Hamlet | Page 3

we show our duty.
King.
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
[
Exeunt Voltimand and Cornelius.]
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some
suit; what is't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,

And lose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not

be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,

The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of
Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
Laer.
Dread my lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France;

From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty
in your coronation;
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My
thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
And bow them to
your gracious leave and pardon.
King.
Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
Pol.
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By
laboursome petition; and at last
Upon his will I seal'd my hard
consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
King.
Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best
graces spend it at thy will!--
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my
son--
Ham.
[Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind!
King.
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Ham.
Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.
Queen.
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye
look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common,--all
that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Ham.
Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen.
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
Ham.
Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.
'Tis not alone

my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in
the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all
forms, moods, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: these, indeed,
seem;
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that
within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of
woe.
King.
'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give
these mourning duties to your father;
But, you must know, your
father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound,

In filial obligation, for some term
To do obsequious sorrow: but to
persevere
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious
stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to
heaven;
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient;
An understanding
simple and unschool'd;
For what we know must be, and is as common

As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our
peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A
fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose
common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From
the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you,
throw to earth
This unprevailing woe; and think of us
As of a father:
for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne;

And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father
bears his son
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back
to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we
beseech you bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our
eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Queen.
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee stay
with us; go not to Wittenberg.
Ham.
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

King.
Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in
Denmark.--Madam, come;
This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet

Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health that
Denmark drinks to-day
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;

And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking
earthly thunder. Come away.
[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]
Ham.
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve
itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon
'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and
unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie!
'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in
nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two
months dead!--nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that
was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he
might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him

As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet,
within a month,--
Let me not think on't,--Frailty, thy name is
woman!--
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
With which
she followed my poor father's body
Like Niobe, all tears;--why she,
even she,--
O God! a beast that wants discourse