فصل 15

Enter Fortinbras with his army over the stage.

FORTINBRAS

Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.

Tell him that by his license Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of a promised march Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.

If that His Majesty would aught with us, We shall express our duty in his eye ; And let him know so.

CAPTAIN I will do’t, my lord.

FORTINBRAS Go softly on.

[Exeunt all but the Captain.] Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] etc.

HAMLET Good sir, whose powers are these?

CAPTAIN They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLET How purposed, sir, I pray you?

CAPTAIN Against some part of Poland.

HAMLET Who commands them, sir?

CAPTAIN

The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAMLET

Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier?

CAPTAIN

Truly to speak, and with no addition , We go to gain a little patch of ground That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it ; Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee .

HAMLET

Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

CAPTAIN

Yes, it is already garrisoned.

HAMLET

Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats Will not debate the question of this straw .

This is th’impostume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

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.

[Exeunt all except Hamlet.] How all occasions do inform against me And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Sure he that made us with such large discourse , Looking before and after , gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th’event — A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward—I do not know Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,” Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me: Witness this army of such mass and charge , Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed Makes mouths at the invisible event , Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare , Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honor’s at the stake. How stand I, then, That have a father killed, a mother stained, Excitements of my reason and my blood , And let all sleep, while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause , Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain? Oh, from this time forth My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!