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Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir, As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors: Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts, Cannot once start me.-Wherefore was that cry? Sey. The queen, my lord is dead.

Macb. She would have died hereafter; There should have been a time for such a word.To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle: Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Enter a Messenger.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Mess. Gracious my lord,

I should report that which I
But know not how to do it.

Macb

say

I saw,

Well, say, sir.

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and, anon, methought, The wood began to move. Macb.

Liar, and slave !

[Striking him. Mess. Let me endure your wrath if't be not so; Within this three mile may you see it coming; I say, a moving grove. Macb.

I

If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.-
I pull in resolution; and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend,"
That lies like truth: "Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane;"-and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.-Arm, arm, and out!
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here.
I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,

Andwish the estate o' the world were now undone..
Ring the alarum-bell:-Blow wind! come wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.

SCENE.-The same. A Plain before the Castle. Enter, with drums and colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, MACDUFF, &c., and their Army, with boughs.

Mul. Now, near enough; your leavy screens

throw down,

And show like those you are:-You, worthy uncle,
Shall, with my cousin, your right noble son,
Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff, and we,
Shall take upon us what else remains to do,
According to our order.

Siw.
Fare you well.-
Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night,
Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.

Macd. Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. [Exeunt. Alarums continued.

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Enter MACBETH.

Siw. Had he his hurts before?
Rosse. Ay, on the front.

Siw. Why, then, God's soldier be he. Had I as many sons as I have hairs,

Macb. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, I would not wish them to a fairer death: But, bear-like, I must fight the course.

Enter MACDuff.

Macd. Turn, hell-hound, turn.

Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back, my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already.

Macd. I have no words,

My voice is in my sword; thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out.

Macb.

I will not yield,

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
Yet I will try the last: Before my body
I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff;
And cursed be he that first cries, "Hold, enough."
[Exeunt, fighting.
Retreat. Flourish. Re-enter, with drum and colours,
MALCOLM, old SIWARD, ROSSE, LENOX, ANGUS,
CATHNESS, MENTEITH, and soldiers.

Mal. I would the friends we miss were safe arriv'd.

Siw. Some must go off; and yet, by these I see, So great a day as this is cheaply bought.

Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son. Rosse. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:

He only liv'd but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd,
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.

Siw. Then he is dead?

Rosse. Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow

Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then
It hath no end.

And so his knell is toll'd.

Mal.

He's worth more sorrow,

And that I'll spend for him. Siw.

He's worth no more;

They say, he parted well, and paid his score: And so, God be with him!-Here comes newer comfort.

Re-enter MACDUff, with Macbeth's head.
Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art: Behold,
where stands

The usurper's cursed head: the time is free;
I see thee compassed with thy kingdom's pearl,
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine,-
Hail, King of Scotland!

All.

King of Scotland, hail! [Flourish. Mal. We shall not spend a large expense of time,

Before we reckon with your several loves,
And make us even with you. My thanes and
kinsmen,

Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honour nam'd. What's more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,-
As calling home our exil'd friends abroad,
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers

Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen,
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life;-this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time, and place;
So thanks to all at once, and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.

[Flourish. Excunt.

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Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, and Lords Attendant.

King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death

The memory be green; and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye;
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage
In equal scale, weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along:-For all, our thanks.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit? What is't, Laertes ?
Laer.
Dread my lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation;
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again towards
France,

And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. King. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius ?

Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave,

By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,And thy best graces spend it at thy will! Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind.

[Aside.

King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you ?

Ham. Not so, my lord, I am too much i' the sun.

Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st, 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen.

If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not

seems.

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: These, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your
nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father;
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: But to persevere
In obstinate condolement, is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what, we know, must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fye! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And, we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers,
Hamlet;

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I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam..
King. Why, 'tis a loving and fair reply;
Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come;
This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;
And the king's rouse the heavens shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, Lords, &c.,
POL., and LAERTES.

Ham. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon* 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seems to me all the uses of this world! Fye on't! O fye! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature,

Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead!-nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a Satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem § the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly yet, within a month,—
Let me not think on't;-Frailty, thy name is
woman!

A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears, why she, even she,-
O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,-married with mine
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 of her galled eyes,
She married :-O most wicked speed,
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good;

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS. Hor. Hail to your lordship! Ham. I am glad to see you well; Horatio,- -or I do forget myself. Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant

ever.

*Canon means law. Merely means entirely. Hyperion means Apollo. 2 Beteem means suffer.

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sir,

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.
Ham. I would not have your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do mine car that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart.
Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's
funeral.

Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student;

I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
Hor. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.
Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd

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Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio.
Hor. I saw him once, he was a goodly king.
Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Ham. Saw! who?

Hor. My lord, the king, your father.
Ham.
The king, my father.
Hor. Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear; till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

Ham.
For heaven's love, let me hear.
Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father
Arm'd at all points, exactly, cap-á-pé,
Appears before them, and, with solemn march,
Goes slow and stately by them. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: I knew your father;
These hands are not more alike.

Ham.
But where was this?
Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we
watch'd.

Ham. Did you not speak to it?

Hor.

My lord, I did But answer made it none: yet once, methought, It lifted up its head, and did address Itself to motion, like as it would speak : But, even then, the morning cock crew loud; And at the sound it shrunk in haste away, And vanish'd from our sight.

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Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true, | No more. And we did think it writ down in our duty,

To let you know of it.

Oph. Laer.

No more but so ?

Think it no more.

Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. And keep within the rear of your affection,

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Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

Mar., Ber. Longer, longer.
Hor. Not when I saw it.
Ham.

Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon :
Virtue itself escapes not calumnious strokes :
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.

Oph. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchmen to my heart: But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And reeks not his own read.†
O, fear me not.
I stay too long;-But here my father comes.
Enter POLONIUS.

Laer.

A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

Pol. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame;

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

His beard was grisly? no. And you are staid for. There, my blessing with Hor. It was as I have seen it in his life, A sable silver'd.

Ham. I will watch to-night; Perchance 'twill walk again. Hor. I warrant it will. Ham. If it assume my noble father's person, I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape, And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight, Let it be treble in your silence still; And whatsoever else shall hap to-night; Give it an understanding, but no tongue; I will requite your loves. So fare ye well: Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve, I'll visit you.

All. Our duty to your honour. Ham. Your love, as mine to you: Farewell. [Exeunt HOR., MAR., and BER. My father's spirit in arms! all is not well; I doubt some foul play: would the night were

come!

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you ;

[Laying his hand on LAERTES' head.
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The 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. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,
Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, but not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,-To thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. Pol. The time invites you; go, your servants tend.

Laer. Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well What I have said to you.

Oph.

'Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it. Laer. Farewell. [Exit LAERTES. Pol. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you? Oph. So please you, something touching the lord Hamlet.

Chariest means most cautious.

† Reeks not his own read, means reads not his own lessons.

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