William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

ACT I. 2. Scene II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle. (continued)

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.