Laertes

Laertes is a character in the Shakespeare play Hamlet.

He is the son of Polonius and brother of Ophelia. Laertes is sent to Paris to study, and returns to Denmark shortly before Hamlet’s father dies. Laertes is outraged by his own father’s death and wants revenge. He conspires with Claudius to kill Hamlet, but ultimately fails. Laertes dies after being stabbed with a poisoned sword by Hamlet.

Some scholars believe that Laertes is named after the figure Laertes, the father of Odysseus.

Despite his flaws, Laertes is a complex and sympathetic character. He is driven by his desire for revenge, but he is also motivated by love for his family and friends. He is ultimately undone by his own passions, but he remains an interesting and memorable figure in the play.

Lines by Laertes in Hamlet

#	Act, Scene, Line	Speech text
1	I,2,252	My dread lord, Your leave and favour to return to France; From whence though willingly I came to Denmark To show my duty in your coronation, Yet now I must confess, that duty done, My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
2	I,3,482	My necessaries are embark’d. Farewell. And, sister, as the winds give benefit And convoy is assistant, do not sleep, But let me hear from you.
3	I,3,487	For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour, Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood; A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent- sweet, not lasting; The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.
4	I,3,494	Think it no more. For nature crescent does not grow alone In thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes, The inward service of the mind and soul Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now, And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch The virtue of his will; but you must fear, His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own; For he himself is subject to his birth. He may not, as unvalued persons do, Carve for himself, for on his choice depends The safety and health of this whole state, And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d Unto the voice and yielding of that body Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you, It fits your wisdom so far to believe it As he in his particular act and place May give his saying deed; which is no further Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain If with too credent ear you list his songs, Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open To his unmast’red importunity. Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister, And keep you in the rear of your affection, Out of the shot and danger of desire. The chariest maid is prodigal enough If she unmask her beauty to the moon. Virtue itself scopes not calumnious strokes. The canker galls the infants of the spring Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d, And in the morn and liquid dew of youth Contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary then; best safety lies in fear. Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
5	I,3,536	O, fear me not! [Enter Polonius. ] I stay too long. But here my father comes. A double blessing is a double grace; Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
6	I,3,568	Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
7	I,3,570	Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well What I have said to you.
8	I,3,574	Farewell. Exit.
9	IV,5,2978	Where is this king?- Sirs, staid you all without.
10	IV,5,2980	I pray you give me leave.
11	IV,5,2982	I thank you. Keep the door. [Exeunt his Followers.] O thou vile king, Give me my father!
12	IV,5,2986	That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard; Cries cuckold to my father; brands the harlot Even here between the chaste unsmirched brows Of my true mother.
13	IV,5,2998	Where is my father?
14	IV,5,3002	How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with: To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand, That both the world, I give to negligence, Let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d Most throughly for my father.
15	IV,5,3010	My will, not all the world! And for my means, I’ll husband them so well They shall go far with little.
16	IV,5,3018	None but his enemies.
17	IV,5,3020	To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms And, like the kind life-rend’ring pelican, Repast them with my blood.
18	IV,5,3030	How now? What noise is that? [Enter Ophelia. ] O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye! By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May! Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia! O heavens! is’t possible a young maid’s wits Should be as mortal as an old man’s life? Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine, It sends some precious instance of itself After the thing it loves.
19	IV,5,3047	Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus.
20	IV,5,3052	This nothing’s more than matter.
21	IV,5,3055	A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.
22	IV,5,3062	Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She turns to favour and to prettiness.
23	IV,5,3077	Do you see this, O God?
24	IV,5,3089	Let this be so. His means of death, his obscure funeral- No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones, No noble rite nor formal ostentation,- Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth, That I must call’t in question.
25	IV,7,3136	It well appears. But tell me Why you proceeded not against these feats So crimeful and so capital in nature, As by your safety, wisdom, all things else, You mainly were stirr’d up.
26	IV,7,3157	And so have I a noble father lost; A sister driven into desp’rate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections. But my revenge will come.
27	IV,7,3185	Know you the hand?
28	IV,7,3189	I am 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 didest thou.’
29	IV,7,3196	Ay my lord, So you will not o’errule me to a peace.
30	IV,7,3206	My lord, I will be rul’d; The rather, if you could devise it so That I might be the organ.
31	IV,7,3216	What part is that, my lord?
32	IV,7,3231	A Norman was’t?
33	IV,7,3233	Upon my life, Lamound.
34	IV,7,3235	I know him well. He is the broach indeed And gem of all the nation.
35	IV,7,3249	What out of this, my lord?
36	IV,7,3253	Why ask you this?
37	IV,7,3271	To cut his throat i’ th’ church!
38	IV,7,3285	I will do’t! And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank, So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death This is but scratch’d withal. I’ll touch my point With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, It may be death.
39	IV,7,3314	Drown’d! O, where?
40	IV,7,3333	Alas, then she is drown’d?
41	IV,7,3335	Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will. When these are gone, The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord. I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze But that this folly douts it. Exit.
42	V,1,3554	What ceremony else?
43	V,1,3557	What ceremony else?
44	V,1,3567	Must there no more be done?
45	V,1,3572	Lay her i’ th’ earth; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest, A minist’ring angel shall my sister be When thou liest howling.
46	V,1,3583	O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of! Hold off the earth awhile, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms. [Leaps in the grave.] Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead Till of this flat a mountain you have made T’ o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head Of blue Olympus.
47	V,1,3598	The devil take thy soul!
48	V,2,3882	I am satisfied in nature, Whose motive in this case should stir me most To my revenge. But in my terms of honour I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement Till by some elder masters of known honour I have a voice and precedent of peace To keep my name ungor’d. But till that time I do receive your offer’d love like love, And will not wrong it.
49	V,2,3894	Come, one for me.
50	V,2,3898	You mock me, sir.
51	V,2,3906	This is too heavy; let me see another.
52	V,2,3924	Come, my lord. They play.
53	V,2,3926	No.
54	V,2,3929	Well, again!
55	V,2,3936	A touch, a touch; I do confess’t.
56	V,2,3947	My lord, I’ll hit him now.
57	V,2,3949	[aside] And yet it is almost against my conscience.
58	V,2,3953	Say you so? Come on. Play.
59	V,2,3955	Have at you now!
60	V,2,3962	Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.
61	V,2,3970	It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain; No medicine in the world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour of life. The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, Unbated and envenom’d. The foul practice Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie, Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d. I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.
62	V,2,3985	He is justly serv’d. It is a poison temper’d by himself. Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, Nor thine on me! Dies.

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