Hamlet

Let us impart what we have seen tonight

Unto young Hamlet, for upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.

Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,

As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MARCELLUS Let's do't, I pray, and I this morning know

Where we shall find him most conveniently.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 2

running scene 2

Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes and his sister Ophelia, Lords Attendant

KING Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death

The memory be green2, and that it us befitted

To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom

To be contracted4 in one brow of woe,

Yet so far hath discretion5 foug

ht with nature

That we with wisest sorrow think on him

Together with remembrance of ourselves.

Therefore our sometime8 sister, now our queen,

Th'imperial jointress9 of this warlike state,

Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,

With one auspicious and one dropping eye11,

With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole13,

Taken to wife; nor have we herein barred14

Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone

With this affair along. For all, our thanks.

Now follows that you know17 young Fortinbras,

Holding a weak supposal18 of our worth,