recipitated this fair young maid, garland, and all
that she had gathered, into the water, where her clothes bore her up
for a while, during which she chanted scraps of old tunes, like one
insensible to her own distress, or as if she were a creature natural to
that element: but long it was not before her garments, heavy with the
wet, pulled her in from her melodious singing to a muddy and miserable
death. It was the funeral of this fair maid which her brother Laertes
was celebrating, the king and queen and whole court being present, when
Hamlet arrived. He knew not what all this show imported, but stood on
one side, not inclining to interrupt the ceremony. He saw the flowers
strewed upon her grave, as the custom was in maiden burials, which the
queen herself threw in; and as she threw them she said: 'Sweets to the
sweet! I thought to have decked thy bride-bed, sweet maid, not to have
strewed thy grave. Thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife.' And he
heard her brother wish that violets might spring from her grave: and he
saw him leap into the grave all frantic with grief, and bid the
attendants pile mountains of earth upon him, that he might be buried
with her. And Hamlet's love for this fair maid came back to him, and he
could not bear that a brother should show so much transport of grief,
for he thought that he loved Ophelia better than forty thousand
brothers. Then discovering himself, he leaped into the grave where
Laertes was, all as frantic or more frantic than he, and Laertes
knowing him to be Hamlet, who had been the cause of his father's and
his sister's death, grappled him by the throat as an enemy, till the
attendants parted them: and Hamlet, after the funeral, excused his
hasty act in throwing himself into the grave as if to brave Laertes;
but he said he could not bear that any one should seem to outgo him in
grief for the death of the fair Ophelia. And for the time these two
noble youths seemed reconciled.

But out of the grief and anger of Laertes for the death of his father
and Ophelia, the king, Hamlet's wicked uncle, contrived destruction for
Hamlet. He set on Laertes, under cover of peace and reconciliation, to
challenge Hamlet to a friendly trial of skill at fencing, which Hamlet
accepting, a day was appointed to try the match. At this match all the
court was present, and Laertes, by direction of the king, prepared a
poisoned weapon. Upon this match great wagers were laid by the
courtiers, as both Ham