Page:Hamlet (1917) Yale.djvu/137

Prince of Denmark, IV. vii

If this should blast in proof. Soft! let me see;

We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings:

I ha't:

When in your motion you are hot and dry,—

As make your bouts more violent to that end,—

And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him

A chalice for the nonce, whereon but sipping,

If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,

Our purpose may hold there. [But stay! what noise?]

How now, sweet queen!

Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel,

So fast they follow: your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

Laer. Drown'd! O, where?

Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;

There with fantastic garlands did she come,

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, andlong purples,

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke,

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;

Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,

As one incapable of her own distress,

 154 blast in proof: burst when tested

155 cunnings: skill; cf. n.

157 motion: bodily exertion

160 for the nonce: for the purpose

161 stuck: thrust

168 hoar: greyish-white

170 crow-flowers: buttercups; cf. n.

long purples: early purple orchids

171 liberal: licentious

173 coronet: garlanded

175 weedy: of plants

179 incapable: having no understanding

