Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 5

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64.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
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judgment Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have, Else could
you not have motion; but sure that sense Is apoplex’d, for madness
would not err Nor sense to ecstacy was ne’er so thrall’d But it
reserv’d some quantity of choice To serve in such a difference. What
devil was’t That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind? Eyes without
feeling, feeling without sight, Ears without hands or eyes, smelling
sans all, Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope. O
shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a
matron’s bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her
own fire. Proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardour gives the
charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn, And reason panders
will.
QUEEN. O Hamlet, speak no more. Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very
soul, And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave
their tinct.
HAMLET. Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew’d
in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty.
QUEEN. O speak to me no more; These words like daggers enter in mine
ears; No more, sweet Hamlet.
HAMLET. A murderer and a villain; A slave that is not twentieth part
the tithe Of your precedent lord. A vice of kings, A cutpurse of the
empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And
put it in his pocket!
QUEEN. No more.
HAMLET. A king of shreds and patches!—
Enter Ghost.
Save me and hover o’er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What
would your gracious figure?
QUEEN. Alas, he’s mad.
HAMLET. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps’d in time
and passion, lets go by The important acting of your dread command? O
say!
GHOST. Do not forget. This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted
purpose. But look, amazement on thy mother sits. O step between her and
her fighting soul. Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. Speak to
her, Hamlet.
HAMLET. How is it with you, lady?
QUEEN. Alas, how is’t with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your
spirits wildly peep, And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your
bedded hairs, like life in excrements, Start up and stand an end. O
gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool
patience. Whereon do you look?
HAMLET. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares, His form and cause
conjoin’d, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.—Do not look
upon me, Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects.
Then what I have to do Will want true colour; tears perchance for
blood.
QUEEN. To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET. Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
HAMLET. Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN. No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET. Why, look you there! look how it steals away! My father, in his
habit as he liv’d! Look where he goes even now out at the portal.
[_Exit Ghost._]
QUEEN. This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation
ecstasy Is very cunning in.
HAMLET. Ecstasy! My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time, And
makes as healthful music. It is not madness That I have utter’d. Bring
me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would
gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction
to your soul That not your trespass, but my madness speaks. It will but
skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all
within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven, Repent what’s past,
avoid what is to come; And do not spread the compost on the weeds, To
make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; For in the fatness of
these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, curb and
woo for leave to do him good.
QUEEN. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
HAMLET. O throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the
other half. Good night. But go not to mine uncle’s bed. Assume a
virtue, if you have it not. That monster custom, who all sense doth
eat, Of habits evil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions
fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on.
Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next
abstinence. The next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of
nature, And either curb the devil, or throw him out With wondrous
potency. Once more, good night, And when you are desirous to be bles’d,
I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord [_Pointing to Polonius._]
I do repent; but heaven hath pleas’d it so, To punish me with this, and
this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow
him, and will answer well The death I gave him. So again, good night. I
must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins, and worse remains
behind. One word more, good lady.
QUEEN. What shall I do?
HAMLET. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: Let the bloat King
tempt you again to bed, Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with
his damn’d fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I
essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. ’Twere good you let
him know, For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Would from a
paddock, from a bat, a gib, Such dear concernings hide? Who would do
so? No, in despite of sense and secrecy, Unpeg the basket on the
house’s top, Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape, To try
conclusions, in the basket creep And break your own neck down.
QUEEN. Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath, And breath of life,
I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me.
HAMLET. I must to England, you know that?
QUEEN. Alack, I had forgot. ’Tis so concluded on.
HAMLET. There’s letters seal’d: and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will
trust as I will adders fang’d,— They bear the mandate, they must sweep
my way And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; For ’tis the sport to
have the enginer Hoist with his own petard, and ’t shall go hard But I
will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon. O,
’tis most sweet, When in one line two crafts directly meet. This man
shall set me packing. I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother, good night. Indeed, this counsellor Is now most still, most
secret, and most grave, Who was in life a foolish peating knave. Come,
sir, to draw toward an end with you. Good night, mother.
[_Exit Hamlet dragging out Polonius._]

ACT IV
SCENE I. A room in the Castle.
Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
KING. There’s matter in these sighs. These profound heaves You must
translate. ’tis fit we understand them. Where is your son?
QUEEN. Bestow this place on us a little while.
[_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out._]
Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!
KING. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
QUEEN. Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend Which is the
mightier. In his lawless fit Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries ‘A rat, a rat!’ And in this brainish
apprehension kills The unseen good old man.
KING. O heavy deed! It had been so with us, had we been there. His
liberty is full of threats to all; To you yourself, to us, to everyone.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d? It will be laid to us,
whose providence Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt
This mad young man. But so much was our love We would not understand
what was most fit, But like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it
from divulging, let it feed Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
QUEEN. To draw apart the body he hath kill’d, O’er whom his very
madness, like some ore Among a mineral of metals base, Shows itself
pure. He weeps for what is done.
KING. O Gertrude, come away! The sun no sooner shall the mountains
touch But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed We must with all
our majesty and skill Both countenance and excuse.—Ho, Guildenstern!
Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid: Hamlet in madness hath
Polonius slain, And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him. Go
seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body Into the chapel. I pray
you haste in this.
[_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]
Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends, And let them know
both what we mean to do And what’s untimely done, so haply slander,
Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter, As level as the cannon to his
blank, Transports his poison’d shot, may miss our name, And hit the
woundless air. O, come away! My soul is full of discord and dismay.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Another room in the Castle.
Enter Hamlet.
HAMLET. Safely stowed.
ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. [_Within._] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!
HAMLET. What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.
Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
ROSENCRANTZ. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
HAMLET. Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.
ROSENCRANTZ. Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence, And bear
it to the chapel.
HAMLET. Do not believe it.
ROSENCRANTZ. Believe what?
HAMLET. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be
demanded of a sponge—what replication should be made by the son of a
king?
ROSENCRANTZ. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
HAMLET. Ay, sir; that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his
authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end: he
keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be
last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but
squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.
ROSENCRANTZ. I understand you not, my lord.
HAMLET. I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us
to the King.
HAMLET. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.
The King is a thing—
GUILDENSTERN. A thing, my lord!
HAMLET. Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Another room in the Castle.
Enter King, attended.
KING. I have sent to seek him and to find the body. How dangerous is it
that this man goes loose! Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He’s lov’d of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment,
but their eyes; And where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weigh’d,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even, This sudden sending
him away must seem Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown By
desperate appliance are reliev’d, Or not at all.
Enter Rosencrantz.
How now? What hath befall’n?
ROSENCRANTZ. Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord, We cannot get
from him.
KING. But where is he?
ROSENCRANTZ. Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.
KING. Bring him before us.
ROSENCRANTZ. Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.
Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern.
KING. Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?
HAMLET. At supper.
KING. At supper? Where?
HAMLET. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation
of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for
diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable
service,—two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.
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 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 indeed, if you find him
not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into
the lobby.
KING. [_To some Attendants._] Go seek him there.
HAMLET. He will stay till you 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, Th’associates tend, and everything is bent
For England.
HAMLET. For England?
KING. Ay, Hamlet.
HAMLET. Good.
KING. So is it, 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 tonight. Away, for everything is seal’d and done
That else leans on th’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 mayst
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 ’tis done, Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.
[_Exit._]
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, 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 Will not debate
the question of this straw! This is th’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 b’ wi’ you, sir.
[_Exit._]
ROSENCRANTZ. Will’t please you go, my lord?
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. 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 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 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 eggshell.
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._]
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 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 bat and staff 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, At his head a grass green turf, At his heels
a stone.
QUEEN. Nay, but Ophelia—
OPHELIA. Pray you mark. [_Sings._] White his shroud as the mountain
snow.
Enter King.
QUEEN. Alas, look here, my lord!
OPHELIA. [_Sings._] Larded all with sweet flowers; Which bewept to the
grave did go With true-love showers.
KING. How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA. 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!
KING. Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA. Pray you, 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, To be your
Valentine.
Then up he rose and donn’d his clothes, And dupp’d the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more.
KING. Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA. Indeed la, 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; By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me, You promis’d me to wed. So would I
ha’ done, by yonder sun, An 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. 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 All from her father’s
death. 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 Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and 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, 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 his
wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not buzzers to infect his
ear 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 murdering piece, in many
places Gives me superfluous death.
[_A noise within._]
QUEEN. Alack, what noise is this?
KING. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.
Enter a Gentleman.
What is the matter?
GENTLEMAN. Save yourself, my lord. The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste Than young Laertes, in a
riotous head, O’erbears your offices. The rabble call him lord, And, as
the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word, They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes
shall be king!’ Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king.’
QUEEN. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry. O, this is counter,
you false Danish dogs.
[_A noise within._]
KING. The doors are broke.
Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following.
LAERTES. Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without.
Danes. No, let’s come in.
LAERTES. I pray you, give me leave.
DANES. We will, we will.
[_They retire without the door._]
LAERTES. I thank you. Keep the door. O thou vile king, Give me my
father.
QUEEN. Calmly, good Laertes.
LAERTES. That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard; Cries
cuckold to my father, brands the harlot Even here between the chaste
unsmirched brow Of my true mother.
KING. What is the cause, Laertes, That thy rebellion looks so
giant-like?— Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person. There’s such
divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus
incens’d.—Let him go, Gertrude:— Speak, man.
LAERTES. Where is my father?
KING. Dead.
QUEEN. But not by him.
KING. Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES. How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with. To hell,
allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the
profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand, That both the
worlds, I give to negligence, Let come what comes; only I’ll be
reveng’d Most throughly for my father.
KING. Who shall stay you?
LAERTES. My will, not all the world. And for my means, I’ll husband
them so well, They shall go far with little.
KING. Good Laertes, If you desire to know the certainty Of your dear
father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge That, sweepstake, you will
draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser?
LAERTES. None but his enemies.
KING. Will you know them then?
LAERTES. To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms; And, like the
kind life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood.
KING. Why, now you speak Like a good child and a true gentleman. That I
am guiltless of your father’s death, And am most sensibly in grief for
it, It shall as level to your judgment ’pear As day does to your eye.
DANES. [_Within._] Let her come in.
LAERTES. How now! What noise is that?
Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.
O heat, dry up my brains. Tears seven times salt, Burn out the sense
and virtue of mine eye. By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May! Dear maid, kind sister,
sweet Ophelia! O heavens, is’t possible a young maid’s wits Should be
as mortal as an old man’s life? Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis
fine, It sends some precious instance of itself After the thing it
loves.
OPHELIA. [_Sings._] They bore him barefac’d on the bier, Hey no nonny,
nonny, hey nonny And on his grave rain’d many a tear.— Fare you well,
my dove!
LAERTES. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not
move thus.
OPHELIA. You must sing ‘Down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.’ O, how
the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s
daughter.
LAERTES. This nothing’s more than matter.
OPHELIA. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray love, remember.
And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.
LAERTES. A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
OPHELIA. There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you;
and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O you
must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you
some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he
made a good end. [_Sings._] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself She turns to
favour and to prettiness.
OPHELIA. [_Sings._] And will he not come again? And will he not come
again? No, no, he is dead, Go to thy death-bed, He never will come
again.
His beard was as white as snow, All flaxen was his poll. He is gone,
he is gone, And we cast away moan. God ha’ mercy on his soul.
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b’ wi’ ye.
[_Exit._]
LAERTES. Do you see this, O God?
KING. Laertes, I must commune with your grief, Or you deny me right. Go
but apart, Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, And they
shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me. If by direct or by collateral
hand They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give, Our crown, our
life, and all that we call ours To you in satisfaction; but if not, Be
you content to lend your patience to us, And we shall jointly labour
with your soul To give it due content.
LAERTES. Let this be so; His means of death, his obscure burial,— No
trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones, No noble rite, nor formal
ostentation,— Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth, That I
must call’t in question.
KING. So you shall. And where th’offence is let the great axe fall. I
pray you go with me.
[_Exeunt._]
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 knew what they did; I am
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Next - Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 6
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  • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 1
    Total number of words is 4839
    Total number of unique words is 1329
    48.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    64.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    70.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
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  • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 2
    Total number of words is 4917
    Total number of unique words is 1333
    47.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    64.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    71.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
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  • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 3
    Total number of words is 4894
    Total number of unique words is 1411
    46.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    63.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    70.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
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  • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 4
    Total number of words is 4873
    Total number of unique words is 1366
    48.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    63.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    72.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.
  • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 5
    Total number of words is 4895
    Total number of unique words is 1393
    46.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    64.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    71.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
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  • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 6
    Total number of words is 4954
    Total number of unique words is 1398
    46.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    62.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    68.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
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  • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 7
    Total number of words is 2683
    Total number of unique words is 840
    52.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words
    69.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words
    75.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
    Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.