Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; And they in France of the best rank and station For loan oft loses both itself and friend, Good advice is very fine, From those who think and make it; Will ever stop to take it! Hamlet and his friends, Horatio and Marcellus, go to the passing place of the Ghost at midnight, and there, to the amazement of Hamlet, he sees the apparition of his father, and exclaims: "Angels and ministers of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou comest in such a questionable shape Have burst their cerements; why thy sepulchre, Hath opened his ponderous and marble jaws, With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?" The Ghost passes across the stage and beckons Hamlet to follow, who frantically rushes after the apparition and says: "Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, I'll go no farther." Ghost utters in sepulchral voice: "Mark me! I am thy father's spirit; Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest words Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and confined locks to part And each particular hair to stand on end To ears of flesh and blood. List! list, O list! Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abused; but know thou, noble youth, Hamlet exclaims: "O my prophetic soul! My uncle!” The Ghost then makes this remarkable speech: "Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, But virtue, as it never will be moved, And prey on garbage. But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air; Thus was I sleeping, by a brother's hand, No reckoning made, but sent to my account If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not; As the Ghost ceased and passed off the stage a peculiar shivering cheer passed over the great audience, and revealed for the first time in London dramatic art, a supernatural being seemingly clothed in the habiliments of flesh, blood and bones, resurrected from the tomb. Do spirits revisit this world again When they're released from this body of pain, And do they inhabit a realm afar Beyond the bright sun and sparkling star? King Claudius, his queen and Polonius were anxious to get at the real cause of Hamlet's lunacy, and send him away from the castle to prevent future trouble. The guilty conscience of the king daily feared detection. Hamlet brooded so intently upon the cruel murder of his father that he was constantly on the verge of insanity, devising plans to either slaughter himself or wreak a terrible vengeance upon his uncle and mother. Treading the halls of his ancestral palace he uttered this transcendent soliloquy that has puzzled the ages: "To be or not to be; that is the question; The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks |