Cor. Very like a whale. exit Coram. 230
Ham. Why then tell my mother i'le come by and by.
Good night Horatio.
Hor. Good night vnto your Lordship. exit Horatio.
Ham. My mother she hath sent to speake with me:
O God, let ne're the heart of Nero enter 235
This soft bosome.
Let me be cruell, not vnnaturall.
I will speake daggers, those sharpe wordes being spent,
To doe her wrong my soule shall ne're consent. exit.
[Sc. x.]
Enter the King.
King O that this wet that falles vpon my face
Would wash the crime cleere from my conscience!
When I looke vp to heauen, I see my trespasse,
The earth doth still crie out vpon my fact,
Pay me the murder of a brother and a king, 5
And the adulterous fault I haue committed:
O these are sinnes that are vnpardonable:
Why say thy sinnes were blacker then is ieat,
Yet may contrition make them as white as snowe:
I but still to perseuer in a sinne, 10
It is an act gainst the vniuersall power,
Most wretched man, stoope, bend thee to thy prayer,
Aske grace of heauen to keepe thee from despaire.
Hee kneeles. enters Hamlet
Ham. I so, come forth and worke thy last,
And thus hee dies: and so am I reuenged: 15
No, not so: he tooke my father sleeping, his sins brim full,
And how his soule stoode to the state of heauen
Who knowes, saue the immortall powres,
And shall I kill him now,
When he is purging of his soule? 20
Making his way for heauen, this is a benefit,
And not reuenge: no, get thee vp agen,
When hee's at game swaring, taking his carowse, drinking, drunke,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed,
Or at some act that hath no relish 25
Of saluation in't, then trip him
That his heeles may kicke at heauen,
And fall as lowe as hel: my mother stayes,
This phisicke but prolongs thy weary dayes. exit Ham.
King My wordes fly vp, my sinnes remaine below. 30
No King on earth is safe, if Gods his foe. exit King.