Chapter 4

Scene IV.
Near Elsinore.

Enter Fortinbras with his Army over the stage.

For. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.

Tell him that by his license Fortinbras

Craves the conveyance of a promis’d 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.

Capt. I will do’t, my lord.

For. Go softly on.

Exeunt [all but the Captain].

Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] and others.

Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these?

Capt. They are of Norway, sir.

Ham. How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?

Capt. Against some part of Poland.

Ham. Who commands them, sir?

Capt. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,

Or for some frontier?

Capt. 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.

Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Capt. Yes, it is already garrison’d.

Ham. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate the question of this straw.

This is th’ imposthume of much wealth and peace,

That inward breaks, and shows no cause without

Why the man dies.- I humbly thank you, sir.

Capt. God b’ wi’ you, sir. [Exit.]

Ros. Will’t please you go, my lord?

Ham. I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.

[Exeunt all but 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 unus’d. Now, whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th’ event,-

A thought which, quarter’d, 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 puff’d,

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 honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,

That have a father klll’d, a mother stain’d,

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? O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! Exit.