And, where the offence is. let the great axe fall.

I pray you, go with me.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

Another room in the same.

Enter HORATIO and SERVANT.

Ho. What are they that would speak with me?

I do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted, if not from lord Hamlet.

Enter SAILORS.

1 Sail. God bless you, sir. Ho. Let him bless thee too.

1 Sail. He shall, sir, an 't please him. There's a letter for you, sir: it comes from the ambassador that was bound for England, if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

Ho. [reads.] Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows some means to the king: they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase: finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valor, and in the grapple I boarded them on the instant, they got clear of our

:

ship; so I alone became their prisoner.

They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy, but they knew what they did: I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king have the letters I have sent; and repair thou to me with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb, yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.

'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'

Come, I will give you way for these your letters;
And do 't the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.

Another room in the same.

Enter KING and LAERTES.

King. Now must your conscience my acquittance

seal,

And you must put me in your heart for friend;
Sith 1 you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he, which hath your noble father slain,
Pursued my life.

Laer.

It well appears.—But tell me,

! Since.

Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,

As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things

else,

You mainly were stirr'd up.

King. Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd, But yet to me they are strong. The queen

O, for two special reasons;

mother

Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,
(My virtue or my plague, be it either which)
She is so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,

Why to a public count I might not go,

Is the great love the general gender1 bear him;
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Work like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves 2 to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim'd them.

Laer. And so have I a noble father lost;
A sister driven into desperate terms;
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,3
Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections !—But my revenge will come.

1 Common people.

2 Fetters.

his

3 i. e. if I may praise what has been, but is now to be found

no more.

King. Break not your sleeps for that: you must

not think,

That we are made of stuff so flat and dull,

That we can let our beard be shook with danger,
And think it pastime.

more:

You shortly shall hear

I loved your father, and we love ourself;

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,——
How now? what news?

Mes.

Enter MESSENGER.

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

This to your majesty; this to the queen.

King. From Hamlet! Who brought them?

Mes. Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them

not;

They were given me by Claudio; he received them Of him that brought them.

King. Leave us.

Laertes, you shall hear them.— [Exit Messenger.

[reads.] High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom: to-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes; when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasions 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.

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 ruled by me

Laer.

?

Ay, my lord;

So you will not o'er-rule me to a peace.

King. To thine own peace. If he be now re

turn'd,

As checking at1 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 ruled;

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,

Starting from. A phrase borrowed from falconry