Explore "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Enter Claudius King of Denmarke, Gertrude the Queene, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, and his Sister Ophelia, Lords Attendant.
King. Though yet of Hamlet our deere Brothers death / The memory be greene: and that it vs befitted / To beare our hearts in greefe, and our whole Kingdome / To be contracted in one brow of woe: / Yet so farre hath Discretion fought with Nature, / That we with wisest sorrow thinke on him, / Together with remembrance of our selues. / Therefore our sometimes Sister, now our Queene, / Th' imperiall Ioyntresse of this warlike State, / Haue we, as 'twere, with a defeated ioy, / With one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye, / With mirth in Funerall, and with Dirge in Marriage, / In equall Scale weighing Delight and Dole / Taken to Wife; nor haue we heerein barr'd / Your better Wisedomes, which haue freely gone / With this affaire along, for all our Thankes. / Now followes, that you know young Fortinbras, / Holding a weake supposall of our worth; / Or thinking by our late deere Brothers death, / Our State to be disioynt, and out of Frame, / Colleagued with the dreame of his Aduantage; / He hath not fayl'd to pester vs with Message, / Importing the surrender of those Lands / Lost by his Father: with all Bonds of Law / To our most valiant Brother. So much for him.