King. The doors are broke. [noise within. Enter LAERTES armed, DANES following. Laer. Where is this king?-Sirs, stand you all 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 1 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: That treason can but peep to what it would, Why thou art thus incensed :-let him go, Gertrude ; Speak, man. Laer. Where is my father 1 Undefiled. Dead. King. King. Let him demand his fill. But not by him. Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with: To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil! 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. 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, 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, O heavens! is 't possible, a young maid's wits Oph. They bore him barefaced on the bier; And in his grave rain'd many a tear.' Fare you well, my dove! Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus. Oph. You must sing, 'Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a.' O, how the wheel 1 The burthen of the song. becomes it! |