Laer. My lord, I'll hit him now.
King.

I do not think it.

Laer. And yet it is almost against my conscience. [Aside.

Ham. Come, for the third, Laertes: You do but

dally;

I pray you, pass with your best violence;

I am afeard, you make a wanton 47 of me.

Laer. Say you so? come on.

Osr. Nothing neither way.

Laer. Have at you now.

[They play.

[LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then, in scuf

fling, they change Rapiers, and HAMLET

Hor. They bleed on both sides;-How is it, my

lord?

Osr. How is't, Laertes?

Laer. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe,

Osric;

I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.

Ham. How does the queen?

King.

She swoons to see them bleed.

Queen. No, no, the drink, the drink,-O my dear
Hamlet!

The drink, the drink;-I am poison'd! [Dies.
Ham. O villany!-Ho! let the door be lock'd :
Treachery! seek it out.

[LAERTES falls.

Laer. It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain; No medicine in the world can do thee good, In thee there is not half an hour's life; The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,

47 i. e. you trifle or play with me as if I were a child.

Unbated 48, and envenom'd: the foul practice
Hath turn'd itself on me: lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again: Thy mother's poison'd;
I can no more; the king, the king's to blame.
Ham. The point

Envenom'd too! -Then, venom, to thy work 49.

[Stabs the King.

Osr. & Lords. Treason! treason!
King. O, yet defend me, friends, I am but hurt.
Ham. Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned

Dane,

Drink off this potion:-Is the union here?

Follow my mother.

Laer.

[King dies.

He is justly serv'd;
It is a poison temper'd by himself.-
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:

Mine and my father's death come not upon thee;
Nor thine on me!

[Dies.

Ham. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee. I am dead, Horatio :-Wretched queen, adieu!You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time (as this fell sergeant50, death, Is strict in his arrest), O, I could tell you,But let it be :--Horatio, I am dead;

48 See note on Activ. Sc. 7.

49 In the quarto of 1603 :--

'The poison'd instrument within my hand? Then venom to thy venom; die, damn'd villain: Come drink, here lies thy union here.'

[King dies.

50 A sergeant was a bailiff or sheriff's officer. Shakspeare, in his 74th Sonnet, has likened death to an arrest:

،

when that fell arrest, Without all bail shall carry me away.'

And Joshua Silvester, in his Dubartas:

'And death, sergeant of the eternal Judge,
Comes very late,' &c.

Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright

To the unsatisfied.
Hor.

Never believe it;

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane,

Here's yet some liquor left.

Ham.
As thou'rt a man,-
Give me the cup; let go; by heaven, I'll have it.-
O God!-Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me?
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.-

[March afar off, and Shot within. What warlike noise is this?

Osr. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from

Poland,

To the ambassadors of England gives

This warlike volley.

Ham.

O, I die, Horatio;

The potent poison quite o'ercrows 51 my spirit;
I cannot live to hear the news from England:
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras; he has my dying voice;

So tell him, with the occurrents, more or less,
Which have solicited 52, -The rest is silence. [Dies.

Hor. Now cracks a noble heart;-Good night, sweet prince;

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither? [March within.

Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors,

and Others.

Fort. Where is this sight? Hor. What is it, you would see? If aught of woe, or wonder, cease your search.

Fort. This quarry cries on havock 53!-O proud death!

What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes, at a shot,

So bloodily hast struck?

1 Amb.

The sight is dismal;

And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless, that should give us hearing,

To tell him, his commandment is fulfill'd,

That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:

Where should we have our thanks?

Hor.

Not from his mouth,

Had it the ability of life to thank you;
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump54 upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd; give order, that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak, to the yet unknowing world,
How these things came about: So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts 55;

53. This quarry cries on havock!' To cry on was to exclaim against. I suppose when unfair sportsmen destroyed more game than was reasonable, the censure was to call it havock.

Johnson.

Quarry was the term used for a heap of slaughtered game. See Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 3.

54 It has been already observed that jump and just, or exactly, are synonymous. Vide note on Act i. Sc. 1, p. 160.

55 Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts.' Of sanguinary and uncatural acts, to which the perpetrator was instigated by con

Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on 56 by cunning, and forc'd cause;

And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I

Truly deliver.

Fort.

Let us haste to hear it.

And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune;
I have some rights of memory 57 in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak, And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more: But let this same be presently perform'd,

Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mis

chance,

On plots and errors, happen.

Let four captains

Fort.
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;

For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have prov'd most royally: and, for his passage,

The soldier's musick, and the rites of war,

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies: -Such a sight as this

Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[A dead march.

[Exeunt, bearing off the dead Bodies; after which, a Peal of Ordnance is shot off.

cupiscence or 'carnal stings.' The allusion is to the murder of old Hamlet by his brother, previous to his incestuous union with Gertrude.

56 i. e. instigated, produced. Instead of 'forced cause,' the

quartos read 'for no cause.'

57 i. e. some rights which are remembered in this kingdom.