But to my mind,-though I am native here,
And to the manner born,-it is a custom

More honored in the breach, than the observance.
Enter GHOST.

Hor. Look, my lord, it comes!

Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned,
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 ingorance! but tell,
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cere'ments! why the sepulcher
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urned,
Hath ōped 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 horribly to shake our disposition,

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire

To you ǎlōne.

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 I will 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.

! Corteous, (kêrt' e ůs), of court-like or elegant and condescending man ners; well-bred; complaisant.

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,

And draw you into mădnèss?

And makes each petty artery in this body

As hardy as the Ne'mean lion's nerve.— [GHOST beckons. Still am I called ;--unhand me, gentlemen :

[Breaking 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, followed

by HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Re-enter GHOST and HAMLET.

Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go no further. Ghost. Mark me.

Ghost. 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;

Doomed 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

1 Lets, retards; hinders.

Would hărrow 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 porcupine:

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,

Ham. O heaven!

Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Ham. Murder?

Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it 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,

May sweep to my revenge.

Ghost.

I find thee apt;

And duller should'st thou be than the fat weed

That rots itself in ease on Lethe' wharf,

Would'st thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:

'Tis given out, that sleeping in mine 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.

Ham. O, my prophetic soul! my uncle!
Ghost.

Ay,

With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,
He won to his shameful love

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 and hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage; and to decline

1 Le' the, a river of Africa, watering the city of Berenice, which, because it runs many miles under round, was fabled by the poets to

one of the rivers of hell, and be

cause the name signifies oblivion, was feigned to cause forgetfulness of all that was past to those who drank of its waters; oblivion; forgetfulness.

Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!-

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 mine ears did pour
The leperous distillment; whose effect
Holds such an emnity with blood of man,
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And, with a sudden vigor, it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched :
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.

Ham. O, horrible! O, 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 heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To goad and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his ineffectual fire:
Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me.
Ham. 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?
Yea, from the table of my memory

I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live

[Exit.

Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter: yes, by heaven,
I have sworn't.

IV.

160. SCENES FROM HAMLET.'

PART THIRD.

POLONIUS interrupts HAMLET who is reading a book.

DOLONIUS. Do you know me, my lord?

POLO

Hamlet. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger. Pol. Not I, my lord.

Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.

Pol. Honest, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

Pol. That's very true, my lord.
Ham. Have you a daughter?

Pol. I have, my lord.

Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun: friend, look to't.

Pol. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harping on my daughter :-yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far gone; and, truly, in my youth I suffered much extremity for love ;-very near this. I'll speak to him again. [To HAMLET.] What do you read, my lord? Ham. Words, words, words.

Pol. What is the matter, my lord?

Ham. Between whom?

Pol. I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here, that old men have gray beards; that their faces are wrinkled; all of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, should be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

1 Hamlet, after the interview with the ghost of his father, in order that he may verify his belief of the murder and successfully avenge it, affects insanity. The king and queen are so disturbed by this that they send Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two

of his former companions, to draw out, if possible, the secret which oppresses him. Polonius, lord chamberlain of the palace, an aged man, also tries to fathom him, and confidently declares him crazy through lovesickness.