Listen! Where are my bodyguards? Let them guard the door.
Enter a MESSENGER
A MESSENGER
enters.
What is the matter?
What is it?
MESSENGER
Save yourself, my lord.
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impiteous haste
75
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him
“lord”
And—as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word—
80
They cry, “Choose we! Laertes shall be
king!”
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds:
“Laertes shall be king, Laertes
king!”
MESSENGER
You must save yourself, my lord. The young Laertes, like the ocean
when it floods the shore and devours the lowlands, is leading a
rebellion against your government. The crowd calls him
“lord” and shouts, “We want Laertes
to be king!” It's as if they were starting the
world from scratch right now, throwing out the traditions and
ancient customs that are the support of every word we utter. They
throw their caps in the air and yell, “Laertes will be
king! Laertes king!”
GERTRUDE
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!
GERTRUDE
They sound so cheerful as they hunt down the wrong prey! Oh,
you're on the wrong track, you disloyal Danish
dogs!
