Hamlet

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine--

Enter a Messenger

How now? What news?

MESSENGER Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:

Gives letters

This to your majesty, this to the queen.

KING From Hamlet? Who brought them?

MESSENGER Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them not.

They were given me by Claudio43: he received them.

KING Laertes, you shall hear them.-- Leave us.

Exit Messenger

'High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked45 on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly

eyes, when I shall, first asking your pardon47 thereunto, recount th'occasions of my sudden and more strange

return. Hamlet.'

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some abuse? Or no such thing51?

LAERTES Know you the hand?

KING 'Tis Hamlet's character53. 'Naked' --

And in a postscript here, he says 'alone'.

Can you advise me?

LAERTES I'm 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,

'Thus diest thou.'

KING If it be so, Laertes --

As how should it be so? How otherwise? --

Will you be ruled by me?

LAERTES If so63 you'll not o'errule me to a peace.

KING To thine own peace. If he be now returned,

As checking at65 his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him