HAM. Speak, I am bound to hear.
GHOST. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
HAM. What?
GHOST. 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 porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood: List, list, oh, list!—
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—
HAM. Oh, heaven!
GHOST. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
HAM. Murder!
GHOST. Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
HAM. Haste me to know it, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation, or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.
GHOST. I find thee apt.
Now, Hamlet, hear:
Tis given out, that sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; so that 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.