SCENE VI. Another Room in the Palace. Enter KING and LAERTES. King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal; Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, Laer. And so have I a noble father lost; 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, Enter BERNARDO. Ber. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet : Ber. Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them not. [Exit BERNARDO. [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 Can you advise me? says, alone. 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, King. If it be so, Laertes, Will you be rul'd by me. Laer. Ay, my lord; So will not o'er-rule me to a peace. you King. To thine own peace. turn'd, If he be now re As checking at his voyage, and that he means Under the which he shall not choose but fall: Laer. My lord, I will be rul'd; 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, Wherein they say, you shine. Laer. What part is that, my lord? King. A very ribband in the cap of youth. H And gave you such a masterly report, That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed, This report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy, Laer. What out of this, my lord? King. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Laer. Why ask you this? King. Hamlet comes back :— dertake, -What would you un To show yourself in deed your father's son Laer. To cut his throat i' the church. King. No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize. Hamlet, return'd, shall know you are come home: We'll put on those shall praise your excellence, And set a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, together, And wager o'er your heads he, being remiss, Most generous, and free from all contriving, Laer. I will do't: And, for the purpose, I'll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank, So mortal, that, but dip a knife in it, |