Had it the ability of life to thank you;
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 same be presently perform'd,

Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mis

chance,

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 soldier's musick, and the rites of war,

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies:-Such a sight as this

Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[A dead march.

[Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which,

a peal of ordnance is shot off.

Othello.

A

TRAGEDY,

BY

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

ACCURATELY PRINTED

FROM THE TEXT OF

MR. STEEVENS'S LAST EDITION.