That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee, Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me.
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,
Why thy canónized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurned,'
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,2
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,3

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ground! But do not go with it.

Hor.

No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham.

Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin's fee;

And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again;-I'll follow it.

Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,

That beetles' o'er his base into the sea?

And there assume some other horrible form,

Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,5
And draw you into madness? Think of it.

1 Quarto 1603-interred.

2 It appears, from Olaus Wormius, cap. vii., that it was the custom to bury the Danish kings in their armor.

3 Frame of mind.

4 i. e. overhangs his base.

5" To deprive your sovereignty of reason," signifies to take from you or dispossess you of the command of reason.

Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,

2

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat,-extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a making,—
You must not take for fire. From this time,
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments 3 at a higher rate,
Than a command to parley. For lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young;
And with a larger tether may he walk,
Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that die which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds,
The better to beguile. This is for all;-
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment's leisure,
As to give words or talk with the lord Hamlet.
Look to't, I charge you; come your ways.
Oph. I shall obey, my lord.

SCENE IV. The Platform.

[Exeunt

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS.

it is very

Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is

cold.

1 This was a proverbial phrase. There is a collection of epigrams under that title; the woodcock being accounted a witless bird, from a vulgar notion that it had no brains. "Springes to catch woodcocks," means "arts to intrap simplicity."

2 "How prodigal the tongue lends the heart vows," 4to. 1603.

3 i. e. "be more difficult of access; and let the suits to you, for that purpose, be of higher respect than a command to parley."

4 i. e. panders. Brokage, and to broke, was anciently to deal in business of an amatory nature by procurement.

Hor. It is a nipping and an eager1 air.
Ham. What hour now?

Hor.

Mar. No, it is struck.

I think it lacks of twelve.

Hor. Indeed? I heard it not; it then draws near

the season,

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

[A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot

off, within.

What does this mean, my lord?

Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his

rouse,

Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring 3 reels, And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

Hor.

Ham. Ay, marry, is't.

Is it a custom?

But to my mind,-though I am native here,

And to the manner born,-it is a custom

More honored in the breach, than the observance.

This heavy-headed revel, east and west,*

Makes us traduced, and taxed of other nations. They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase Soil our addition; and indeed it takes

From our achievements, though performed at height, The pith and marrow of our attribute.

So, oft it chances in particular men,

That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty,

1 Eager was used in the sense of the French aigre, sharp.

2 To keep wassail was to devote the time to festivity.

3 Upspring here appears to mean nothing more than upstart. Steevens, from a passage in Chapman's Alphonsus, thought that it might mean a dance.

4 This and the following twenty-one lines are omitted in the folio. They had probably been omitted in representation, lest they should give offence to Anne of Denmark.

5 Clepe, call, clypian (Sax.). The Danes were, indeed, proverbial as drunkards; and well they might be, according to the accounts of the time. i. e. characterize us by a swinish epithet.

7 i. e. spot, blemish.

Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.
'Tis given out, that, sleeping in mine orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life,'
Now wears his crown.

Ham. O my prophetic soul! my uncle!

Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, (O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust The will of my most seeming virtuous queen. O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there! From me, whose love was of that dignity, That it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage; and to decline Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor To those of mine!

But virtue, as it never will be moved,

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,

And prey on garbage.

But soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be.-Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon3 in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And with a sudden vigor, it doth posset

1 Quarto, 1603-heart.

2 This is also a Latinism; securus, quiet, or unguarded.

3 Hebenon may probably be derived from henbane, the oil of which, according to Pliny, dropped into the ears, disturbs the brain; and there is sufficient evidence that it was held poisonous by our ancestors.

That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee, Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me.
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,
Why thy canónized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurned,'
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,2
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,3

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ground! But do not go with it.

Hor.

No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham.

Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin's fee;

And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again;-I'll follow it.

Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,

That beetles' o'er his base into the sea?

And there assume some other horrible form,

Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,5

And draw you into madness? Think of it.

1 Quarto 1603-interred.

2 It appears, from Olaus Wormius, cap. vii., that it was the custom to bury the Danish kings in their armor.

3 Frame of mind.

4 i. e. overhangs his base.

5 "To deprive your sovereignty of reason," signifies to take from you of dispossess you of the command of reason.