HAMLET. William Shakespeare

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 heaven shall bruit again,

       Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.

       [Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

       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

       Seem to me all the uses of this world!

       Fie on’t! O fie! ‘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. Heaven and earth!

       Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him

       As if increase of appetite had grown

       By what it fed on: and 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 followed my poor father’s body

       Like Niobe, all tears;—why she, even she,—

       O God! 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 in her galled eyes,

       She married:— O, most wicked speed, to post

       With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

       It is not, nor it cannot come to good;

       But break my heart,—for I must hold my tongue!

       [Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo.]

       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.

       Ham.

       Sir, my good friend; I’ll change that name with you:

       And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?—

       Marcellus?

       Mar.

       My good lord,—

       Ham.

       I am very glad to see you.—Good even, sir.—

       But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

       Hor.

       A truant disposition, good my lord.

       Ham.

       I would not hear your enemy say so;

       Nor shall you do my 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.

       Ham.

       I prithee 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 meats

       Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

       Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

       Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!—

       My father,—methinks I see my father.

       Hor.

       Where, my lord?

       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 awhile

       With an attent ear, till I may deliver,

       Upon the witness of these gentlemen,

       This marvel to you.

       Ham.

       For God’s love let me hear.

       Hor.

       Two nights together had these gentlemen,

       Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch

       In the dead vast and middle of the night,

       Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,

       Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,

       Appears before them and with solemn march

       Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d

       By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,

       Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distill’d

       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,

       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.

       My lord, I did;

       But answer made it none: yet once methought

       It lifted up it head, and did address

       Itself to