Now follows, that you know, young Fortin- | Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth; [bras,-Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Or thinking, by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands,
Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
To our most valiant brother.So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,——-
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose,-to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subjects: and we here despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.

Farewell: and let your haste commend your duty.
Cor. & Vol. In that, and all things, will we
shew our duty.

King. We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
[exeunt Voltimand and Cornelius.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit. What is't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laer-
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking? [tes,
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

Laer. My dread lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence, though willingly I came to Den-
To shew my duty in your coronation; [mark,
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.
King. Have you your father's leave? what says
Polonius?
[leave,
Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow
By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces: spend it at thy will.-
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,-
Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind.

[aside.
King. How is it, that the clouds still hang on you?
Ham. Not so, my lord, I am too much i'the sun.
Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st, 'tis common; all, that live, must
Passing through nature to eternity.

Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen. If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

[die,

[seems. Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not

Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within, which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of wce.
King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your

nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: but to perséver
In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unmortified, or mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd;
For what, we know, must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse, till he that died to-day,
This must be so. We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe; and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And, with no less nobility of love,
Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school at Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And, we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers,
Hamlet;

I pray thee, stay with us, go net to Wittenberg.
Ham. I shall, in all my best, obey you, madain.
King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply;
Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come;
This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health, that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;
And the king's rouse the heavens shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder.
Come, away.
[exeunt King, Queen, Lords, &c. Pol, and Laer.
Ham. O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting kad not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, [nature,
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead!—nay, not so much, not two
So excellent a king; that was, to this,

My father's brother; but no more like my father, Form of the thing. each word made true and good,
Than I to Hercules: within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? And we did think it writ down in our duty Marcellus?

And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue;
I will requite your loves: so, fare you well;
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
I'll visit you.

All. Our duty to your honour.

Ham. Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

[exeunt Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo. My father's spirit in arms! all is not well; [come! I doubt some foul play; 'would the night were Till then, sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. [exit.

SCENE III. A ROOM IN POLONIUS'S HOUSE.

Enter Laertes and Ophelia.

Laer. 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.

Oph. Do you doubt that?

Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.

Laer. O, fear me not.

I stay too long;-but here my father comes.
Enter Polonius.

A double blessing is a grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

[shame,

Pol. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, [you;
And you are staid for: there,-my blessing with
[laying his hand on Laertes' head.
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou charácter. Give thy thoughts no
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. [tongue,
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware

Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour, Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,

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.

Oph. No more but so?

Laer. Think it no more:

[you,

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 the health of the 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
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 unmaster'd 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 'scapes 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.

Oph. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchman to my heart: but, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;

[ment.

Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judge-
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,-to thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Pol. The time invites you; go, your servants tend.
Laer. Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
What I have said to you.

Oph. 'Tis in my memory lock'd,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
Laer. Farewell.

[exit Laertes.

Pol. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you? Oph. So please you, something touching the lord Hamlet.

Pol. Marry, well bethought:

[teous:

'Tis told to me, he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you: and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and boun-
If it be so, (as so 'tis put on me,
And that in way of caution,) I must tell you,
You do not understand yourself so clearly,
As it behoves my daughter, and your honour:
What is between you? give me up the truth.

Oph. He hath, my lord, of late, made many
Of his affection to me.
[tenders

Pol. Affection? Pugh! you speak like a green Unsifted in such perilous circumstance. [girl, Do you believe his tenders, as you call them? Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should

Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Wronging it thus,) you'll tender me a fool.
Oph. My lord, he hath impórtun'd me with
In honourable fashion.
[love,
Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.
Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven. [my lord,
Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat,-extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a making,—
You must not take for fire. From this time,
Be somewhat scanter in your maiden presence.
Set your entreatments at a higher rate,
Than a command to parley. For lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young;
And with a larger tether may he walk,

Than may be given you: in few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that die which their investments show,-
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds,
The better to beguile. This is for all,-

Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damu'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from
Be thy intents wicked or charitable, [hell,
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee, Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,

I would not, in plain terms, from this time fo- th, So horribly to shake our disposition,
Have you so slander any moment's leisure,
As to give words or talk with the lord Hamiet.
Look to't, I charge you; come your ways.
Oph. I shall obey, my lord.

SCENE IV. THE PLATFORM.

[eeunt.

[height,

But to my mind, though I am native here,
And to the manner born,-it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel, east and west,
Makes us traduc'd, and tax'd of other nations:
They clepe us, drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and, indeed, it takes
From our achievements, though perform'd at
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin,)
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o'erleavens
The form of plausive manners;—that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect;
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star.-

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground:
But, do not go with it.

Hor. No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham. Why, what should be the fear.

I do not set my life at a pin's fee;
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again;—I'll follow it.

Hor. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff, [lord,
That beetles o'er his base into the sea?
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness? Think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

Ham. It waves me still:-
Go on, I'll follow thee.

Mar. You shall not go, my lord.
Ham. Hold off your hands.
Hor. Be rul'd, you shall not go.
Ham. My fate cries out,

And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Némean lion's nerve.

[Ghost beckons.
Still am I call'd ;-unhand me, gentlemen ;-
[breaking from them
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that let's me;
I say, away.-Go on, I'll follow thee.

[exeunt Ghost and Hamlet Hor. He waxes desperate with imaginatiou.

Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Hor. Have after:-to what issue will this come?
Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Den-
Hor. Heaven will direct it.
Mar. Nay, let's follow him.
SCENE V. A MORE REMOTE PART OF THE PLATFORM.
Re-enter Ghost and Hamlet.

[mark. [exeunt.

Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll
Ghost. Mark me.
[go no further.

Ham. I will.

Ghost. My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

Ham. Alas, poor ghost.

So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd.
Will sate itself in a celestial bodi,
And prey on garbage.

But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be:-Sleeping within mine orchard
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a via
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leperous distilment: whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And with a sudden vigour, it doth posset

Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing And curd, like eager droppings into milk
To what I shall unfold.

Ghost. I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night;
And, for the day, confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word [blood;
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their
Thy knotted and combined locks to part, [spheres;
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.—List, list, O list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love,-
Ham. O heaven!

Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural
Ham. Murder!
[murder.
Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Ham. Haste me to know it; that I, with wings!
As meditation, or the thoughts of love, [as swift
May sweep to my revenge.

Ghost. I find thee apt;

And duller should'st thou be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe's wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:
'Tis given out, that, sleeping in mine orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is, by a forged process of my death,
Rankly abus'd: but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent, that did sting thy father's life,
Now wears his crown.

Ham. O, my prophetic soul! my uncle!
Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gilts,
(O wicked wit, and gifts that have the power
So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
O, Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity,
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage; and to decline
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!

But virtue, as it never will be mov’d

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;

The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark'd about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch'd:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneal'd;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head;
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursu'st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well, at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me.

[exit.

Ham. O all you host of heaven! O earth!

What else;

And shall I couple hell?-O fie!-Hold, held my
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, [heart?
But bear me stiffly up!-Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven.
O most pernicious woman,

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,-meet it is, I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain
At least, I am sure, it may be so in Denmark.