Queen. 
O my son, what theme?

Ham. 
I lov’d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.—­What wilt thou do for her?

King. 
O, he is mad, Laertes.

Queen. 
For love of God, forbear him!

Ham. 
’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do: 
Woul’t weep? woul’t fight? woul’t fast? woul’t tear thyself? 
Woul’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile? 
I’ll do’t.—­Dost thou come here to whine? 
To outface me with leaping in her grave? 
Be buried quick with her, and so will I: 
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart!  Nay, an thou’lt mouth,
I’ll rant as well as thou.

Queen. 
This is mere madness: 
And thus a while the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclos’d,
His silence will sit drooping.

Ham. 
Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus? 
I lov’d you ever:  but it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

[Exit.]

King. 
I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.—­

[Exit Horatio.] [To Laertes] Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech; We’ll put the matter to the present push.—­ Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.—­ This grave shall have a living monument:  An hour of quiet shortly shall we see; Till then in patience our proceeding be.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II.  A hall in the Castle.

[Enter Hamlet and Horatio.]

Ham. 
So much for this, sir:  now let me see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?

Hor. 
Remember it, my lord!

Ham. 
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep:  methought I lay
Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes.  Rashly,
And prais’d be rashness for it,—­let us know,
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well,
When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

Hor. 
That is most certain.

Ham. 
Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark
Grop’d I to find out them:  had my desire;
Finger’d their packet; and, in fine, withdrew
To mine own room again:  making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,
O royal knavery! an exact command,—­
Larded with many several sorts of reasons,
Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,—­
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.