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  • Title: Hamlet (Quarto 1, 1603)
  • Textual editor: Eric Rasmussen
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-434-9

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Hamlet (Quarto 1, 1603)

    The Tragedie of Hamlet
    I will speake daggers, those sharpe wordes being spent,
    2270To doe her wrong my soule shall ne're consent. exit.
    Enter the King.
    King O that this wet that falles vpon my face
    Would wash the crime cleere from my conscience!
    When I looke vp to heauen, I see my trespasse,
    2326.1The earth doth still crie out vpon my fact,
    Pay me the murder of a brother and a king,
    2314.1And the adulterous fault I haue committed:
    O these are sinnes that are vnpardonable:
    2329.1Why say thy sinnes were blacker then is ieat,
    Yet may contrition make them as white as snowe:
    I but still to perseuer in a sinne,
    It is an act gainst the vniuersall power,
    Most wretched man, stoope, bend thee to thy prayer,
    2345Aske grace of heauen to keepe thee from despaire.

    hee kneeles. enters Hamlet

    2350Ham. I so, come forth and worke thy last,
    And thus hee dies: and so am I reuenged:
    No, not so: he tooke my father sleeping, his sins brim full,
    And how his soule stoode to the state of heauen
    Who knowes, saue the immortall powres,
    2360And shall I kill him now,
    When he is purging of his soule?
    2355Making his way for heauen, this is a benefit,
    And not reuenge: no, get thee vp agen,
    When hee's at game swaring, taking his carowse, drinking (drunke,
    2365Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed,
    Or at some act that hath no relish
    Of saluation in't, then trip him
    That his heeles may kicke at heauen,
    And fall as lowe as hel: my mother stayes,
    This phisicke but prolongs thy weary dayes. exit Ham.
    King My wordes fly vp, my sinnes remaine below.
    No