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.]
German
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,
[Enter King.]
QUEEN.
Alas, look here, my lord!
OPH.
[Sings.]
Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.
KING.
How do you, pretty lady?
OPH.
Well, God 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!