Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, &c.

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, sir, 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, 'tis already garrisoned.

Ham. Two thousand souls, and. twenty thousand

ducats,

Will not debate the question of this straw.

This is the 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 be wi' you, sir.

Ros.

[Exit Captain. Will't please you go, my lord? Ham. I will be with you straight. Go a little before.

[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.

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,3

1 The remainder of this scene is omitted in the folio.

2 i. e. profit.

3 See note on Act i. Sc. 2. It is evident that discursive powers of mind are meant. Bishop Wilkins makes ratiocination and discourse convertible terms.

Looking before, and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven1 scruple

Of thinking too precisely on the event,

A thought, which, quartered, 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 puffed,
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 killed, a mother stained,
Excitements of my reason, and my blood,2
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 3
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.

3

1 Craven is recreant, cowardly. It may be traced from crant, creant,

the old French word for an act of submission.

2 Provocations which excite both my reason and my passions to ven

geance.

3 A plot of ground.

4 Continent means that which comprehends or incloses.

SCENE V. Elsinore. A Room in the Castle.

Queen.

Enter Queen and HORATIO.

I will not speak with her.

Hor. She is importunate; indeed, distract; Her mood will needs be pitied.

Queen.

What would she have?

Hor. She speaks much of her father; says she

hears

There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her

heart;

Spurns enviously1 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 aim3 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.5

Queen. 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Let her come in.

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

[Exit HORATIO.

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss;7
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

1 "Enviously, and spitefully," are treated as synonymous by our old writers.

2 To collection, that is, to gather or deduce consequences from such premises.

3 The quartos read yawn. To aim is to guess.

4 Folio-would.

5 Unhappily, that is, mischievously.

6 The three first lines of this speech are given to Horatio in the quarto.

7 Shakspeare is not singular in his use of amiss as a substantive. Several instances are adduced by Steevens, and more by Mr. Nares, in his Glossary. "Each toy" is each trifle.