And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?

You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes?

You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,

And lose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,

That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?

The head is not more native to the heart,

The hand more instrumental to the mouth,

Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.

What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

Laer.

Dread my lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France;

From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,

To show my duty in your coronation;

Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,

My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,

And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

King.

Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?

Pol.

He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave

By laboursome petition; and at last

Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

King.

Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,

And thy best graces spend it at thy will!--

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son--

Ham.

[Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind!

King.

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Ham.

Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

Queen.

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not for ever with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know'st 'tis common,--all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

Ham.

Ay, madam, it is common.

Queen.

If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

Ham.

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,

That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem;

For they are actions that a man might play;

But I have that within which passeth show;

These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

King.

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father;

But, you must know, your father lost a father;

That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound,

In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: but to persevere

In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient;

An understanding simple and unschool'd;

For what we know must be, and is as common

As any the most vulgar thing to sense,

Why should we, in our peevish opposition,

Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,

A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,

To reason most absurd; whose common theme

Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,

From the first corse till he that died to-day,

'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth

This unprevailing woe; and think of us

As of a father: for let the world take note

You are the most immediate to our throne;

And with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son

Do I impart toward you. For your intent

In going back to school in Wittenberg,

It is most retrograde to our desire:

And we beseech you bend you to remain

Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen.

Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:

I pray thee stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

Ham.

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

King.

Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:

Be as ourself in Denmark.--Madam, come;

This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet

Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,

No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day

But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;

And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,

Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]

Ham.

O that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

But two months dead!--nay, not so much, not two:

So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: and yet, within a month,--

Let me not think on't,--Frailty, thy name is woman!--

A little month; or ere those shoes were old

With which she followed my poor father's body

Like Niobe, all tears;--why she, even she,--

O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason,

Would have mourn'd longer,--married with mine uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules: within a month;

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married:-- O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good;

But break my heart,--for I must hold my tongue!

[Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo.]

Hor.

Hail to your lordship!

Ham.

I am glad to see you well:

Horatio,--or I do forget myself.

Hor.

The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

Ham.

Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you:

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?--

Marcellus?

Mar.

My good lord,--

Ham.

I am very glad to see you.--Good even, sir.--

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

Hor.

A truant disposition, good my lord.

Ham.

I would not hear your enemy say so;

Nor shall you do my ear that violence,

To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself: I know you are no truant.

But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.