Hamlet Act 4 Scene 7

Now your own conscience must confirm my innocence,

and you must count me a friend in your heart,

since you've heard, with an understanding ear,

that the man who killed your noble father

was trying to kill me.

It certainly seems so. But tell me

why you didn't act against these crimes,

so criminal and so deserving of death,

when your own safety, your judgment, everything else

should have driven you to it.

For two particular reasons,

which may seem feeble to you

but are strong to me. The Queen, his mother,

practically lives on the sight of him. And as for me —

call it my virtue or my curse, either one —

she's so bound up with my life and soul

that, just as a star can only move within its own orbit,

I can only move by her. The other reason

I couldn't bring him to a public trial

is the great love the common people have for him.

They dip all his faults in their affection

and, like the spring that turns wood to stone,

they'd turn his shackles into ornaments. So my arrows,

too lightly built for so strong a wind,

would have blown back onto my own bow

instead of hitting where I aimed.

And so I've lost a noble father,

and a sister driven to desperate straits —

whose worth, if praise can look backward,

stood at the summit of the age,

challenging all comers. But my revenge will come.

Don't lose sleep over it. You mustn't think

I'm made of such flat, dull material

that I'd let danger tweak my beard

and call it a game. You'll hear more shortly.

I loved your father, and I love myself,

and that, I hope, will let you imagine—

Well? What news?

Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.

This one for Your Majesty, this one for the Queen.

From Hamlet? Who brought them?

Sailors, my lord, they say. I didn't see them.

Claudio gave them to me. He got them

from the man who brought them.

Laertes, you'll hear them. — Leave us.

(reading) 'High and mighty — you should know I have been set

down destitute in your kingdom. Tomorrow I'll ask permission

to see your kingly face — at which point, first begging

your pardon, I'll explain the reason for my

sudden and very strange return. HAMLET.'

What does this mean? Have all the others come back?

Or is it a trick, and none of it true?

Do you recognise the handwriting?

It's Hamlet's writing. 'Destitute'!

And in a postscript here he says 'alone.'

Can you advise me?

I'm baffled, my lord. But let him come.

It warms the very sickness in my heart

that I'll live to tell him to his face:

'This is what you did.'

If that's how it is, Laertes —

and how could it be otherwise? —

will you let me guide you?

Yes, my lord —

so long as you don't overrule me into making peace.

To your own peace of mind. If he really has returned,

having abandoned his voyage, and if he intends

never to resume it, I'll manoeuvre him

into an enterprise I've now got fully planned,

which he can't survive.

And no breath of blame will touch his death —

even his mother will clear it of any plot

and call it an accident.

My lord, I'll be guided by you —

and all the more if you could arrange it so

that I could be the instrument.

That works out perfectly.

You've been talked about a lot since you went abroad,

and within Hamlet's hearing, for one particular skill

they say you shine at. All your other qualities together

didn't provoke as much envy in him

as that single one — which, in my opinion,

ranks lowest of them all.

Which skill is that, my lord?

Just a ribbon in youth's cap —

but necessary too, since light, careless clothing

suits youth as well as furs and heavy robes

suit settled old age,

signifying health and gravity. Two months ago

there was a gentleman here from Normandy.

I've seen the French and fought against them,

and they ride well — but this gentleman

had witchcraft in it. He became part of the saddle,

and made his horse do such marvellous things

that it seemed he'd been fused into one body,

half-blended with the animal. He so far surpassed my imagination

that when I try to invent tricks and manoeuvres

I fall short of what he actually did.

A Norman, was he?

A Norman.

On my life — Lamord.

The very man.

I know him well. He's the jewel indeed,

the gem of the whole nation.

He spoke about you,

and gave such a masterful account

of your skill and practice in fencing,

and with the rapier especially,

that he exclaimed it would be a sight worth seeing

if anyone could match you. He swore the fencers of his country

had no footwork, no defence, no eye at all

if you were against them. Sir, this report of his

so poisoned Hamlet with envy

that all he could do was wish and beg

for you to come over so he could fence with you.

Now, from this—

What from this, my lord?

Laertes — was your father dear to you?

Or are you like a painting of grief,

a face with no heart behind it?

Why do you ask me that?

Not that I doubt you loved your father,

but I know love begins at a moment in time,

and I've seen, in proven cases,

that time weakens its spark and fire.

Hamlet is coming back. What would you do

to prove yourself your father's son in action

rather than just in words?

Cut his throat in church.

No place should give sanctuary to murder, true;

revenge should have no limits. But, good Laertes,

will you do this: stay shut in your room.

When Hamlet's back he'll be told you've come home.

We'll get people to praise your excellence

and put a double coat of varnish on the reputation

the Frenchman gave you. We'll finally bring you together

and bet on the two of you. He, being careless,

very generous, and free from all scheming,

won't examine the swords. So easily,

or with a little sleight of hand, you can pick

a sword without a safety tip, and in a supposedly friendly bout

pay him back for your father.

I'll do it —

and for that purpose I'll coat my blade.

I bought an ointment from a travelling quack,

so lethal that you only have to dip a knife in it,

and wherever it draws blood no poultice, however rare,

gathered from every healing herb

under the moon, can save the man from death

who's merely scratched by it. I'll dip my point

in this poison, so that if I graze him even slightly

it may be fatal.

Let's think this through further.

Consider what timing and methods

suit our plan. If this fails,

and our intention shows through a botched attempt,

it would be better not attempted. So this scheme

needs a backup, a second plan that would hold

if this one blows up in testing. Wait — let me think.

We'll make a formal bet on your skills.

I have it.

When you're hot and thirsty from the exercise —

and make your bouts more violent to bring that on —

and he calls for a drink, I'll have prepared

a cup for the occasion. One sip from it,

and if he happens to escape your poisoned thrust,

our plan still works.

What is it, my queen?

One sorrow treads on another's heels,

they come so fast. — Your sister is drowned, Laertes.

Drowned? Where?

There's a willow that leans over a brook

and shows its pale leaves in the glassy water.

She came there with strange garlands

made of buttercups, nettles, daisies and long purple orchids —

which coarse shepherds give a ruder name,

but which our chaste girls call dead men's fingers.

There, on the drooping branches, as she climbed

to hang her flower crown, a spiteful branch broke,

and down her flowery trophies and she herself

fell into the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide

and, like a mermaid, held her up for a while,

during which she sang scraps of old hymns,

like someone unable to grasp her own danger,

or like a creature born and made

for that element. But it couldn't last long

before her clothes, heavy with water,

dragged the poor thing from her singing

down to a muddy death.

So she's drowned?

Drowned. Drowned.

You've had too much water, poor Ophelia,

and so I forbid my tears. And yet

it's our human habit — nature keeps its custom,

whatever shame says. When these tears are done,

the woman in me will be gone. — Goodbye, my lord.

I have a fiery speech that longs to blaze up,

but this weeping puts it out.

Let's follow him, Gertrude.

How hard I worked to calm his fury!

Now I'm afraid this will set it off again.

So let's follow.