yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

King. Go seek him there.

[To some Attendants. Hamlet. He will stay till ye come. [Exeunt Attendants. King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,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,

The associates tend, and everything is bent
For England.

Hamlet.

King.

Hamlet.

For England!

Ay, Hamlet.

Good.

King. So it is, if thou knew'st our purposes.

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; and so, my mother.— Come, for England!

[Exit. King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard; Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night. Away! for every thing is seal'd and done

That else leans on the affair; pray you, make haste.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 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 may'st not coldly set
Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By letters conjuring 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 't is done,
Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.

SCENE IV. A Plain in Denmark.

[Exit.

Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching.
Fortinbras. Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king;
Tell him that by his license Fortinbras

Claims 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.

[Exeunt Fortinbras and Soldiers.

Fortinbras. Go softly on.

Enter HAMLET, ROSENORANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, & others.

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, should it be sold in fee.

Hamlet. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Captain. Yes, 't is already garrison'd.

Hamlet. Two thousand souls & 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.
Captain. God be wi' you, sir.
Rosencrantz.
Will 't please you go, my lord?
Hamlet. I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.
[Exeunt all except 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,

[Exit.

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!

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?

[Exit.

Gentleman. 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.

Horatio. "T were good she were spoken with, for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Queen. Let her come in.

[Exit Horatio. [Aside] To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss;