HAMLET. William Shakespeare

Go softly on.

       [Exeunt all For. and Forces.]

       [Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, &c.]

       Ham.

       Good sir, whose powers are these?

       Capt.

       They are of Norway, sir.

       Ham.

       How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?

       Capt.

       Against some part of Poland.

       Ham.

       Who commands them, sir?

       Capt.

       The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

       Ham.

       Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,

       Or for some frontier?

       Capt.

       Truly to speak, 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.

       Capt.

       Yes, it is already garrison’d.

       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.

       Capt.

       God b’ wi’ you, sir.

       [Exit.]

       Ros.

       Will’t please you go, my lord?

       Ham.

       I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.

       [Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

       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,

       Looking before and after, gave us not

       That capability and godlike reason

       To fust in us unus’d. Now, whether it be

       Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

       Of thinking too precisely on the event,—

       A thought which, quarter’d, 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 puff’d,

       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 honour’s at the stake. How stand I, then,

       That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,

       Excitements of my reason and my blood,

       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

       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.]

       SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

       [Enter Queen and Horatio.]

       Queen.

       I will not speak with her.

       Gent.

       She is importunate; indeed distract:

       Her mood will needs be pitied.

       Queen.

       What would she have?

       Gent.

       She speaks much of her father; says she hears

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

       Spurns enviously 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 aim 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.

       ‘Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew

       Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

       Queen.

       Let her come in.

       [Exit Horatio.]

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

       Each toy seems Prologue to some great amiss:

       So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

       It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

       [Re-enter Horatio with Ophelia.]

       Oph.

       Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

       Queen.

       How now, Ophelia?

       Oph. [Sings.]

       How should I your true love know

       From another one?

       By his cockle bat and’ staff

       And his sandal shoon.

       Queen.

       Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

       Oph.

       Say you? nay, pray you, mark.

       [Sings.]

       He is dead and gone, lady,

       He is dead and gone;

       At his head a grass green turf,

       At his heels a stone.

       Queen.

       Nay, but Ophelia—

       Oph.

       Pray you, mark.

       [Sings.]

       White his shroud as the mountain snow,