Hamlet | Page 6

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 something scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your
entreatments 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 dye which
their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,

Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This
is for all,--
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have
you so slander any moment 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.

[Exeunt.]
Scene IV. The platform.
[Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.]
Ham.
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
Hor.
It is a nipping and an eager air.
Ham.
What hour now?
Hor.
I think it lacks of twelve.
Mar.
No, it is struck.
Hor.
Indeed? I heard it not: 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 up-spring reels;
And, as he drains his
draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.
Hor.
Is it a custom?
Ham.
Ay, marry, is't;
But to my mind,--though I am native here,

And to the manner born,--it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach
than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes
us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and
with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and, indeed, it takes
From
our achievements, though perform'd 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,
Since nature cannot choose his origin,--
By the
o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and
forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o'er-leavens
The
form of plausive manners;--that these men,--
Carrying, I say, the
stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
Their
virtues else,--be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may
undergo,--
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that
particular fault: the dram of eale
Doth all the noble substance often
doubt
To his own scandal.
Hor.
Look, my lord, it comes!
[Enter Ghost.]
Ham.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!--
Be thou a spirit of
health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts
from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com'st in such
a questionable shape
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 canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have
burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee
quietly in-urn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast
thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in
complete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making
night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our
disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say,
why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
[Ghost beckons Hamlet.
]
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 will I 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,
And draw you into madness? think of it:

The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into
every brain
That looks so many fadoms to the sea
And hears it roar
beneath.
Ham.
It waves me still.--
Go on; I'll follow thee.
Mar.
You shall not go, my lord.
Ham.
Hold off your hands.
Hor.
Be rul'd; you shall not go.
Ham.
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body

As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.--
[Ghost beckons.]
Still am I call'd;--unhand me, gentlemen;--

[Breaking free from them.]
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!--
I say, away!--Go
on; I'll follow thee.
[Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.]
Hor.
He waxes desperate with imagination.
Mar.
Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Hor.
Have after.--To what issue will this come?
Mar.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Hor.
Heaven will direct it.
Mar.
Nay, let's