Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors,
Soldiers, etc.

Fort. Where is this sight?

Hor.

What is it ye would see?

If aught of woe, or wonder, cease your search.

Fort. This quarry cries on havoc.-O proud death! What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,

That thou so many princes at a shot

So bloodily hast struck?

First Amb.

The sight is dismal,

And our affairs from England come too late :

The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,

To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,

That Rosencranz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?

Hor.

Had it th' ability of life to thank you :

Not from his mouth,

He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world,
How these things came about: so shall you
hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

Fort.

Let us haste to hear it,

And call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:

I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more:
But let this scene be presently performed,1

Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance,
On plots and errors, happen.

Fort.

Let four captains

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;

For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have prov'd most royally: and for his passage,
The soldiers' music, and the rites of war,

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the body.-Such a sight as this

Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.-
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[Exeunt: a dead march; after which, a peal of ordnance is shot off.

' AND let this SCENE] "Scene" is same in the old editions, but amended to scene in the Corr. fol. 1632-no doubt rightly, as the words "audience" in the preceding, and "perform'd" and "stage" in the next speech establish: "But let this same" is miserably flat and inexpressive, and the old compositor mis-read "scene" same.

KING LEA R.

EDITED BY

J. PAYNE COLLIER.

LEAR, King of Britain.
KING OF FRANCE.

DUKE OF BURGUNDY.

DUKE OF CORNWALL.

DUKE OF ALBANY.

EARL OF KENT.

EARL OF GLOSTER.

EDGAR, Son to Gloster.

EDMUND, Bastard Son to Gloster.

CURAN, a Courtier.

OSWALD, Steward to Goneril.

Old Man, Tenant to Gloster.
Physician.

Knights of Lear's train, Officers, Messengers, Soldiers, and

Attendants.

SCENE: Britain.

1 This play was printed three times in 4to.,

all with the date of

1608, before it appeared in the folio of 1623. There was an older drama upon the same story, which was printed in 1605, 4to. In 1709 Rowe first gave the Dramatis Personæ.