That’s the end.
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KING Alas, alas.
HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of
a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
KING What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
30
progress through the guts of a beggar.
KING Where is Polonius?
HAMLET In heaven. Send thither to see. If your
messenger find him not there, seek him i’th’ other
place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within
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this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs
into the lobby.
KING [to some attendants] Go seek him there.
HAMLET A will stay till you come. Exeunt attendants.
KING Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety –
40
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done – must send thee hence
With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
Th’associates tend, and everything is bent
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For England.
HAMLET For England?
KING Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET Good.
KING So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.
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HAMLET I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for
England. Farewell, dear mother.
KING Thy loving father, Hamlet.
HAMLET My mother. Father and mother is man and
wife, man and wife is one flesh; so my mother. Come,
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for England. Exit.
KING
Follow him at foot. Tempt him with speed aboard,
Delay it not – I’ll have him hence tonight.
Away, for everything is seal’d and done
That else leans on th’affair. Pray you make haste.
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Exeunt all but the King.
And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught –
As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us – thou mayst not coldly set
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Our sovereign process, which imports at full,
By letters congruing to that effect,
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done,
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Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun. Exit.
4.4 Enter FORTINBRAS with his army marching over the stage.
FORTINBRAS
Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king.
Tell him that by his licence Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his Majesty would aught with us,
5
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 and others.
HAMLET Good sir, whose powers are these?
CAPTAIN They are of Norway, sir.
10
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,
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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;
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Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
CAPTAIN Yes, it is already garrison’d.
HAMLET
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
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Will not debate the question of this straw!
This is th’impostume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
CAPTAIN God buy you, sir. Exit.
ROSENCRANTZ Will’t please you go, my lord?
30
HAMLET 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.
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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
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Of thinking too precisely on th’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
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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,
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Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
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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
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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
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My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth. Exit.
4.5 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,
5
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,
10
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.
HORATIO
’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.<
br />
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QUEEN Let her come in. Exit Gentleman.
[aside] 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.
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Enter OPHELIA.
OPHELIA Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?
QUEEN How now, Ophelia?
OPHELIA [Sings.]
How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff
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And his sandal shoon.
QUEEN Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
OPHELIA Say you? Nay, pray you mark.
[Sings.] He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone,
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At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
O ho!
QUEEN Nay, but Ophelia –
OPHELIA Pray you mark.
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[Sings.]
White his shroud as the mountain snow –
Enter KING.
QUEEN Alas, look here, my lord.
OPHELIA [Sings.]
Larded with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did not go
With true-love showers.
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KING How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA Well, good dild you. They say the owl was a
baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but
know not what we may be. God be at your table.
KING Conceit upon her father.
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OPHELIA Pray let’s have no words of this, but when they
ask you what it means, say you this.
[Sings.] Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
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To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clo’es,
And dupp’d the chamber door,
Let in the maid that out a maid
Never departed more.
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KING Pretty Ophelia –
OPHELIA Indeed, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t.
Sings. By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack and fie for shame,
Young men will do’t if they come to’t –
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By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,
You promis’d me to wed. ’
He answers,
Sings. ‘So would I a done, by yonder sun,
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And thou hadst not come to my bed.’
KING How long hath she been thus?
OPHELIA I hope all will be well. We must be patient. But
I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay
him i’th’ cold ground. My brother shall know of it.
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And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my
coach. Good night, ladies, good night. Sweet ladies,
good night, good night. Exit.
KING Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.
Exit Horatio.
O, this is the poison of deep grief: it springs
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All from her father’s death. And now behold –
O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone, and he most violent author
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Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius’ death – and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him; poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
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Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts;
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on this wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
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With pestilent speeches of his father’s death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murd’ring-piece, in many places
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Gives me superfluous death. [A noise within.]
Attend!
Where is my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
Enter a Messenger.
What is the matter?
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 134
