Than that which dearest father bears his sonDo 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,
Respeaking 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 faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Hor.
A truant disposition, good my lord.
Ham.
I would not hear your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do my 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.
Hor.
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.
Ham.
I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student.
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.
Hor.
Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.
Ham.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d 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.
Hor.
Where, my lord?
Ham.
In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
Hor.
