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 persever 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 GERTRUDE Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg. HAMLET I shall in all my best obey you, madam. KING CLAUDIUS Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced 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 heavens all bruit again, Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
Exeunt all but HAMLET HAMLET 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! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah 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 follow'd 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 my 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 HORATIO Hail to your lordship! HAMLET I am glad to see you well:
Horatio,--or I do forget myself. HORATIO The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. HAMLET Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you:
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus? MARCELLUS My good lord-- HAMLET I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? HORATIO A truant disposition, good my lord. HAMLET I would not hear your enemy say so, Nor shall you do mine ear that violence, To make it truster of your own report Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart. HORATIO My lord, I came to see your father's funeral. HAMLET I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;I think it was to see my mother's wedding. HORATIO Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon. HAMLET Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father!--methinks I see my father. HORATIO Where, my lord? HAMLET In my mind's eye, Horatio. HORATIO I saw him once; he was a goodly king. HAMLET He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again. HORATIO My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. HAMLET Saw? who? HORATIO My lord, the king your father. HAMLET The king my father! HORATIO Season your admiration for awhile With an attent ear, till I may deliver, Upon the witness of these gentlemen, This marvel to you. HAMLET For God's love, let me hear. HORATIO Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, In the dead vast and middle of the night, Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father, Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe, Appears before them, and with solemn march Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes, Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distilled Almost to jelly with the act of fear, Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me In dreadful secrecy impart they did;And I with them the third night kept the watch;Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time, Form of the thing, each word made true and good, The apparition comes: I knew your father;These hands are not more like. HAMLET But where was this? MARCELLUS My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd. HAMLET Did you not speak to it? HORATIO My lord, I did;But answer made it none: yet once methought It lifted up its head and did address Itself to motion, like as it would speak;But even then the morning cock crew loud, And at the sound it shrunk in haste away, And vanish'd from our sight. HAMLET 'Tis very strange. HORATIO As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;And we did think it writ down in our duty To let you know of it. HAMLET Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
