1623, 32.

Her brother is in secret come from France:
Feeds* on his wonder,(32) keeps himself in clouds, keeps,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,"
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death!

[A Noise within.

Alack! what noise is this?

* Where in necessitie of, 1623, 32.

QUEEN.

Enter a Gentleman.

KING. Attend.

Where are my Switzers? (4) Let them guard the

door:

What is the matter?

GENT.

Save yourself, my lord;

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impitious haste, (35)
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, d
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,

* keeps himself in clouds] At lofty distance and seclusion.

necessity, of matter beggar'd, will nothing stick] The necessities of one who has put himself in such a predicament (i. e., as Dr. Johnson says, the obligation of an accuser to support his charge) will, in want of grave or rational proof, have no reserve or scruple busily every where to accuse ourselves.

The ocean, overpeering of his list] Swelling over his utmost line or boundary. See " list of my voyage." Tw. N. III. 1. Viola.

in a riotous head] The tide, strongly flowing, is said to pour in with a great head.

Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word] Word is term, and means appellation or title; as lord used before, and king

They cry, Choose we; Laertes shall be king!
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,
Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!

QUEEN. How cheerfully on the false trail they

cry!

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.(

KING. The doors are broke.

[Noise within.

Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following.

LAER. Where is this king?-Sirs, stand you all

without.

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 bastard:

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?—

afterwards: and in its more extended sense, must import

human establishment."

The sense of the passage is," As far as antiquity ratifies,

and custom makes every term, denomination, or title known, they run counter to them, by talking, when they mention kings, of their right of chusing and of saying who shall be king or sovereign."

a the chaste unsmirched brow of my true mother] Unsmirched is unstained. See I. 3. Laert.

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 incensed;-Let him go, Ger-
trude ;-

Speak, man.

LAER. Where is my father?

KING.

QUEEN.

Dead.

But not by him.

KING. Let him demand his fill.

LAER. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled
with:

To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience, and grace," to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation: 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's:

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 re

venge,

That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,

Winner and loser?

LAER. None but his enemies.

grace] A religious feeling, a disposition to yield obedience to the divine laws.

Both the worlds I give to negligence] I am careless of my present and future prospects, my views in this life, as well as that which is to come.

sweepstake] By wholesale, undistinguishingly.

So 4tos,

if, 1623, 32.

soopstake,

O. C.

in, 4tos. *rain'd, 4tos.

KING.

Will you know them then?

LAER. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope

my arms;

And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,(38)
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 sensible 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?

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 with 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.(99)

OPH. They bore him barefac'd on the bier ;
Hey no nonny, nonny hey nonny: (40)
And on his grave rains many a tear ;-
Fare you well, my dove!

⚫ sensible in grief] Poignantly affected with. Adjectives, having this termination, are, in our author, frequently used adverbially. The quarto, 1604, reads sensibly.

⚫ pierce] Make its way. The quartos read peare.

LAER. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,

It could not move thus.

OPH. You must sing, Down a-down,(4) an you call him a-down-a. O, how the wheel becomes it! (42) It is the false steward, that stole his master's daugh

ter.

LAER. This nothing's more than matter."

OPH. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; (43) pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that's for thoughts."

LAER. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted.

paconcies, 1623.

OPH. There's fennel for you,* and colum-⚫ the King. bines : (45)———there's rue for you; and here's some for me:-we may call it, herb of grace o'Sundays: 46-you may wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy; (-I would give you some violets; but they withered all, when my father died :-They say, he made a good end,

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy,—(49)

[Sings.

LAER. Thought" and affliction, passion, hell itself,

She turns to favour, and to prettiness.

OPH. And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead,
Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again.

This nothing's more than matter] See "O matter," &c. Lear, IV. 6. Edg.

Thought] " "Thought or hevynesse of herte. Molestia. Mastitia." Promptuar. parvulor. 4to. 1514. Ant. and Cl. III. 2. Œnobarb. "Think and die." See Tw. N. II. 4. Viola.