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To thew yourself your father's fon indeed.
More than in words?

[rize,

Laer. To cut his throat i th' church.
King. No place, indeed, should murder fanctua-
Revenge should have no bounds; but good Laerres,
Will you do this? keep close within your chamber;
Hamlet returned, shall know you are come home;.
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence,
And fet a double varnith on the fame

[gether,
The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, to-
And wager on your heads. He being remifs,
Most generous, and free from all contriving,.
Will not perufe the foils; so that with ease,
Or with a little shuilling you may chuse
A fword unbated, and in a pass of practice
Requite him for your father.

Laer. I will do't;

And for the purpose I'll anoint my fword:
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal, that but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws. blood, no cataplafm fo rare,.
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can fave the thing from death
That is but fcratched withal; I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that if I gall him flightly,
It may be death.

King. Let's farther 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 perform

ance,

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'Twere better not affayed; therefore this project
Should have a back, or second, that might hold,
If this should blast in proof.---Soft, let me fee
We'll make a folemn wager on your cunnings;
I ha't----when in your motion you are hot,

1

:

(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 fipping,
If he by chance escape your venomed tuck,
Our purpose may hold there.

Enter Queen.

How now, fweet Queen?

Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow: your sister's drowned, Laertes. Laer. Drowned! oh where?

Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That thews his hoar leaves in the glassy stream: There with fantastic garlands did the come, Of crow-flowers, nettles, daifies, and long purples, (That liberal shepherds give a groffer name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call

them;)

There on the pendant boughs, her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her widow trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook; her cloaths spread wide,
And mermaid-like, a while they bore her up;
Which time the chaunted fnatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress;
Or like a creature native, and endued

Unto that element; but long it could not be,
'Till that her garments heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

Luer. Alas then, she is drowned!
Queen. Drowned, drowned.

Laer. Too much of water haft thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet
It is our trick; Nature her custom holds,

Let Shame fay what it will; when these are gone,

The woman will be out: adieu, my Lord!
I have a fpeech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly drowns it.

King. Follow, Gertrude:
How much had I to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I, this will give it start again;
Therefore let's follow.

[Exit.

[Exeunt.

ACT

V.

SCENE, A Church.

Enter two Clowns, with Spades and Mattocks.

1 CLOWN.

S she to be buried in Chriftian burial, that wilfully feeks her own falvation?

2 Clown. I tell thee she is, therefore make her grave straight; the crowner hath fate on her, and finds it Christian burial.

I Clown. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

2 Clown. Why, 'tis found fo.

I Clown. It must be fe offendendo, it cannot be else. For here lyes the point; if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches; it is to act, to do, and to perform; argal, the drowned herself wittingly.

2 Clown. Nay, but hear you, goodman Delver. I Clown. Give me leave: here lyes the water, good: here stands the man, good: if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.

2 Clorun. But is this law?

1 Clown. Ay, marry is't, crowner's quest-law.

2 Clown. Will you ha' the truth on't? if this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of Christian burial.

I Clown. Why, there thou sayeft. And the more pity, that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than other Christians. (66) Come, my spade; there is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profeffion.

2 Clown. Was he a gentleman?

1 Clown. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2 Clown. Why, he had none.

1. Clown. What, art a heathen? how dost thou understand the Scripture? the Scripture says, Adam digged; could he dig without arms? I'll put ano ther question to thee; if thou anfwerest me not to the purpofe, confefs thyfelf

2 Clown. Go to.

1 Clown. What is he that builds ftronger than either the mafon, the ship-wright, or the carpenter?

(66)- - more than other Christians.] All the old books read, as Doctor Thirlby accurately observes to me, their even chriften, i. e their fellow chriftians This was the language of those days, when we retained a good portion of the idiom received from our Saxon ancestors. Emne chriften.] Frater in Chrifto, Saxoinicum, quod male intelligentes, even chriftian proferunt; atque ita editur in oratione Henrici VIII. ad parlamentum An regn. 37. Sed rotéin L. L. Edouardi confefl, ca. 3б. fratrem tuum, quod Angli dicunt emne chirften. Spelman in his glofflary. The Doctor thinks this learned antiquary mistaken,

in making even a corruption of emne; for that even or ofen and eme are Saxon words of the same import and fignifi cation. I'll fubjoin, in confirmation of the Doctor's opinion, what Somner fays upon this head, Open, Equus, aqualis, par, justus, even equal, alike, &c. Emne, Æquus, juftus, æqualis, par, even, juft, equal. Emne fcolefe, condifcipulus, a school fellow.

2 Clown. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well; but how does it well? it does well to those that do ill: now thou dost ill, to fay the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

2 Clown. Who builds stronger than a mason, a ship-wright, or a carpenter?----

1 Clown. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

2 Clown. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clown. To't.

2 Clown. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO at a distance.

1 Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull afs will not mend his pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, fay, a gravemaker. The houses he makes last till dooms-day: go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup of liquor. [Exit 2 Clown.

[He digs and fings.]

"In youth when I did love, did love, (67)

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Methought it was very fweet;

"To contract, oh, the time for, a, my behove, "Oh, methought, there was nothing meet." Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he fings at grave-making?

(67) In youth, when I did love, &c.] The three stanzas, fung here by the grave-digger, are extracted, with a flight variation, from a little poem called The Aged Lover renounceth Love; written by Henry Howard Earl of Surrey, who flourished in the reign of King Henry VIII. and who was beheaded in 1547, on a strained accusation of treafon.

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