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Автор книги: Уильям Шекспир


Жанр: Зарубежная драматургия, Зарубежная литература


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Scene IV

A plain in Denmark

Enter Fortinbras and Forces marching

Fortinbras

Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish King

Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras

Craves the conveyance of a promis'd march

Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.

If that his Majesty would aught with us,

We shall express our duty in his eye;

And let him know so.

Captain

I will do't, my lord.

Fortinbras

Go softly on.

[Exeunt all but the Captain]

[Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern]

Hamlet

Good sir, whose powers are these?

Captain

They are of Norway, sir.

Hamlet

How purpos'd, sir, I pray you?

Captain

Against some part of Poland.

Hamlet

Who commands them, sir?

Captain

The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

Hamlet

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,

Or for some frontier?

Captain

Truly to speak, and with no addition,

We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Hamlet

Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Captain

Yes, it is already garrison'd.

Hamlet

Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate the question of this straw!

This is th'imposthume of much wealth and peace,

That inward breaks, and shows no cause without

Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

Captain

God b' wi' you, sir.

[Exit]

Rosencrantz

Will't please you go, my lord?

Hamlet

I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.

[Exeunt all but Hamlet]

How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge. What is a man

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Sure he that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus'd. Now whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th'event, —

A thought which, quarter'd, hath but

                         one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward, – I do not know

Why yet I live to say this thing's to do,

Sith I have cause, and will, and strength,

                         and means

To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me,

Witness this army of such mass and charge,

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,

That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep, while to my shame I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.

[Exit]

Scene V

Elsinore. A room in the Castle

Enter Queen, Horatio and a Gentleman

Queen

I will not speak with her.

Gentleman

She is importunate, indeed distract.

Her mood will needs be pitied.

Queen

What would she have?

Gentleman

She speaks much of her father; says she hears

There's tricks i' th' world, and hems,

                         and beats her heart,

Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt,

That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

The hearers to collection; they aim at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own

                         thoughts,

Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures

                         yield them,

Indeed would make one think there might

                         be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

Horatio

Twere good she were spoken with, for

                         she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.



Queen

Let her come in.

[Exit Horatio]

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

[Enter Ophelia]

Ophelia

Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?

Queen

How now, Ophelia?

Ophelia

[Sings]

How should I your true love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff

And his sandal shoon.

Queen

Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

Ophelia

Say you? Nay, pray you mark.

[Sings]

He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone,

At his head a grass green turf,

At his heels a stone.



Queen

Nay, but Ophelia —

Ophelia

Pray you mark.

[Sings]

White his shroud as the mountain snow.

[Enter King]

Queen

Alas, look here, my lord!

Ophelia

[Sings]

Larded all with sweet flowers;

Which bewept to the grave did not go

With true-love showers.

King

How do you, pretty lady?

Ophelia

Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

King

Conceit upon her father.

Ophelia

Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:

[Sings]

Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose and donn'd his clothes,

And dupp'd the chamber door,

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

King

Pretty Ophelia!

Ophelia

Indeed la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't.

[Sings]

By Gis and by Saint Charity,

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do't if they come to't;

By Cock, they are to blame.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,

You promis'd me to wed.

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.

King

How long hath she been thus?

Ophelia

I hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot choose but weep, to think they would lay him i' th' cold ground. My brother shall know of it. And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night.

[Exit]

King

Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.

[Exit Horatio]

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs

All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,

But in battalions. First, her father slain;

Next, your son gone; and he most violent author

Of his own just remove; the people muddied,

Thick, and unwholesome in their thoughts

                         and whispers

For good Polonius' death; and we have

                         done but greenly

In hugger-mugger to inter him. Poor Ophelia

Divided from herself and her fair judgement,

Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts.

Last, and as much containing as all these,

Her brother is in secret come from France,

Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,

And wants not buzzers to infect his ear

With pestilent speeches of his father's death,

Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,

Will nothing stick our person to arraign

In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,

Like to a murdering piece, in many places

Gives me superfluous death.

[A noise within]

Queen

Alack, what noise is this?

King

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

[Enter a Gentleman]

What is the matter?

Gentleman

Save yourself, my lord.

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O'erbears your offices. The rabble call him lord,

And, as the world were now but to begin,

Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry 'Choose we! Laertes shall be king!'

Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it

                         to the clouds,

'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king.'

Queen

How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.

O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.

[A noise within]

King

The doors are broke.

[Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following]

Laertes

Where is this king? – Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes

No, let's come in.

Laertes

I pray you, give me leave.

Danes

We will, we will.

[They retire without the door]

Laertes

I thank you. Keep the door. O thou vile king,

Give me my father.

Queen

Calmly, good Laertes.

Laertes

That drop of blood that's calm proclaims

                         me bastard;

Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot

Even here between the chaste unsmirched 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.

There's such divinity doth hedge a king,

That treason can but peep to what it would,

Acts little of his will.-Tell me, Laertes,

Why thou art thus incens'd.-Let him go,

                         Gertrude: —

Speak, man.

Laertes

Where is my father?

King

Dead.

Queen

But not by him.

King

Let him demand his fill.

Laertes

How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with.

To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

I dare damnation. To this point I stand,

That both the worlds, I give to negligence,

Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng'd

Most throughly for my father.

King

Who shall stay you?

Laertes

My will, not all the world.

