Hamlet Page #2

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of reason would have mourn'd longer -

married with my uncle,

my father's brother;

but no more like my father

than I to Hercules.

Within a month,

ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

she married.

O, most wicked speed to post

with such dexterity to incestuous sheets.

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break, my heart,

for I must hold my tongue.

Hail to your lordship.

I am glad to see you well.

Horatio, or I do forget myself.

The same, my lord,

and your poor servant ever.

Sir, my good friend,

I'll change that name with you.

And what make you from Wittenberg,

Horatio?

Marcellus. I am very glad to see you.

Good even, sir. But what, in faith,

make you from Wittenberg?

- A truant disposition, good my lord.

- I would not hear your enemy say so.

But what is your affair in Elsinore? We'll

teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

My lord,

I came to see your father's funeral.

I prithee, do not mock me, fellow-student;

I think it was to see

my mother's wedding.

Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

Thrift, thrift, Horatio!

The funeral bak'd meats did coldly

furnish forth the marriage tables.

Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!

My father, methinks I see my father.

Where, my lord?

In my mind's eye, Horatio.

I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

Saw who?

My lord, the King your father.

For God's love, let me hear.

Two nights together had these gentlemen,

Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

in the dead vast and middle of the night,

been thus encountered.

A figure like your father,

armed at point exactly, cap--pie,

appears before them,

and with solemn march

goes slow and stately by them.

But where was this?

My lord, upon the platform

where we watch.

- Did you not speak to it?

- My lord, I did, but answer made it none.

'Tis very strange.

As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;

and we did think it writ down

in our duty to let you know of it.

Indeed, sirs. But this troubles me.

Hold you the watch tonight?

- We do, my lord.

- Arm'd, say you?

From head to foot.

- Then saw you not his face?

- O yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.

- I would I had been there.

- It would have much amaz'd you.

Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?

While one with moderate haste

might tell a hundred.

- Longer.

- Not when I saw't.

- His beard was grizzl'd, no?

- It was as I have seen it in his life.

A sable silver'd.

I will watch tonight.

Perchance 'twill walk again.

I warrant it will.

My necessaries are embark'd.

And, sister, as the winds

give benefit and convoy is assistant,

do not sleep but let me hear from you.

Do you doubt that?

For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,

hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,

a violet in the youth of primy nature.

No more!

- No more but so?

- Think it no more;

he may not, as unvalued persons do,

carve for himself;

for on his choice depends

the safety and health of this whole state.

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 unmast'red importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister.

The chariest maid is prodigal enough

if she unmask her beauty to the moon.

I shall the effect of this good lesson take

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,

whiles,

like a puff'd and reckless libertine,

himself the primrose path

of dalliance treads

and recks not his own rede.

O, fear me not.

Yet here, Laertes!

Aboard, aboard, for shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

and you are stayed for.

There, my blessing with thee!

And these few precepts in thy memory.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast,

and their adoption tried,

grapple them to thy soul

with hoops of steel;

but do not dull thy palm

with entertainment

of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

but not expressed in fancy;

rich, not gaudy;

for the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

for loan oft loses both itself and friend.

This above all - to thine own self be true,

and it shall follow, as the night the day,

thou canst not then be false to any man.

Most humbly do I take my leave my lord.

The time invites you;

go, your servants tend.

Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well

what I have said to you.

'Tis in my memory lock'd,

and you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Farewell.

What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

So please you, something touching

the Lord Hamlet.

Marry, well bethought. What is

between you? Give me up the truth.

He hath, my lord, importuned me

with love in honourable fashion.

Ay, fashion you may call it.

And hath given countenance

to his speech

with almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks!

From this time be something

scanter of your maiden presence.

I would not in plain terms

have you so slander any moment's leisure

as to give words or talk

with the Lord Hamlet.

The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

It is a nipping and an eager air.

- What hour now?

- I think it lacks of twelve.

- No, it is struck.

- lndeed? I heard it not.

It then draws near the season

wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

What does this mean, my lord?

The King doth wake tonight

and takes his rouse,

keeps wassail, and, as he drains

his draughts of Rhenish down,

the kettle-drum and trumpet thus

bray out the triumph of his pledge.

- Is it a custom?

- Ay, marry, is't;

but to my mind, though I am native here

and to the manor born,

it is a custom more honoured

in the breach than the observance.

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health

or goblin damn'd,

thou com'st

in such a questionable shape

that I will speak to thee.

I'll call thee Hamlet.

King,

Father,

royal Dane.

What may this mean, dead corse,

that thou again in complete steel

revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,

making night hideous

and we fools of nature

so horridly to shake our dispositions

with thoughts beyond

the reaches of our souls?

Say, why is this?

Wherefore?

What should we do?

It beckons you to go away with it,

as if it some impartment did desire

to you alone.

- But do not go with it.

- No, by no means.

- It will not speak; then I will follow it.

- Do not, my lord.

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 still. I'll follow it.

- You shall not go, my lord.

- Hold off your hands. My fate cries out.

I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.

He waxes desperate with imagination.

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