第 26 节

aven, I’ll have’t. O good Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me. If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story.

[_March afar off, and shot within._]

What warlike noise is this?

OSRIC. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland, To the ambassadors of England gives This warlike volley.

HAMLET. O, I die, Horatio. The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England, But I do prophesy th’election lights On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice. So tell him, with the occurrents more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

[_Dies._]

HORATIO. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Why does the drum come hither?

[_March within._]

Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors and others.

FORTINBRAS. Where is this sight?

HORATIO. What is it you would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

FORTINBRAS. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death, What feast is toward in thine eternal cell, That thou so many princes at a shot So bloodily hast struck?

FIRST AMBASSADOR. The sight is dismal; And our affairs from England come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d, 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 question, 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 Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts, Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall’n on the inventors’ heads. All this can I 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.

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 Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov’d most royally; and for his passage, The soldiers’ music and the rites of war Speak loudly for him. Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[_A dead march._]

[_Exeunt, bearing off the bodies, after which a peal of ordnance is shot off._]