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 revenge

That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,

Winner and loser?

Laertes

None but his enemies.

King

Will you know them then?

Laertes

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,

It shall as level to your judgement 'pear

As day does to your eye.

Danes

[Within] Let her come in.

Laertes

How now! What noise is that?

Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically

dressed with straws and flowers

O heat, dry up my brains. Tears seven times salt,

Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye.

By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,

Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!

Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

O heavens, is't possible a young maid's wits

Should be as mortal as an old man's life?

Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,

It sends some precious instance of itself

After the thing it loves.



Ophelia

[Sings]

They bore him barefac'd on the bier,

Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny

And on his grave rain'd many a tear. —

Fare you well, my dove!

Laertes

Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,

It could not move thus.

Ophelia

You must sing 'Down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.' O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master's daughter.

Laertes

This nothing's more than matter.

Ophelia

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

Laertes

A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Ophelia

There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you; and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. O you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father died. They say he made a good end.

[Sings]

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

Laertes

Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself

She turns to favour and to prettiness.

Ophelia

[Sings]

And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead,

Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as snow,

All flaxen was his poll.

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan.

God ha' mercy on his soul.

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God

b' wi' ye.

[Exit]

Laertes

Do you see this, O God?

King

Laertes, I must commune with your grief,

Or you deny me right. Go but apart,

Make choice of whom your wisest friends

                         you will,

And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.

If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,

Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours

To you in satisfaction; but if not,

Be you content to lend your patience to us,

And we shall jointly labour with your soul

To give it due content.

Laertes

Let this be so;

His means of death, his obscure burial, —

No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,

No noble rite, nor formal ostentation, —

Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,

That I must call't in question.

King

So you shall.

And where th'offence is let the great axe fall.

I pray you go with me.

[Exeunt]

Scene VI

Another room in the Castle

Enter Horatio and a Servant

Horatio

What are they that would speak with me?

Servant

Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.

Horatio

Let them come in.

[Exit Servant]

I do not know from what part of the world

I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

[Enter Sailors]

First Sailor

God bless you, sir.

Horatio

Let him bless thee too.

First Sailor

He shall, sir, and't please him. There's a letter for you, sir. It comes from th'ambassador that was bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

Horatio

[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 valour, 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 Castle

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.

Laertes

It well appears. But tell me

Why you proceeded not against these feats,

So crimeful and so capital in nature,

As by your safety, 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 mother

Lives almost by his looks; and for myself, —

My virtue or my plague, be it either which, —

She's 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 gender bear him,

Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,

Would 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.

Laertes

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 lov'd your father, and we love ourself,

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine —

[Enter a Messenger]

How now? What news?

Messenger

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet

This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.

King

From Hamlet! Who brought them?

Messenger

Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.

They were given me by Claudio. He receiv'd them

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. Tomorrow 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?

Laertes

Know you the hand?

King

'Tis Hamlet's character. 'Naked!'

And in a postscript here he says 'alone.'

Can you advise me?

Laertes

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 diest thou.'

King

If it be so, Laertes, —

As how should it be so? How otherwise? —

Will you be rul'd by me?

Laertes

Ay, my lord;

So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

King

To thine own peace. If he be now return'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 shall breathe,

But even his mother shall uncharge the practice

And call it accident.

Laertes

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,

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.

Laertes

What part is that, my lord?

King

A very riband 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.

                         Two months since

Here was a gentleman of Normandy, —

I've 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 wondrous doing brought his horse,

As had he 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.

Laertes

A Norman was't?

King

A Norman.

Laertes

Upon my life, Lamord.

King

The very same.

Laertes

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 especially,

That he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed

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 him.

Now, out of this, —

Laertes

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?

Laertes

Why ask 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 pleurisy,

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' th'ulcer:

Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake

To show yourself your father's son in deed,

More than in words?

Laertes

To cut his throat i' th' church.

King

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;

Revenge should have no bounds. But good Laertes,

Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.

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 on your heads. He, being remiss,

Most generous, and free from all contriving,

Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword unbated, and in a pass of practice,

Requite him for your father.

Laertes

I will do't.

And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.

I bought an unction of a mountebank

So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,

Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,

Collected from all simples that have virtue

Under the moon, can save the thing from death

This is but scratch'd withal. I'll touch my point

With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,

It may be death.



King

Let's further think of this,

Weigh what convenience both of time and means

May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,

And that our drift look through our

                         bad performance.

'Twere better not assay'd. Therefore this project

Should have a back or second, that might hold

If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see.

We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings, —

I ha't! When in your motion you are hot and dry,

As make your bouts more violent to that end,

And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him

A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,

If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,

Our purpose may hold there.

[Enter Queen]

How now, sweet Queen?

Queen

One woe doth tread upon another's heel,

So fast they follow. Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

Laertes

Drown'd! O, where?



Queen

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.

There with fantastic garlands did she make

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men's fingers

                         call them.

There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds

Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes

                         spread wide,

And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up,

Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element. But long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

Laertes

Alas, then she is drown'd?

Queen

Drown'd, drown'd.



Laertes

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet

It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,

The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord,

I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,

But that this folly douts it.

[Exit]

King

Let's follow, Gertrude;

How much I had to do to calm his rage!

Now fear I this will give it start again;

Therefore let's follow.

[Exeunt]

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