THE DIVINITY OF KINGS.

Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person;
Te re's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.

HAMLET'S IRRESOLUTION.

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.
Sure, he, that made with such large discourse†,
Looking before, and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven § scruple

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,
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;
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,

When honour is at stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason, and my blood,

* Profit.
Grow mouldy.

+ Power of comprehension.
Since.

§ Cowardly.

And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
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,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

DESCRIPTIOn of ophelia's death.

Queen. There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; Therewith fantastic garlands did she make

Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples*,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them :
There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies, and herself,
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time, she chanted snatches of old tunes ;
As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indu'd

Unto that element: but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

* Orchis morto mas.
+ Insensible.

† Licentious.

1 Clown. WHAT is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? 2 Clown. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

1 Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well: But how does it well? it does well to those that do ill: now thou dost ill, to say, the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee: To't again; comecudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating: and, when you are asked this question next, say, a grave-maker; the houses that he makes last till doomsday.

HAMLET'S REFLECTIONS ON YORICK'S SCULL.

Grave-digger. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same scull, sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester. [Takes the Scull.

Ham. This ?
Grave-digger. E'en that.

Ham. Alas! poor Yorick!—I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips, that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour* she must come; make her laugh at that.

OPHELIA'S INTERMENT.

Lay her i' the earth;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring!—I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministring angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

MELANCHOLY.

This is mere madness:

And thus awhile the fit will work on him:
Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclos'dt,
His silence will sit drooping.

PROVIDENCE DIRECTS OUR ACTIONS.

And that should teach us,

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.

A HEALTH.

Give me the cups;

And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,

The trumpet to the cannoneer without,

The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,
Now the king drinks to Hamlet.

* Countenance, complexion.

↑ Hatched.

I

*

WAS born free as Cæsar; so were you:
We both have fed as well; and we can both
Endure the winter's cold, as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tyber chafing with her shores,
Cæsar said to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now,
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point? Upon the word,
Accouter'd as I was, I plunged in,

And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did.
The torrent roar'd; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point propos'd,
Cæsar cry'd, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.

* Windy.