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Shakespeare on Stage
American Shakespeare Center, The Duchess of Malfi. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
Folger Shakespeare Library, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 9, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 16, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.
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Hamlet (Quarto 2, 1604)

Author: William Shakespeare
Not Peer Reviewed
Prince of Denmarke.
As any the most vulgar thing to sence,
Why should we in our peuish opposition
Take it to hart, fie, tis a fault to heauen,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
285To reason most absurd, whose common theame
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cryed
From the first course, till he that died to day
This must be so: we pray you throw to earth
This vnpreuailing woe, and thinke of vs
290As of a father, for let the world take note
You are the most imediate to our throne,
And with no lesse nobilitie of loue
Then that which dearest father beares his sonne,
Doe I impart toward you for your intent
295In going back to schoole in Wittenberg,
It is most retrogard to our desire,
And we beseech you bend you to remaine
Heere in the cheare and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cosin, and our sonne.
300Quee. Let not thy mother loose her prayers Hamlet,
I pray thee stay with vs, goe not to Wittenberg.
Ham. I shall in all my best obay you Madam.
King. Why tis a louing and a faire reply,
305Be as our selfe in Denmarke, Madam come,
This gentle and vnforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my hart, in grace whereof,
No iocond health that Denmarke drinkes to day,
But the great Cannon to the cloudes shall tell.
310And the Kings rowse the heauen shall brute againe,
Respeaking earthly thunder; come away.
Florish.
Exeunt all,
Ham. O that this too too sallied flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolue it selfe into a dewe,
315Or that the euerlasting had not fixt
His cannon gainst seale slaughter, ô God, God,
How wary, stale, flat, and vnprofitable
Seeme to me all the vses of this world?
Fie on't, ah fie, tis an vnweeded garden
320That growes to seede, things rancke and grose in nature,
Possesse it meerely that it should come thus
C.
But