(Heav'n! a beast that wants discourse of reason, Would have mourn'd longer-) married with mine uncle,

father,

My father's brother ; but no more like my
Than I to Hercules. Within a month?
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
Se 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.

-0000

SHAKSPEARE.

:

CHAP. XXVIII.

HAMLET AND GHOST.

HAM.ANGELS and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health. or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from Heav'n, or blasts from Hell,
Be hy intent wicked or charitable,

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That will speak to thee.

I'll call thee Hamlet,

King, Father, Roya Dane? oh! answer me?
Le me not burst in ignorance; but tell,
Why tay canonizʼa bones. hearsed in earth,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,

Ha op'd his ponce ous and marble jaws,
To cast the up again? What may this mean?
That thou dead c rse, again in complete steel,
R visit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and u› fools of nature
So horribly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Sa why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
GHOST Mark me.--

-IiAM. I will.

GHOST,

GHOST My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself

HAM Alas, poor ghost!

GHOS. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold.

HAM. Speak, I am bound to hear,

GHOST. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear,

HAM What?

GHOST I am thy father's spirit;

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fire,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and pug'd away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow rp thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,

Thy knotty and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine;

But this eternai blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood. List; list; oh list
If thou did'st ever thy dear father love-

HAM O Heav'n !

GHOST. Revenge his foul and most unnatura) murder

Murder most foul, as in the best i is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
HAM. Haste me to know it, that I, with wings
as swift

As meditation, or the thoughts of love,

Mav fly to my revenge.

GHOST I find thee apt;

And duller shouldst thou be, than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe's wharf

Woule'st thou not stir in this Now, Hamlet, hear 1 is given out, that, sleeping in my orchard,

Hh

A serpent

A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Deamaik

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abus'd: but know, thon noble youth, 'The serpent that did sting thy father's life, Now wears his crown."

HAM Oh, my prophetic soul! my uncle?
GHOST. Ay. that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with trai:'rous 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
Oh, Hamlet, what a falling off was there!
Bu soft! methinks I scent the morning air-
Brief let me be sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always in the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole
With juice of cursed hebony in a phial,
And in the porches of mine ear did poar
The leperous distilment.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,!
Of life, of crown, of Queen, at once bereft ;
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin;
No reck'ning made! but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head!

HAM Oh horrible! oh horrible! most horrible! GHOST. If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not; But howsoever thou pursu'st this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heav'n
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow worm shows the mattin to be near,
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

Adieu, adieu; remember me.

HAM. Oh, all ye host of heav'n ! oh earth!
What else?

And shall couple hell oh fies! hold heart!
And you, my sinews,' grow not instant old ;
But bear me stiffly up. Reember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat

In this distracted globe! remember thee!
Yea, from the tablet of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That you h and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Bamix'd with baser matter.

SHAKSPEARE

-0000-ED

CHAP. XXIX.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON DEATH.

To be, or not to be ?-that is the question.

Whether 'ris nobler in the mind to suffer
The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune,"
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?-To die-to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart ach, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to ;-'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die-to steep-
To sleep? perchance to dream!"ay, there's the rub ;'
For in that sleep of death what dreans may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us panse. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life :

For who would bear the whips and scorns o' th' time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contuměly,'
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes ;
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare hodkin? who would fardels beur,'
To groan and swet under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,
(That undiscover'd country, from whose bourn? -
No traveller returns) puzzles the will;'

Hh 2

A d

And makes us rather fear those ills we havè,
Thar fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all :
And thus the native hoe of resolution

Is sickled o'er with the pile east of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

SHAKSPEARE

Он

CHAP. XXX.

SOLILOQUY OF THE KING IN HAMLET.

OH! my offence is rank it smells to Heav'n,
It hath the primal, eldest curse upon't;
A brother's murder. -Pray I cannot :
Though inclination be as sharp as 'twill,
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood;
Is there not rain enough in the sweet Heav'ns,
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy,
But to confront the visage of offence?

And what's in prayer, but this twofold force,
To be forestall'd ere we come to fail,

Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past But oh, what form of pray'r
Can serve my tuin? Forgive me my foul murder !
That cannot be, since I am still possess❜d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd, and retain th' offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by Justice;
And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the laws. But 'tis not so above.
There is no shuffling; there the action lies

In