SCENE II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.

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• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark   SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.

  Enter Hamlet and Horatio.HAMLET. So much for this, sir. Now let me see the other; You do remember all the circumstance?HORATIO. Remember it, my lord!HAMLET. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly, And prais’d be rashness for it,—let us know, Our indiscretion sometime serves us well, When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.HORATIO. That is most certain.HAMLET. Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark Grop’d I to find out them; had my desire, Finger’d their packet, and in fine, withdrew To mine own room again, making so bold, My fears forgetting manners, to unseal Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio, Oh royal knavery! an exact command, Larded with many several sorts of reasons, Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too, With ho! such bugs and goblins in my life, That

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark   ACT V. SCENE I. A churchyard.

  Enter two Clowns with spades, &c.FIRST CLOWN. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?SECOND CLOWN. I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.FIRST CLOWN. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?SECOND CLOWN. Why, ’tis found so.FIRST CLOWN. It must be se offendendo, it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches. It is to act, to do, and to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly.SECOND CLOWN. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,—FIRST CLOWN. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the man; good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he goes,—mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.SECOND CLOWN.

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark   SCENE VII. Another room in the Castle.

  Enter King and Laertes.KING. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for friend, Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, That he which hath your noble father slain Pursu’d my life.LAERTES. It well appears. But tell me Why you proceeded not against these feats, So crimeful and so capital in nature, As by your safety, wisdom, all things else, You mainly were stirr’d up.KING. O, for two special reasons, Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d, But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,— My virtue or my plague, be it either which,— She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul, That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her. The other motive, Why to a public count I might not go, Is the great love the general gender bear him, Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, Would like the spring that turneth wood to stone, Convert his gyves to graces; so that my ar

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark   SCENE VI. Another room in the Castle.

  Enter Horatio and a Servant.HORATIO. What are they that would speak with me?SERVANT. Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.HORATIO. Let them come in.[Exit Servant.]I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.Enter Sailors.FIRST SAILOR. God bless you, sir.HORATIO. Let him bless thee too.FIRST SAILOR. He shall, sir, and’t please him. There’s a letter for you, sir. It comes from th’ambassador that was bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.HORATIO. [Reads.] ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows some means to the King. They have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy. But they

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark   SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

  Enter Queen, Horatio and a Gentleman.QUEEN. I will not speak with her.GENTLEMAN. She is importunate, indeed distract. Her mood will needs be pitied.QUEEN. What would she have?GENTLEMAN. She speaks much of her father; says she hears There’s tricks i’ th’ 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 Gentleman.]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.Enter Ophe

• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark   SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.

  Enter Fortinbras and Forces marching.FORTINBRAS. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king. Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous. If that his Majesty would aught with us, We shall express our duty in his eye; And let him know so.CAPTAIN. I will do’t, my lord.FORTINBRAS. Go softly on.[Exeunt all but the Captain.]Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern &c.HAMLET. Good sir, whose powers are these?CAPTAIN. They are of Norway, sir.HAMLET. How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?CAPTAIN. Against some part of Poland.HAMLET. Who commands them, sir?CAPTAIN. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.HAMLET. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?CAPTAIN. 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, s