The Ghost's Revelation — Act I, Scene 5 — The battlements

Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, I'll go no further.

Mark me.

I will.

My hour is almost come, when I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames must render up myself.

Alas, poor ghost!

Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold.

Speak, I am bound to hear.

So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast in fires, till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, thy knotted and combined locks to part, and each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fretful porpentine. But this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

O God!

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

Murder!

Murder most foul, as in the best it is, but this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge.

'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark is by a forged process of my death rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown.

O my prophetic soul! My uncle!

Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, with witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts— O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power so to seduce!—won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen. Sleeping within my orchard, my custom always of the afternoon, upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, with juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, and in the porches of my ears did pour the leperous distilment, whose effect holds such an enmity with blood of man that swift as quicksilver it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body, and with a sudden vigour it doth posset and curd, like eager droppings into milk, the thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine, and a most instant tetter barked about, most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, all my smooth body. Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched, cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled, no reck'ning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head. O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not. Let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest. But howsoever thou pursuest this act, taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once. The glowworm shows the matin to be near and 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire. Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.

O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? And shall I couple hell? O fie! Hold, hold, my heart, and you, my sinews, grow not instant old, but bear me stiffly up. Remember thee? Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat in this distracted globe. Remember thee? Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past that youth and observation copied there, and thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain, unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven! O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! My tables—meet it is I set it down that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark. So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word: it is "Adieu, adieu, remember me." I have sworn't.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come, here, as before, never, so help you mercy, how strange or odd soe'er I bear myself—as I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on—that you, at such times seeing me, never shall, with arms encumbered thus, or this headshake, or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, as "Well, well, we know," or "We could an if we would," or "If we list to speak," or "There be an if they might"— or such ambiguous giving out, to note that you know aught of me. This not to do, so grace and mercy at your most need help you, swear.

The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right! Nay, come, let's go together.