Act IV, Scene 4

Near Elsinore.

Enter Fortinbras with his Army over the stage.

• Fortinbras. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.
  Tell him that by his license Fortinbras
  Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march
  Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
  If that his Majesty would aught with us,
  We shall express our duty in his eye;
  And let him know so.

• Norwegian Captain. I will do’t, my lord.

• Fortinbras. Go softly on.

Exeunt [all but the Captain].

Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] and others.

• Hamlet. Good sir, whose powers are these?

• Norwegian Captain. They are of Norway, sir.

• Hamlet. How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?

• Norwegian Captain. Against some part of Poland.

• Hamlet. Who commands them, sir?

• Norwegian Captain. The nephews to old Norway, Fortinbras.

• Hamlet. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
  Or for some frontier?

• Norwegian Captain. Truly to speak, and with no addition,
  We go to gain a little patch of ground
  That hath in it no profit but the name.
  To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
  Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
  A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

• Hamlet. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

• Norwegian Captain. Yes, it is already garrison’d.

• Hamlet. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
  Will not debate the question of this straw.
  This is th’ imposthume of much wealth and peace,
  That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
  Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

• Norwegian Captain. God b’ wi’ you, sir. [Exit.]

• Rosencrantz. Will’t please you go, my lord?

• Hamlet. I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.
  [Exeunt all but Hamlet.]
  How all occasions do inform against me
  And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
  If his chief good and market of his time
  Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
  Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
  Looking before and after, gave us not
  That capability and godlike reason
  To fust in us unus’d. Now, whether it be
  Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
  Of thinking too precisely on th’ event,-
  A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom
  And ever three parts coward,- I do not know
  Why yet I live to say ‘This thing’s to do;’
  Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
  To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me.
  Witness this army of such mass and charge,
  Led by a delicate and tender prince,
  Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d,
  Makes mouths at the invisible event,
  Exposing what is mortal and unsure
  To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
  Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
  Is not to stir without great argument,
  But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
  When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,
  That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,
  Excitements of my reason and my blood,
  And let all sleep. While to my shame I see
  The imminent death of twenty thousand men
  That for a fantasy and trick of fame
  Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
  Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
  Which is not tomb enough and continent
  To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
  My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
• Exit.