Page 357 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

HAMLET

Being thus benetted round with villainies −
Or I could make a prologue to my brains, [30]
They had begun the play − I sat me down,

Devis’d a new commission, wrote it fair −
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much
How to forget that learning, but, sir, now [35]
It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know

Th’effect of what I wrote?

HORATIO
Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET
An earnest conjuration from the King,
As England was his faithful tributary,

As love between them like the palm might flourish, [40]
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma ’tween their amities,
And many such-like ‘as’es of great charge,
That on the view and knowing of these contents,

Without debatement further more er less, [45]
He should those bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow’d.

HORATIO
How was this seal’d?

HAMLET

Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father’s signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal, [50]
Folded the writ up in the form of th’other,
Subscrib’d it, gave’t th’impression, plac’d it safely,

The changeling never known. Now the next day
Was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent
Thou knowest already. [55]