Heaven will direct it.

MARCELLUS

Nay, let’s follow him.

Exeunt

1.5 Enter the Ghost, and Prince Hamlet following

HAMLET

Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak. I’ll go no further.

GHOST

Mark me.

HAMLET

I will.

GHOST

My hour is almost come

When I to sulph’rous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

HAMLET

Alas, poor ghost!

GHOST

Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing

To what I shall unfold.

HAMLET

GHOST

So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear.

HAMLET What?

GHOST I am thy father’s spirit,

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,

And for the day confined to fast in fires

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid

To tell the secrets of my prison-house

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,

Thy knotty and combined locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.

But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood. List, Hamlet, list, O list!

If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

HAMLET O God!

GHOST

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET Murder?

GHOST

Murder most foul, as in the best it is,

But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

HAMLET

Haste, haste me to know it, that with wings as swift

As meditation or the thoughts of love

May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST

I find thee apt,

And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed

That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf

Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.

’Tis given out that, sleeping in mine orchard,

A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father’s life

Now wears his crown.

HAMLET

O my prophetic soul! Mine uncle?

GHOST

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,

With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts—

O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power

So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust

The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.

O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!—

From me, whose love was of that dignity

That it went hand-in-hand even with the vow

I made to her in marriage, and to decline

Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor

To those of mine.

But virtue, as it never will be moved,

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,

So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,

Will sate itself in a celestial bed,

And prey on garbage.

But soft, methinks I scent the morning’s air.

Brief let me be. Sleeping within mine orchard,

My custom always in the afternoon,

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole

With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,

And in the porches of mine ears did pour

The leperous distilment, whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man

That swift as quicksilver it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body,

And with a sudden vigour it doth posset

And curd, like eager droppings into milk,

The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine;

And a most instant tetter barked about,

Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,

All my smooth body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand

Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

Unhouseled, dis-appointed, unaneled,

No reck’ning made, but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head.

O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury and damned incest.

But howsoever thou pursuest this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge

To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.

The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,

And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

Adieu, adieu, Hamlet. Remember me. Exit

HAMLET

O all you host of heaven! Oearth! What else?

And shall I couple hell? O fie! Hold, hold, my heart,

And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,

But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?

Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat

In this distracted globe. Remember thee?

Yea, from the table of my memory

I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,