Line 50 of Act IV, Scene 5
KING CLAUDIUS
Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA
Pray let’s have no words of this, but when
They ask you what it means, say you this:
[Sings]
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then he rose and donned his clothes
And dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
KING CLAUDIUS
Pretty Ophelia—
OPHELIA
Indeed, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t:
[Sings]
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack and fie for shame,
Young men will do’t, if they come to ‘t;
By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she: “Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.”
He answers:
“So would I ‘a done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed”
KING CLAUDIUS
How long that she been thus?
OPHELIA I hope all will be well.
We must be patient, but I cannot choose
But weep to think they would
Lay him in th’ cold ground. My brother
Shall know of it. And so I think you
For your good counsel. Come, my coach!
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet
Ladies, good night, good night.
[OPHELIA exits]
KING CLAUDIUS
Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.
[HORATIO exits.]
O, this is the poison of deep grief. It springs
All from her father’s death, and now behold!
O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions! First, her father slain.
Next, your sone gone, and he most violent author
Of his own just remove. The people muddied,
Thick, and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius’ death, and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts;
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father’s death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggared,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O, my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.
[A noise offstage. A MESSENGER enters.]
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alack, what noise is this?!
KING CLAUDIUS
Attend! Where is my Switzers? Let them guard the door!
[To the MESSENGER] What is the matter?
MESSENGER
Save yourself, my lord.
The ocean, overpeering of his list.
Eats not the flats with more impiteous haste,
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O’erbears your officers. The rabble call him “lord”,
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry “Choose we, Laertes shall be King!”
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
“Laertes shall be King! Laertes King!”
QUEEN GERTRUDE
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
MARK b
KING CLAUDIUS
The doors are broke.
[Enter LAERTES with others.]
Line 121 of Act IV, Scene 5