[GHOST exits.]
HAMLET
O all you host of Heaven! O Earth! What else?!
And shall I couple Hell?? O fie! Hold, hold, my heart!
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up! Remember thee??
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee??
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial, fond records;
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past;
That youth and observation copied there!
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter! Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damnéd villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down:
That ‘One may smile and smile and be a villain!’
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
[HAMLET writes down.]
So, uncle, there you are. Now, to my word!
It is “adieu, adieu, remember me!”
I have sworn’t.
[Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.]
HORATIO
My lord, my lord!
MARCELLUS
Lord Hamlet.
HORATIO
Heavens secure him!
HAMLET
So be it.
MARCELLUS
Illo, ho, ho, my lord!
HAMLET
Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come!
MARCELLUS
How is’t, my noble lord?
HORATIO
What news, my lord?
HAMLET
O, wonderful!
HORATIO
Good my lord, tell it.
HAMLET
No, you’ll reveal it!
HORATIO
Not I, my lord, by heaven.
MARCELLUS
Nor I, my lord.
HAMLET
How say you, then? Would heart of man once think it?
But you’ll be secret?
HORATIO and MARCELLUS [Together]
Ay, by heaven, my lord!
HAMLET
There’s never a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave.
HORATIO
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
HAMLET
Why, right, you are in the right.
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part,
You, as your business and desire shall point you
(For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is.) And fo rmy own poor part,
I will go pray.
HORATIO
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord!
Ends on line 148.