Line 121 of Act IV, Scene 5
[Enter LAERTES with others.]
LAERTES
Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without.
ALL
No, let’s come in!
LAERTES
I pray you, give me leave.
ALL
We will, we will.
LAERTES
I thank you. Keep the door. [Followers exit.]
O, thou vile king,
Give me my father!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
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 chase unsmirchéd brow
Of my true mother.
KING CLAUDIUS
What i the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?—
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
There’s such a divinity doth hedge a king
That treason can but peep to what it would
Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes,
Why art thou thus incensed.—Let him go, Gertrude…
Speak, man.
LAERTES Where is my father?
KING CLAUDIUS Dead.
QUEEN GERTRUDE But not by him.
KING CLAUDIUS Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES
How came he dead? I’l not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blacket 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 revenged
Most throughly for my father.
KING CLAUDIUS Who shall stay you?
LAERTES
My will, not all th world!
And for my means, I’ll husband them so well
They shall go far with little.
KING CLAUDIUS Good Laetes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father, is it writ in your revenge
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe
Winner and loser?
LAERTES None but his enemies.
KING CLAUDIUS 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 CLAUDIUS 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 judgment ‘pear
As day does to your eye.
[A noise offstage]
OFFSTAGE VOICE Let her come in!
LAERTES How now, what noise is that?
[Enter OPHELIA.]
Line 176 of Act IV, Scene 5