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The bell then beating one,

What might be toward, that this sweaty haste Mar. Peace! break thee off; look, where it Doth make the night joint-labourer with the comes again!

Enter Ghost.

40

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Is it not like the king?
Hor. As thou art to thyself:
Such was the very armour he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
'Tis strange.

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day:

Who is 't that can inform me?
Hor.

That can I;

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king, 80
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant
Hamlet-
84

For so this side of our known world esteem'd
him-

Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,

Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit with his life all those his lands
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror;
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

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Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,

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And carriage of the article design'd,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in 't; which is no other-
As it doth well appear unto our state-
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsative, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost. And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,

ΤΟΥ

104

60 The source of this our watch and the chief head Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

64

Mar. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Hor. In what particular thought to work I
know not;

But in the gross and scope of my opinion, 68
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he
that knows,

72

Ber. I think it be no other but e'en so; 108
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch, so like the king
That was and is the question of these wars.

Hor. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye. 112
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted
dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets; 116
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse; 120
And even the like precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.
76 But, soft! behold! lo! where it comes again.

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land;
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore
task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week;

125

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If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which happily foreknowing may avoid,
O! speak;

Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

132

136

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in
death,
[Cock crows.
Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Mar-
cellus.
139
Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Ber.

Hor.

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SCENE II.-A Room of State in the Castle. Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants.

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 king.
dom

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,

'Tis here! [Exit Ghost. The imperial jointress of this war-like state, 9

'Tis here!

Mar. 'Tis gone!

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye,

144 With mirth in funeral and with dirge in mar

riage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,

Ber. It was about to speak when the cock | Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd

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20

24

28

Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along: for all, our thanks. 16
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose, to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists and full proportions, are all made 32
Out of his subject; and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king more than the scope
Of these delated articles allow.
Farewell and let your haste commend your duty.
Cor. In that and all things will we show
Vol. our duty.

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King. We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.

[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.

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And thy best graces spend it at thy will.
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,-
Ham. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and
less than kind.

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 nighted colour
off,

68
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 live must
die,

Passing through nature to eternity.
Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen.

If it be,

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Why seems it so particular with thee?
Ham. Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not
'seems.'

76

'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, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly; these indeed seem,

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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? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried, 104
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note, 108
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love

112

Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. 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, 226
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers,
Hamlet:

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 a 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, 124
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. 128
[Exeunt all except HAMLET.
Ham. O! that this too too solid flesh would
melt,

Thaw and resolve itself into a dew;

80 Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O
God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

132

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Ham. I am very glad to see you. [To BERNARDO.] Good even, sir.

172

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord. 169
Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so,
Nor shall you do mine ear 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.
176

Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellowstudent;

I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

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Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him. 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, 209
Form of the thing, each word made true and
good,

The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.
Ham.

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

Ham. Did you not speak to it?
Hor.

213

My lord, I did;

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