HAM.

Good.

KING. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

HAM. I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England! Farewell, dear mother.

KING. Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAM. My mother: father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh – so, my mother. Come, for England!

Exit.

 

KING.

Follow him at foot, tempt him with speed aboard.

Delay it not, I'll have him hence to-night.

Away, for every thing is seal'd and done

That else leans on th' affair. Pray you make haste.

 

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

 

And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught –

As my great power thereof may give thee sense,

Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red

After the Danish sword, and thy free awe

Pays homage to us – thou mayst not coldly set

Our sovereign process, which imports at full,

By letters congruing to that effect,

The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England,

For like the hectic in my blood he rages,

And thou must cure me. Till I know 'tis done,

How e'er my haps, my joys [were] ne'er [begun].

 

Exit.

 

 

[Scene IV]

Enter Fortinbras with his army over the stage.

 

FORT.

Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king.

Tell him that by his license Fortinbras

Craves the conveyance of a promis'd march

Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.

If that his Majesty would aught with us,

We shall express our duty in his eye,

And let him know so.

CAP.

I will do't, my lord.

FORT. Go softly on.

 

[Exeunt all but the Captain.]

 

Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] etc.

 

HAM. Good sir, whose powers are these?

CAP. They are of Norway, sir.

HAM. How purpos'd, sir, I pray you?

CAP. Against some part of Poland.

HAM. Who commands them, sir?

CAP. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAM.

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,

Or for some frontier?

CAP.

Truly to speak, and with no addition,

We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

HAM.

Why then the Polack never will defend it.

CAP.

Yes, it is already garrison'd.

HAM.

Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate the question of this straw.

This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,

That inward breaks, and shows no cause without

Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

CAP.

God buy you, sir.

 

[Exit.]

 

ROS.

Will't please you go, my lord?

HAM.

I'll be with you straight – go a little before.

 

[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Sure He that made us with such large discourse,

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus'd. Now whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th' event –

A thought which quarter'd hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward – I do not know

Why yet I live to say, »This thing's to do,«

Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means

To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:

Witness this army of such mass and charge,

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,

Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honor's at the stake. How stand I then,

That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep, while to my shame I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men,

That for a fantasy and trick of fame

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

 

Exit.

 

 

[Scene V]

Enter Horatio, [Queen] Gertrude, and a Gentleman.

 

QUEEN.

I will not speak with her.

GENT.

She is importunate, indeed distract.

Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN.

What would she have?

GENT.

She speaks much of her father, says she hears

There's tricks i' th' world, and hems, and beats her heart,

Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt

That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

The hearers to collection; they yawn at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,

Which as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,

Indeed would make one think there might be thought,

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

HOR.

'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

[QUEEN.]

Let her come in.

 

[Exit Gentleman.]

 

[Aside.]

 

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss,

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

 

Enter Ophelia [distracted, with her hair down, playing on a lute].

 

OPH.

Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN. How now, Ophelia?

OPH.

 

She sings.

 

»How should I your true-love know

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.«

QUEEN. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPH. Say you? Nay, pray you mark.

 

Song.

 

»He is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone,

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.«

O ho!

QUEEN.