LAER.
My lord, I’ll hit him now.
KING.
I do not think’t.
LAER.
[Aside.] And yet ‘tis almost ‘gainst my conscience.
HAM.
Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
I pray you pass with your best violence:
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.
LAER.
Say you so? come on.
[They play.]
OSR.
Nothing, neither way.
LAER.
Have at you now!
[Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes.]
KING.
Part them; they are incens’d.
HAM.
Nay, come again!
[The Queen falls.]
OSR.
Look to the queen there, ho!
HOR.
They bleed on both sides.—How is it, my lord?
OSR.
How is’t, Laertes?
LAER.
Why, as a woodcock to my 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 of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated 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.
[Stabs the King.]
OSRIC and LORDS.
Treason! treason!
KING.
O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.
HAM.
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion.—Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.
[King dies.]
LAER.
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 sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest,—O, I could tell you,—
But let it be.—Horatio, I am dead;
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’t.—
O good 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 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 and less,
Which have solicited.—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 will see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.
FORT.
This quarry cries on havoc.—O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?
1 AMBASSADOR.
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,