AMBASSADOR The sight is dismal334, And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears336 are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfilled,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?
HORATIO Not from his mouth,
Had it th'ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question343, You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view346, And let me speak to th'yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgements, casual350 slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause351, And, in this upshot352, purposes mistook Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver354.
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 memory358 in this kingdom, Which now to claim my vantage359 doth invite me.
HORATIO Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on361 more: But let this same be presently362 performed, Even while men's minds are wild363, lest more mischance On364 plots and errors happen.
FORTINBRAS Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on367, To have proved most royally: and for his passage368, The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak370 loudly for him.
Take up the body: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss372.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
Exeunt marching. After the which a peal of ordnance are shot off
TEXTUAL NOTES
Q1 = First Quarto text of 1603 (of uncertain authority)