Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,
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 interr'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
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
[Ghost beckons Hamlet]
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.
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful 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 waves me still go on, I'll follow thee!
You shall not go, my lord.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me :
I say, away!-Go on; I'll follow thee.
[Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet]
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.
[Exeunt Horatio and Marcellus]
THE EXTREME LIMITS OF THE
CASTLE PLATFORM
Whither wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further.
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
Nay, pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.
Speak; I am bound to hear.
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
What?
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 purged away.
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 fear-full porcupine :
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List Hamlet, O, list :
If thou did'st ever thy dear father love—
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Murder?
Yea, murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation, or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.
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 my 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; my uncle! my uncle !
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 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 link'd,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.
But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
(My custom always of the afternoon)
Upon my secure hour, thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed Hebona in a vial,
And in the porches of my 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 possess,
And curd, (like eager droppings into milk)
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
at once dispatch'd;
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unaneled ;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O God! horrible, horrible; O 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 pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
To the burden that her conscience bears,
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 :
Hamlet! Adieu, adieu, adieu ! remember me.
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
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