Part 20 (2/2)

Laer.

I pray you, give me leave.

Danes.

We will, we will.

[They retire without the door.]

Laer.

I thank you:--keep the door.--O thou vile king, Give me my father!

Queen.

Calmly, good Laertes.

Laer.

That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me b.a.s.t.a.r.d; Cries cuckold to my father; brands the harlot Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow Of my true mother.

King.

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, Acts little of his will.--Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus incens'd.--Let him go, Gertrude:-- Speak, man.

Laer.

Where is my father?

King.

Dead.

Queen.

But not by him.

King.

Let him demand his fill.

Laer.

How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with: To h.e.l.l, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare d.a.m.nation:--to this point I stand,-- That both the worlds, I give to negligence, Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng'd Most throughly for my father.

King.

Who shall stay you?

Laer.

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 Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser?

Laer.

None but his enemies.

King.

Will you know them then?

Laer.

To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms; And, like the kind life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood.

King.

Why, now you speak Like a good child and a true gentleman.

That I am guiltless of your father's death, And am most sensibly in grief for it, It shall as level to your judgment pierce As day does to your eye.

Danes.

[Within] Let her come in.

Laer.

How now! What noise is that?

[Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.]

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, Till our scale turn 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 an old man's life?

Nature is fine in love; and where 'tis fine, It sends some precious instance of itself After the thing it loves.

Oph.

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