LAERTES        This is too heavy, let me see another. HAMLET         This likes me well. These foils have all a length? OSRIC Ay, my good lord. CLAUDIUS      Set me the stoups of wine upon that table. If Hamlet give the first or second hit Or quit in answer of the third exchange Let all the battlements their ordnance fire. The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath And in […]

HAMLET         Give us the foils. LAERTES                    Come, one for me. HAMLET         I’ll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance Your skill shall like a star i’th’ darkest night Stick fiery off indeed. LAERTES                    You mock me, sir. HAMLET         No, by this hand. CLAUDIUS      Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet, You know the wager. HAMLET         Very well, my lord. […]

LAERTES                    I am satisfied in nature, Whose motive in this case should stir me most To my revenge. But in my terms of honour I stand aloof and will no reconcilement Till by some elder masters of known honour I have a voice and precedent of peace To keep my name ungored. But all that time I do receive your offered love like love And will not wrong it. HAMLET                     […]

HAMLET         Was’t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet. If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes, Then Hamlet does it not; Hamlet denies it. Who does it then? His madness. If’t be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wronged – His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy. Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil […]

A table prepared. Trumpets, Drums and Officers with cushions, foils and daggers. [Enter] CLAUDIUS, GERTRUDE, LAERTES, [OSRIC] and all the state. CLAUDIUS      Come, Hamlet, come and take this hand from me. [Puts Laertes’ hand into Hamlet’s.] HAMLET         Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong, But pardon’t as you are a gentleman. This presence knows, and you must needs have heard, How I am punished with a sore distraction. What I […]

HORATIO       If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither and say you are not fit. HAMLET         Not a whit. We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If […]

HORATIO       You will lose, my lord. HAMLET         I do not think so. Since he went into France I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds. Thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart – but it is no matter. HORATIO       Nay, good my lord – HAMLET         It is […]

Enter a LORD. LORD  My lord, his majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in the hall. He sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time. HAMLET         I am constant to my purposes. They follow the King’s […]

HORATIO       This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head. HAMLET         ’A did so, sir, with his dug before ’a sucked it. Thus has he, and many more of the same breed that I know the drossy age dotes on, only got the tune of the time and, out of an habit of encounter, […]

HAMLET         Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing and the King hold his purpose – I will win for him an I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame […]