Hamlet Act 4, Scene 4. Hamlet
Interestingly, this monologue is not contained in the First Folio or the First Quarto. It appears in the Second Quarto and is usually included in modern productions and texts.
(This text is featured in our interviews with Eric Tucker and David Carl)
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26. How all occasions doe informe against me,
27. And
spur my dull reuenge. What is a man
28. If his chiefe good and market of his time
29. Be but to
sleepe and feede, a bea
st, no more:
30. Sure he that made vs with such large discourse
31. Looking before and after, gaue vs not
32. That capabilitie and god-like rea
son
33. To fu
st in vs vnv
sd, now whether it be
34. Be
stiall obliuion, or
some crauen
scruple
35. Of thinking too precisely on th’euent,
36. A thought which quarterd hath but one part wi
sedom,
37. And euer three parts coward, I doe not know
38. Why yet I liue to
say this thing’s to doe,
39. Sith I haue cau
se, and will, and
strength, and meanes
40. To doo’t; examples grosse as earth exhort me,
41. Witnes this Army of
such ma
sse and charge,
42. Led by a delicate and tender Prince,
43. Who
se
spirit with diuine ambition puft,
44. Makes mouthes at the invi
sible euent,
45. Exposing what is mortall, and vnsure,
46. To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
47. Euen for an Egge-
shell. Rightly to be great,
48. Is not to
stirre without great argument,
49. But greatly to find quarrell in a
straw
50. When honour’s at the stake, how stand I then
51. That haue a father kild, a mother
staind,
52. Excytements of my rea
son, and my blood,
53. And let all
sleepe, while to my
shame I
see
54. The iminent death of twenty thou
sand men,
55. That for a fantasie and tricke of fame
56. Goe to their graues like beds, fight for a plot
57. Whereon the numbers cannot try the cau
se,
58. Which is not tombe enough and continent
60. My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth
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