Hamlet

HORATIO In what particular thought to work I know not76,

But in the gross and scope77 of my opinion,

This bodes some strange eruption78 to our state.

MARCELLUS Good now79, sit down and tell me, he that knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch

So nightly toils the subject81 of the land,

And why such daily cast of brazen82 cannon

And foreign mart83 for implements of war:

Why such impress84 of shipwrights, whose sore task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week85

What might be toward86, that this sweaty haste

Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:

Who is't that can inform me?

HORATIO That can I,

At least, the whisper90 goes so: our last king,

Whose image even but now appeared to us,

Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

Thereto pricked on by a most emulate93 pride,

Dared to the combat, in which our valiant Hamlet --

For so this side of our known world esteemed him --

Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compact96,

Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

Which he stood seized on99 to the conqueror:

Against the which, a moiety competent100

Was gaged by our king, which had returned101

To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same cov'nant103,

And carriage of the article designed104,

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,