I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights

On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;

So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, 360
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

[Dies.

Hor. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet

prince,

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

Why does the drum come hither?

[March within.

Enter Fortinbras, and the English Ambassadors, with
drum, colours, and Attendants.

Fort. Where is this sight?

Hor.

What is it you would see?

If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search. Fort. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death, What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,

That thou so many princes at a shot

So bloodily hast struck?

First. Amb.

Hor.

The sight is dismal;

And our affairs from England come too late:

370

The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfilled,

That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?

Not from his mouth

Had it the ability of life to thank you:

He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England.
Are here arrived, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;

380

Fort.

And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,

Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

Let us haste to hear it,

And call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:

I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me. Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,

Fort.

390

And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more:
But let this same be presently perform'd,

Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mis

chance

On plots and errors happen.

Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,

400

To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies: such a sight as this

Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the bodies:
after which a peal of ordnance is shot off.

Glossary.