don thereunto, recount the occasion 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 diddest 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'er-rule me to a peace.

King. To thine own peace.

turn'd,

If he be now re

109 As checking at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it,—I will work him

To an exploit, now ripe in my device,

Under the which he shall not choose but fall:

And for his death no wind of blame 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.
King. A very ribband 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,-

What part is that, my lord?

I have 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 wond'rous doing brought his horse,
As he had 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. 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 especial,

That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,

If one could match you: the scrimers 110 of their na

tion,

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 you.
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 fa

ther;

111

But that I know, I 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 in deed your father's son
More than in words?

Laer.

To cut his throat i'the church. King. No place, indeed, should murder sanctua

rize;

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 o'er 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 the 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
Under the moon, can save the thing from death,
That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
With this contagion; that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.

King.

Let's further think of this;