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A Plain in Denmark. | |
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Enter FORTINBRAS, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching. | |
| For. Go, captain, from me greet the Danish king; | |
| Tell him that, by his licence, Fortinbras | |
| Claims the conveyance of a promis’d march | 5 |
| Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous. | |
| If that his majesty would aught with us, | |
| We shall express our duty in his eye, | |
| And let him know so. | |
| Cap. I will do ’t, my lord. | 10 |
| For. Go softly on. [Exeunt FORTINBRAS and Soldiers. | |
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Enter HAMLET, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, &c. | |
| Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these? | |
| Cap. They are of Norway, sir. | |
| Ham. How purpos’d, sir, I pray you? | 15 |
| Cap. Against some part of Poland. | |
| Ham. Who commands them, sir? | |
| Cap. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. | |
| Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, | |
| Or for some frontier? | 20 |
| Cap. Truly to speak, and with no addition, | |
| We go to gain a little patch of ground | |
| That hath in it no profit but the name. | |
| To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; | |
| Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole | 25 |
| A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. | |
| Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it. | |
| Cap. Yes, ’tis already garrison’d. | |
| Ham. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats | |
| Will not debate the question of this straw: | 30 |
| This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace, | |
| That inward breaks, and shows no cause without | |
| Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir. | |
| Cap. God be wi’ you, sir. [Exit. | |
| Ros. Will ’t please you go, my lord? | 35 |
| Ham. I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before. [Exeunt all except HAMLET. | |
| How all occasions do inform against me, | |
| And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, | |
| If his chief good and market of his time | |
| Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. | 40 |
| Sure he that made us with such large discourse, | |
| Looking before and after, gave us not | |
| That capability and god-like reason | |
| To fust in us unus’d. Now, whe’r it be | |
| Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple | 45 |
| Of thinking too precisely on the event, | |
| A thought, which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom, | |
| And ever three parts coward, I do not know | |
| Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do;’ | |
| Sith I have cause and will and strength and means | 50 |
| To do ’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me: | |
| Witness this army of such mass and charge | |
| Led by a delicate and tender prince, | |
| Whose spirit with divine ambition puff’d | |
| Makes mouths at the invisible event, | 55 |
| Exposing what is mortal and unsure | |
| To all that fortune, death and danger dare, | |
| Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great | |
| Is not to stir without great argument, | |
| But greatly to find quarrel in a straw | 60 |
| When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then, | |
| That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d, | |
| Excitements of my reason and my blood, | |
| And let all sleep, while, to my shame, I see | |
| The imminent death of twenty thousand men, | 65 |
| That, for a fantasy and trick of fame, | |
| Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot | |
| Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, | |
| Which is not tomb enough and continent | |
| To hide the slain? O! from this time forth, | 70 |
| My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! [Exit. | |
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