Codes
+ + = emendation;
<> = First Folio; [ ] = Second Quarto only
+1.4+
Enter Ghost.
HORATIO
Look, my lord, it comes. 1.4.48
questionable: problematic
1.4.52
canonized: i.e., buried in accord with the canons
of 1.4.59-61
and we . . . our souls: and causing us weak humans
to Copyright © 1992.
The Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved.
HAMLET
Angels and ministers
of grace, defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health
or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs
from heaven or blasts from 45
hell,
Be thy intents wicked
or charitable,
Thou com'st in such a
questionable shape
That I will speak to
thee. I'll call thee "Hamlet,"
"King," "Father," "Royal
Dane." O, answer me!
50
Let me not burst in ignorance,
but tell
Why thy canonized
bones, hearsèd in death,
Have burst their cerements;
why the sepulcher,
Wherein we saw thee quietly
interred,
Hath oped his ponderous
and marble jaws
55
To cast thee up again.
What may this mean
That thou, dead corse,
again in complete steel,
Revisits thus the glimpses
of the moon,
Making night hideous,
and we fools of nature
So
horridly to shake our disposition
60
With
thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? Wherefore?
What should we do?
the church (accent on second syllable)
agitate our minds with thoughts that go beyond
what even our souls can reach to