Page 214 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, [80]
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,

That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passes show, [85]
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING

’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father,
But you must know your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his − and the survivor bound [90]
In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness, ’tis unmanly grief,

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, [95]
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool’d;
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense −

Why should we in our peevish opposition [100]
Take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,

To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried
From the first corse till he that died today, [105]
‘This must be so’. We pray you throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us

As of a father; for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love [110]

Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire,