Page 237 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

13° H A M L E T 5.2.204

Lord. The queen desires you to use some gentle
entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.
Hamlet. She well instructs me. [the lord departs
Horatio. You will lose this wager, my lord.
Hamlet. I do not think so. Since he went into France,
I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds;
210 but thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my
heart—but it is no matter.
Horatio. Nay, good my lord—
Hamlet. It is but foolery, but it is such a kind of gain-
giving as would perhaps trouble a woman.
Horatio. If your mind dislike any thing, obey it.
I will forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.
Hamlet. Not a whit, we defy augury. There is special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis
not to come—if it be not to come, it will be now—if it be
220 not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no
man, of aught he leaves, knows what is't to leave
betimes, let be.
Attendants enter to set benches and carry in cushions for the
spectators; next follozo trumpeters and drummers with
kettle-drums, the KING, the QUEEN and all the court,
OSRIC and another lord, as judges, bearing foils and
daggers which are placed upon a table near the wall,
and last of all LAERTES dressed for the fence

King. Come, Hamlet, come and take this hand
from me.
{he puts the hand of Laertes into the hand of Hamlet;
and after leads the 's^ueen to the chairs of state
Hamlet. Give me your pardon, sir. I have done
you wrong,
But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have heard,