Shakespeare's Stories for Young Readers by E. Nesbit

about the Court, with straws, and weeds, and flowers in her hair, singing strange scraps of song, and talking poor, foolish, pretty talk with no heart of meaning to it. And one day, coming to a stream where willows grew, she tried to hang a flowery garland on a willow, and fell in the water with all her flowers, and so died.
    And Hamlet had loved her, though his plan of seeming madness had made him hide it; and when he came back, he found the King and Queen, and the Court, weeping at the funeral of his dear love and lady.
    Ophelia’s brother, Laertes, had also just come to Court to ask justice for the death of his father, old Polonius; and now, wild with grief, he leaped into his sister’s grave, to clasp her in his arms once more.
    â€œI loved her more than forty thousand brothers,” cried Hamlet, and leaped into the grave after him, and they fought till they were parted.
    Afterwards Hamlet begged Laertes to forgive him.
    â€œI could not bear,” he said, “that any, even a brother, should seem to love her more than I.”
    But the wicked Claudius would not let them be friends. He told Laertes how Hamlet had killed old Polonius, and between them they made a plot to slay Hamlet by treachery.
    Laertes challenged him to a fencing match, and all the Court were present. Hamlet had the blunt foil always used in fencing, but Laertes had prepared for himself a sword, sharp, and tipped with poison. And the wicked King had made ready a bowl of poisoned wine, which he meant to give poor Hamlet when he should grow warm with the sword play, and should call for drink.
    So Laertes and Hamlet fought, and Laertes, after some fencing, gave Hamlet a sharp sword thrust. Hamlet, angry at this treachery—for they had been fencing, not as men fight, but as they play—closed with Laertes in a struggle; both dropped their swords, and when they picked them up again, Hamlet, without noticing it, had exchanged his own blunt sword for Laertes’ sharp and poisoned one. And with one thrust of it he pierced Laertes, who fell dead by his own treachery.
    At this moment the Queen cried out, “The drink, the drink! Oh, my dear Hamlet! I am poisoned!”
    She had drunk of the poisoned bowl the King had prepared for Hamlet, and the King saw the Queen, whom, wicked as he was, he really loved, fall dead by his means.
    Then Ophelia being dead, and Polonius, and the Queen, and Laertes, besides the two courtiers who had been sent to England, Hamlet at last got him courage to do the ghost’s bidding and avenge his father’s murder—which, if he had found the heart to do long before, all these lives had been spared, and none suffered but the wicked King, who well deserved to die.
    Hamlet, his heart at last being great enough to do the deed he ought, turned the poisoned sword on the false King.
    â€œThen—venom—do thy work!” he cried, and the King died.
    So Hamlet in the end kept the promise he had made his father. And all being now accomplished, he himself died. And those who stood by saw him die, with prayers and tears for his friends, and his people who loved him with their whole hearts. Thus ends the tragic tale of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

TWELFTH NIGHT
    O RSINO, the Duke of Illyria, was deeply in love with a beautiful Countess, named Olivia. Yet was all his love in vain, for she disdained his suit; and when her brother died, she sent back a messenger from the Duke, bidding him tell his master that for seven years she would not let the very air behold her face, but that, like a nun, she would walk veiled; and all this for the sake of a dead brother’s love, which she would keep fresh and lasting in her sad remembrance.
    The Duke longed for someone to whom he could tell his sorrow, and repeat over and over again the story of his love. And chance brought him such a companion. For about this time a goodly ship was wrecked on the Illyrian coast, and among those who reached land in safety were