Page 374 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIO
Not from his mouth,
Had it th’ability of life to thank you.
He never gave commandment foir their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question, [380]

You from the Polack wars and you from England
Are here arriv’d, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view,

And let me speak to th’yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear [385]
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause,

And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on th’inventors’ heads. All this can I [390]
Truly deliver.

FORTINBRAS
Let us haste to hear it,

And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me. [395]

HORATIO
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,

And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.
But let this same be presently perform’d
Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance

On plots and errors happen.

FORTINBRAS

Let four captains [400]
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov’d most royal; and for his passage,