Line 56 of Act IV, Scene 7
LAERTES Know you the hand?
KING CLAUDIUS
‘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 didst thou!”
KING CLAUDIUS If it be so, Laertes
—As how should it be so? How otherwise?—
Will you be ruled by me?
LAERTES Ay, my lord,
So you will not o’errule me to a peace.
KING CLAUDIUS
To thine own peace. If he be now returned
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 of blame shall breathe.
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
And call it accident.
LAERTES
My lord, I will be ruled—
The rather if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ!
KING CLAUDIUS It falls right.
You have been talked 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 CLAUDIUS
A very ribbon 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 have seen myself, and served against, the French,
And they can well on horseback, but this gallant
Had witchcraft in it. He grew unto his seat,
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse
As he been encorpsed and demi-natured
With the brave beast. So far he topped my thought
That I in forgery of shapes and tricks
Come short of what he did.
LAERTES A Norman was ‘t?
KING CLAUDIUS A Norman.
Line 102 of Act IV, Scene 7