Exeunt SCENE V. Another part of the platform. Enter GHOST and HAMLET HAMLET Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further. Ghost Mark me. HAMLET I will. Ghost My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself. HAMLET Alas, poor ghost! Ghost Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold. HAMLET Speak; I am bound to hear. Ghost So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. HAMLET What? Ghost I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love-- HAMLET O God! Ghost Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. HAMLET Murder! Ghost Murder most foul, as in the best it is;But this most foul, strange and unnatural. HAMLET Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge. Ghost I find thee apt;And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:
'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown. HAMLET O my prophetic soul! My uncle! Ghost Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,--O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power So to seduce!--won to his shameful lust The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity That it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor To those of mine!
But virtue, as it never will be moved, Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven, So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd, Will sate itself in a celestial bed, And prey on garbage.
But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard, My custom always of the afternoon, Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distilment; whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man That swift as quicksilver it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body, And with a sudden vigour doth posset And curd, like eager droppings into milk, The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;And a most instant tetter bark'd about, Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd, No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head:
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.
Exit HAMLET O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
