)
Laer. A touch, a touch, I do confess.
King. Our son shall win.

Ham. Give me your pardon, sir: I have done
you wrong;
But pardon it, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

King.
Gertrude, do not drink.
Queen. I will, my lord; -I pray you, pardon me.
King. It is the poison'd cup; it is too late.

(Aside.)

Ham. I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.
Queen. Come, let me wipe thy face.
Laer. My lord, I'll hit him now.
King.

I do not think it. Laer. And yet it is almost against my conscience. (Aside.)

Ham. Come, for the third, Laertes: You do but
dally;

I pray you, pass with your best violence;
I am afeard, you make a wanton of me.

Laer. Say you so? come on.
Osr. Nothing neither way.
Laer. Have at you now.

O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit;
I cannot live to hear the news from England:

(They play.) But I do prophesy, the election lights

(Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in senfling,
they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds
Laertes.)

King.

Ham. Nay, come again.
Osr.

Part them, they are incens'd. (The Queen falls.) Look to the queen there, ho! Hor. They bleed on both sides:-How is it, my lord ?

Osr. How is't, Laertes?

Laer. Why, as a woodcock to my own springe,

Osrie;

I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.

Ham. How does the queen?
King.

She swoons to see them bleed.
Queen. No, no, the drink, the drink,-O my dear
Hamlet!-

The drink, the drink;-I am poison'd! ison'd! (Dies.)
Ham. O villany!-Ho! let the door be lock'd:
Treachery! seek it out.
(Laertes falls.)

Laer. It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art
slain;

No medicine in the world can do thee good,
In thee there is not half an hour's life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated, and envenom'd: the foul practice
Hath turn'd itself on me; lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again. Thy mother's poison'd;
I can no more; the king, the king's to blame.

Ham. The point

Envenom'd too! -Then, venom to thy work.

(Stabs the King.)

Osr. & Lords. Treason! treason!
King. O, yet defend me, friends, I am but hurt.
Ham. Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned
Dane,

Drink off this potion :- Is the union here?
Follow my mother.

Laer.

On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more or less,
Which have solicited, -The rest is silence. (Dies.)
Hor. Now cracks a noble heart;-Good night,

sweet prince;

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither? (March within.)
Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and
others.

Fort. Where is this sight?
Hor.

What is it, you would see?

If aught of woe, or wonder, cease your search.
Fort. This quarry cries on havock!-O proud

death!

What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes, at a shot,
So bloodily hast struck?
1 Amb.

The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless, that should give us hearing,
To tell him, his commandment is fulfill'd,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?
Hor.

Not from his mouth,

Had it the ability of life to thank you;
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd; give order, that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;

And let me speak, to the yet unknowing world,
How these things come about: So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning, and fore'd cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I

(King dies.) Truly deliver.

He is justly serv'd;
It is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee;

Nor thine on me!

(Dies.)

Ham. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow
thee.

I am dead, Horatio :-Wretched queen, adieu :-
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time, (as this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest,) O, I could tell you,-
But let it be:-Horatio, I am dead;

Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.

Hor.

Ham.

Never believe it;
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane,
Here's yet some liquor left.
As thou'rt a man,-
Give me the cup; let go; by heaven I'll have
it.-
O God!-Horatio, what a wounded name,

Fort.

Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune;
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more:
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mis-

chance,

On plots, and errors, happen.
Fort.

Let four captains

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov'd most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music, and the rites of war,

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies:-Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shews much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot. (A dead march.)

[Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after
which, a peal of ordnance is shot off.

Christian and heathen, - must be be-lee'd and Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,

OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE.

Bra. What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds