Hamlet | Page 3

I must confess, that duty done,?My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,?And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
King.?Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
Pol.?He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave?By laboursome petition; and at last?Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:?I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
King.?Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,?And thy best graces spend it at thy will!--?But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son--
Ham.?[Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind!
King.?How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Ham.?Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.
Queen.?Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,?And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.?Do not for ever with thy vailed lids?Seek for thy noble father in the dust:?Thou know'st 'tis common,--all that lives must die,?Passing through nature to eternity.
Ham.?Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen.?If it be,?Why seems it so particular with thee?
Ham.?Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.?'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,?Nor customary suits of solemn black,?Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,?No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,?Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,?Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,?That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem;?For they are actions that a man might play;?But I have that within which passeth show;?These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
King.?'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,?To give these mourning duties to your father;?But, you must know, your father lost a father;?That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound,?In filial obligation, for some term?To do obsequious sorrow: but to persevere?In obstinate condolement is a course?Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;?It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;?A heart unfortified, a mind impatient;?An understanding simple and unschool'd;?For what we know must be, and is as common?As any the most vulgar thing to sense,?Why should we, in our peevish opposition,?Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,?A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,?To reason most absurd; whose common theme?Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,?From the first corse till he that died to-day,?'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth?This unprevailing woe; and think of us?As of a father: for let the world take note?You are the most immediate to our throne;?And with no less nobility of love?Than that which dearest father bears his son?Do I impart toward you. For your intent?In going back to school in Wittenberg,?It is most retrograde to our desire:?And we beseech you bend you to remain?Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,?Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Queen.?Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:?I pray thee stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
Ham.?I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
King.?Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:?Be as ourself in Denmark.--Madam, come;?This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet?Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,?No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day?But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;?And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,?Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]
Ham.?O that this too too solid flesh would melt,?Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!?Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd?His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!?How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable?Seem to me all the uses of this world!?Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,?That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature?Possess it merely. That it should come to this!?But two months dead!--nay, not so much, not two:?So excellent a king; that was, to this,?Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,?That he might not beteem the winds of heaven?Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!?Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him?As if increase of appetite had grown?By what it fed on: and yet, within a month,--?Let me not think on't,--Frailty, thy name is woman!--?A little month; or ere those shoes were old?With which she followed my poor father's body?Like Niobe, all tears;--why she, even she,--?O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason,?Would have mourn'd longer,--married with mine uncle,?My father's brother; but no more like my father?Than I to Hercules: within a month;?Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears?Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,?She married:-- O, most wicked speed, to post?With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!?It is not, nor it cannot come to good;?But break my heart,--for I must hold my tongue!
[Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo.]
Hor.?Hail to your lordship!
Ham.?I am glad to see you well:?Horatio,--or I do forget myself.
Hor.?The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
Ham.?Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you:?And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?--?Marcellus?
Mar.?My good lord,--
Ham.?I am very glad to see you.--Good even, sir.--?But what, in