Page 335 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

KING

From Hamlet! Who brought them?

MESSENGER
Sailors, my lord, they say. I saw them not.
They were given me by Claudio. He receiv’d them
Of him that brought them.

KING

Laertes, you shall hear them. − [40]
Leave us.
Exit Messenger.

[Reads] High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom.
Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes, when I shall, first asking

your pardon, thereunto recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange
return. [45]
Hamlet.

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

LAERTES
Know you the hand?

KING

’Tis Hamlet’s character.
‘Naked’ − [50]
And in a postscript here he says ‘Alone’.
Can you devise me?

LAERTES

I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come.
It warms the very sickness in my heart
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, [55]
‘Thus diest thou’.