William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Complete Works

Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie,

Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d.

I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.

HAMLET.

The point envenom’d too!

Then, venom, to thy work.

[ Stabs the KING. ]

OSRIC and LORDS.

Treason! treason!

KING.

O yet defend me, friends. I am but hurt.

HAMLET.

Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,

Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?

Follow my mother.

[ KING dies. ]

LAERTES.

He is justly serv’d.

It is a poison temper’d by himself.

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.

Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,

Nor thine on me.

[ Dies. ]

HAMLET.

Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.

I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu.

You that look pale and tremble at this chance,

That are but mutes or audience to this act,

Had I but time,—as this fell sergeant, death,

Is strict in his arrest,—O, I could tell you,—

But let it be. Horatio, I am dead,

Thou liv’st; report me and my cause aright

To the unsatisfied.

HORATIO.

Never believe it.

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.

Here’s yet some liquor left.

HAMLET.

As th’art a man,

Give me the cup. Let go; by Heaven, I’ll have’t.

O good Horatio, what a wounded name,

Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me.

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,

Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

To tell my story.

[ March afar off, and shot within. ]

What warlike noise is this?

OSRIC.

Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,

To the ambassadors of England gives

This warlike volley.

HAMLET.

O, I die, Horatio.

The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit:

I cannot live to hear the news from England,

But I do prophesy th’election lights

On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.

So tell him, with the occurrents more and less,

Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

[ Dies. ]

HORATIO.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Why does the drum come hither?

[ March within. ]

ENTER FORTINBRAS, THE ENGLISH AMBASSADORS AND OTHERS.

FORTINBRAS.

Where is this sight?

HORATIO.

What is it you would see?

If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

FORTINBRAS.

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 AMBASSADOR.

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 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIO.

Not from his mouth,

Had it th’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 th’ 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.

FORTINBRAS.

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.

HORATIO.

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 mischance

On plots and errors happen.

FORTINBRAS.

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 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 bodies, after which a peal of ordnance is shot off. ]

THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

by William Shakespeare

Dramatis Personæ

KING HENRY the Fourth.

HENRY, PRINCE of Wales, son to the King.

Prince John of LANCASTER, son to the King.

Earl of WESTMORELAND.

Sir Walter BLUNT.

Thomas Percy, Earl of WORCESTER.

Henry Percy, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND.

Henry Percy, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son.

Edmund MORTIMER, Earl of March.

Scroop, ARCHBISHOP of York.

SIR MICHAEL, his Friend.

Archibald, Earl of DOUGLAS.

Owen GLENDOWER.

Sir Richard VERNON.

Sir John FALSTAFF.

POINS.

GADSHILL.

PETO.

BARDOLPH.

LADY PERCY, Wife to Hotspur.

Lady Mortimer, Daughter to Glendower.

Mrs. Quickly, Hostess in Eastcheap.

Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers,

Carriers, Travellers and Attendants.

SCENE. England and Wales.

ACT I

SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter the King Henry, Westmoreland, Sir Walter Blunt, and others.]

KING.

So shaken as we are, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,

And breathe short-winded accents of new broils

To be commenced in strands afar remote.

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood;

No more shall trenching war channel her fields,

Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs

Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,

Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,

All of one nature, of one substance bred,

Did lately meet in the intestine shock

And furious close of civil butchery,

Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,

March all one way, and be no more opposed

Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:

The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,

No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,

As far as to the sepulchre of Christ—

Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross

We are impressed and engaged to fight—

Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,

To chase these pagans in those holy fields

Over whose acres walk’d those blessed feet

Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail’d

For our advantage on the bitter cross.

But this our purpose now is twelvemonth old,

And bootless ’tis to tell you we will go:

Therefore we meet not now.—Then let me hear

Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,

What yesternight our Council did decree

In forwarding this dear expedience.

WESTMORELAND.

My liege, this haste was hot in question,

And many limits of the charge set down

But yesternight; when, all athwart, there came

A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;

Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,

Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight

Against th’ irregular and wild Glendower,