Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 4
Near Elsinore.
Fortinbras : Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.
[p]Tell him that by his
license Fortinbras
[p]Craves the conveyance of a promis'd
march
[p]Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
[p]If that his
Majesty would aught with us,
[p]We shall express our duty in his
eye;
[p]And let him know so.
Norwegian Captain : I will do't, my lord.
Fortinbras : Go softly on.
Hamlet : Good sir, whose powers are these?
Norwegian Captain : They are of Norway, sir.
Hamlet : How purpos'd, sir, I pray you?
Norwegian Captain : Against some part of Poland.
Hamlet : Who commands them, sir?
Norwegian Captain : The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
Hamlet : Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
[p]Or for some frontier?
Norwegian Captain : Truly to speak, and with no addition,
[p]We go to gain a little patch
of ground
[p]That hath in it no profit but the name.
[p]To pay five
ducats, five, I would not farm it;
[p]Nor will it yield to Norway or
the Pole
[p]A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
Hamlet : Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Norwegian Captain : Yes, it is already garrison'd.
Hamlet : Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
[p]Will not debate the
question of this straw.
[p]This is th' imposthume of much wealth and
peace,
[p]That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
[p]Why the
man dies.- I humbly thank you, sir.
Norwegian Captain : God b' wi' you, sir. [Exit.]
Rosencrantz : Will't please you go, my lord?
Hamlet : I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.
[p][Exeunt all but
Hamlet.]
[p]How all occasions do inform against me
[p]And spur my dull
revenge! What is a man,
[p]If his chief good and market of his
time
[p]Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
[p]Sure he that
made us with such large discourse,
[p]Looking before and after, gave
us not
[p]That capability and godlike reason
[p]To fust in us unus'd.
Now, whether it be
[p]Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
[p]Of
thinking too precisely on th' event,-
[p]A thought which, quarter'd,
hath but one part wisdom
[p]And ever three parts coward,- I do not
know
[p]Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do,'
[p]Sith I have
cause, and will, and strength, and means
[p]To do't. Examples gross as
earth exhort me.
[p]Witness this army of such mass and charge,
[p]Led
by a delicate and tender prince,
[p]Whose spirit, with divine ambition
puff'd,
[p]Makes mouths at the invisible event,
[p]Exposing what is
mortal and unsure
[p]To all that fortune, death, and danger
dare,
[p]Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
[p]Is not to stir
without great argument,
[p]But greatly to find quarrel in a
straw
[p]When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
[p]That have a
father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
[p]Excitements of my reason and my
blood,
[p]And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
[p]The imminent
death of twenty thousand men
[p]That for a fantasy and trick of
fame
[p]Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
[p]Whereon the
numbers cannot try the cause,
[p]Which is not tomb enough and
continent
[p]To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
[p]My
thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! Exit.
Previous: Act 4 - Scene 3
Next: Act 4 - Scene 5
