Hamlet Page #5

-But do not go with it.

-No, by no means.

-lt will not speak. Then will I follow it.

-Do not, my lord.

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.

Ill follow it.

What if it tempt you toward the flood?

Or the summit of the cliff

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.

-It wafts me still. Go on, Ill follow thee.

-You shall not go.

-Hold off your hands.

-Be ruled. You shall not go.

My fate cries out.

And makes each petty artery in this body

as hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.

Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.

By heav'n,

Ill make a ghost of him that lets me.

I say, away!

Go on, Ill follow thee.

-He waxes desperate with imagination.

-Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.

Have after. To what issue will this come?

Something is rotten

in the state of Denmark.

Heaven will direct it.

Nay, let's follow him.

HAMLET:

Angels and ministers of grace defend us.

Be thou a spirit of health

or goblin damned...

...bring airs from heaven

or blasts from hell...

...be thy intents wicked or charitable,

thou com'st in such a shape...

...that I will speak to thee.

Ill call thee Hamlet,

king, father, royal Dane.

O answer me!

Let me not burst in ignorance...

...but tell why thy canonized bones,

hearsed in death...

...have burst their cerements...

...why the sepulcher

wherein we saw thee quietly inurned...

...hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws

to cast thee up again.

What may this mean...

...that thou, dead corpse,

again in complete steel...

...revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,

making the night hideous...

...and we fools of nature

so horridly to shake our disposition...

...with thoughts beyond

the reaches of our souls?

Say, why is this? Wherefore?

What should we do?

Whither with thou lead me?

Speak.

Ill go no further.

GHOST:
Mark me.

HAMLET:
I will.

GHOST:

My hour is almost come...

...when I to sulph'rous

and tormenting flames...

...must render up myself.

HAMLET:

Alas, poor ghost.

GHOST:
Pity me not, but lend thy

serious hearing to what I shall unfold.

HAMLET:

Speak, I am bound to hear.

GHOST:
So art thou to revenge

when thou shalt hear.

HAMLET:

What?

I am thy father's spirit...

...doomed 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 purged away.

But that I am forbid

to tell the secrets of my prison-house...

... I could a tale unfold

whose lightest word...

...would harrow up thy soul,

freeze thy young blood...

...make thy two eyes like stars

start from their spheres...

...thy knotted and combined locks

to part...

...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, Hamlet, list, O list.

-If thou didst ever thy dear father love--

-Oh, God!

Revenge his foul

and most unnatural murder.

-Murder?

-Murder most foul, as in the best it is...

...but this most foul, strange,

and unnatural.

Haste me to know it...

...that I with wings as swift

as meditation or the thoughts of love...

...may sweep to my revenge.

I find thee apt...

...and duller shouldst thou be

than the fat weed...

...that roots itself in ease on Lethe 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 abused.

But know, thou noble youth,

the serpent that did sting thy father's life...

...now wears his crown.

O my prophetic soul. Mine uncle?

GHOST:
Ay, that incestuous,

that adulterate beast...

...with witchcraft of his wit,

with traitorous gifts--

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 moved...

...though lewdness court it

in a shape of heaven...

...so lust,

though to a radiant angel linked...

...will sate itself in a celestial bed...

...and prey on garbage.

But soft, methinks I scent

the morning's air.

Brief let me be.

Sleeping within mine orchard,

my custom always in the afternoon...

...upon my secure hour thy uncle stole...

...with juice of cursed hebenon

in a vial...

...and in the porches of mine ears did pour

the leprous 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 vigor

it doth posset...

...and curd, like eager droppings into milk,

the thin and wholesome blood.

So did it mine.

And a most instant tetter barked 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 dispatched...

...cut off

even in the blossoms of my sin...

...unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled...

...no reckoning made,

but sent to my account...

...with all my imperfections on my head.

O horrible...

...O horrible...

...most horrible.

If thou has nature in thee, bear it not.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

a couch for luxury and damned incest.

But howsoever thou pursuest 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, Hamlet.

Remember me.

O all you host of heaven.

O earth. What else?

And shall I couple hell?

O fie.

Hold, hold, my heart...

...and you, my sinews, grow not instant old,

but bear me stiffly up.

Remember thee?

Ay, thou poor ghost...

...whilst memory holds a seat

in this distracted globe.

Remember thee? Yea...

...from the table of my memory

Ill 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...

...unmixed with baser matter.

Yes, by heaven.

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