Page 326 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Divided from herself and her fair judgment, [85]
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 this wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear [90]
With pestilent speeches of his father’s death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d,

Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murd’ring-piece, in many places [95]
Gives me superfluous death.

A noise within.
Attend!
Where is my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

Enter a Messenger.

What is the matter?

MESSENGER
Save yourself, my lord.

The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste [100]
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 − [105]
They cry, ‘Choose we! Laertes shall be king.’

Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king.’

QUEEN
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs. [110]

A noise within.