ACT V.

A ROUTED ARMY.

No blame be to you, sir; for all was lost, But that the heavens fought: The king himself Of his wings destitute, the army broken, And but the backs of Britons seen, all flying Through a strait lane; the enemy full-hearted, Lolling the tongue with slaughtering, having work More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling Merely through fear; that the strait pass was damm'd* With dead men, hurt behind, and cowards living To die with lengthen'd shame.

DEATH.

I, in mine own woe charm'd,

Could not find death, where I did hear him groan;
Nor feel him, where he struck: Being an ugly monster,
"Tis strange, he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,
Sweet words; or hath more ministers than we
That draw his knives i' the war.

HAMLET.

ACT I.

PRODIGIES.

In the most high and palmy † state of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

* Blocked up.

+ Victorious.

As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star *,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

GHOSTS VANISH AT THE CROWING OF A COCK.

Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erringt spirit hies To his confine: and of the truth herein This present object made probation ‡.

THE REVERENCE PAID TO CHRISTMAS TIME.

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

MORNING.

But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

REAL GRIEF.

Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems. 'Tis not alone, my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage, Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, That can denote me truly: These, indeed, seem,

The moon.

+ Wandering

Proof.

For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within, which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.

IMMODERATE GRIEF DISCOMMENDED.

"Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father;
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: But to perséver
In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmauly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, or mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what, we know, must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse, till he that died to-day,
This must be so.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON HIS MOTHER'S MARRIAGE.

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 t. That it should come to this! But two months dead!--nay, not so much, not two: So excellent a king; that was, to this,

* Dissolve.

+ Law.

* Entirely.

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 follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,—

O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,-married with my 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.

THE EXTENT OF HUMAN PERFECTION.

He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

CAUTIONS TO YOUNG FEMALES.

For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood:
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The pérfume and suppliance of a minute:
No more.

*

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent‡ ear you list§ his songs;
Or lose your heart: or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd || importunity.

* Apollo.
Listen to.

+ Suffer.
Il Licentious.

Believing.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes :
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.

SATIRE ON UNGRACIOUS PASTORS.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchman to my heart: But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless + libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read .

ADVICE TO A SON GOING TO TRAVEL.

Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,

Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

And they in France, of the best rank and station,