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 ine
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 you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he, which hath your noble father slain,
Pursu'd my life.
Laer.

It well appears :-But tell me,
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.

O, for two special reasons; Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd, But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mo

ther, Lives alınost by his looks; and for myself,

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- for the bore of the matter.] The bore is the caliber of a gun, or the capacity of the barrel. The matter (says Hamlet) would carry

heavier words.

(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 publick count I might not go,
Is, the great love the general gender? bear him:
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Work like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves 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,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections:-But my revenge will come.
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. You shortly shall hear more: I loved your father, and we love ourself; And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,How now? what news?

Enter a Messenger.
Mess.

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet : This to your majesty; this to the queen.

King. From Hamlet! who brought them?

Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them not; They were given me by Claudio, he receiv'd them

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the general gender-) The common race of the people. * Work like the spring, &c.] The allusion here is to the quality still ascribed to the dropping well at Knaresborough in Yorkshire.

- if praises may go back again,] If I may praise what has been, but is now to be found no more.

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Can you

Of him that brought them.
King.

Laertes, you shall hear them: Leave us.

[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 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 :

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 didest thou. King.

If it be so, Laertes, As how should it be so? how otherwise? Will

you be ruld 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 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.

As checking at his coyage,] The phrase is from falconry.

King.

It falls right. You have been talk'd of since your travel inuch, 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.

What part is that, my lord? 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. 3 – Two months

since,
Here was a gentleman of Normandy,-
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.

A Norman, was't?
King. A Norman.
Laer. Upon my life, Lamord.
King.

The very same. 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,

• Of the unworthiest siege.] Of the lowest rank. Siege, for seat, place. Importing health and graveness.] i. e, implying, denoting.

in your defence, ] That is, in the science of defence.

Why ask

If one could match you: the scrimers' of their nation,
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.

you

this? King. Not that I think, you did not love your father; But that I know, 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, ,

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the scrimers — ] The fencers. From escrimeur, Fr. a fencer.

lore is begun by time;] This is obscure. The meaning may be, love is not innate in us, and co-essential to our nature, but begins at a certain time from some external cause, and being always subject to the operations of time, suffers change and diminution. Joinson.

passages of proof,] In transactions of daily experience. & And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh,

That hurts by easing.) A spendthrift sigh is a sigh that makes an unnecessary waste of the vital flame. It is a notion very prevalent, that sighs impair the strength, and wear out the animal powers. Johnson.

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