 Richard III. Act I, Scene I by William Shakespeare Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York, and all the clouds that lured upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths. Our bruised arms hung up for monuments. Our stern alarm's changed to merry meetings. Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim visaged war had smoothed his wrinkled front. And now, instead of mounting barred steeds to frighten the souls of fearful adversaries, he capers nimbly in a lady's chamber till the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, nor made to court an amorous-looking glass. I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty to strut before a wanton ambling nymph. I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature, deformed, unfinished, set before my time into this breathing world, scarce half-made. And that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me as I halt by them. Why, I, in this weak pipping time of peace, have no delight to pass away the time, unless to spy my shadow in the sun and descant on my own deformity. And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover to entertain these fair, well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain, and hate the idle pleasures of these days. Plots have I laid, inductious, dangerous, by drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, to set my brother Clarence and the king in deadly hate, the one against the other. And, if King Edward be as true and just as I am subtle, false, and treacherous, this day should Clarence closely be mewed up about a prophecy, which says that G of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be. Dive thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes. This recording is in the public domain. Vaginity being blown down. Man will quickly be blown up. Mary, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not polite in the commonwealth of nature to preserve Vaginity. Loss of Vaginity is rational increase, and there was never virgin got till Vaginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Vaginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found. By being ever kept, it is ever lost. Tis too cold a companion, away with. There's little that can be said into. Tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of Vaginity is to accuse your mothers, which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs himself is a virgin. Vaginity murders itself, and should be buried in hallways out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offenderess against nature. Vaginity breeds mites, much like a cheese, consumes itself to the very pairing, and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, Vaginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not, you cannot choose but lose bite. Out with it. Within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly increase, and the principle itself not much the worse. Away with it. End of Vaginity being blown down from Allswell to Tenswell, Act 1, Scene 1, Recording by Jonathan Horney Blow. This recording is in the public domain. If you prick us, do we not bleed? From Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1, by William Shakespeare. Recorded by LibriVox.org. To bait fish with all, if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hinted me half a million. Laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated my enemies. And what is his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes, hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions. Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summers a Christian is. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tick less, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you and the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wronged a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wronged a Jew, what should his sufferance be, or a Christian example? Why revenge? The villain you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction. I would I had that corporal soundness. Spoken by the king, in all's well that ends well, act one, scene two. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. I would I had that corporal soundness now, as when I father and myself in friendship first tried our soldiership. He did look far into the service of the time, and was discipled of the bravest. He lasted long, but on us both did haggage, age, steal, on and wore us out of act. It much repairs me to talk of your good father. In his youth he had the wit which I can well observe today in our young lords. But may they jest till their own scorn return to them unnoted ere they can hide their levity in honour. So, like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness were in his pride or sharpness. If they were, his equal had awakened them, and his honour, clock to itself, knew the true minute when exception bid him speak, and at this time his tongue obeyed his hand. Who were below him he used as creatures of another place, and bowed his eminent top to their low ranks, making them proud of his humility. In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man might be a copy to these younger times, which, followed well, would demonstrate them now, but go as backward. Oh, were that all. I think not on my father. From Allswell that Endswell, Act 1, Scene 1. Spoken by Helena. Recorded by Vicky Soul. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Oh, were that all. I think not on my father. And these great tears grace his remembrance more than those I shed for him. What was he like? I have forgot him. My imagination carries no favour into but Bertram's. I am undone. There is no living, none, if Bertram be away. Toer all one that I should love a bright, particular star, and think to wed it, he is so above me. In his bright radiance and collateral light, must I be comforted, not in his sphere. The ambition in my love thus plagues itself. The hind that would be mated by the lion must die for love. Twas pretty, though plague, to see him every hour, to sit and draw his arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, in our heart's table. Heart too capable of every line and trick of his sweet favour. But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy must sanctify his relics. Who comes here? One that goes with him. I love him for his sake, and yet I know him a notorious liar, think him a great way full, solely a coward. Yet those fixed evils sit so fit in him that they take place when virtue's steely bones look bleak in the cold wind. With all, full oft, we see cold wisdom waiting on superfluous fully. End off. Oh, were that all, I think not on my father. From all's well that ends well. Act one, scene one. This recording is in the public domain. What were you snarling all? From Richard III. Act one, scene three. This is a Librevox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Recording by Squid Vashalakova. What were you snarling all before I came? Ready to catch each other by the throat, and turn you while your hatred now on me? Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven? That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death, their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment, could all but answer for that peevish brat. Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven? Why then give way dull clouds to my quick curses? If not by war, by surfeit die your king, as ours by murder to make him a king. Edward, thy son, which now is Prince of Wales, for Edward, my son, which was Prince of Wales, die in his youth, by like untimely violence. Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen. Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self. Long mayest thou live to wail thy children's loss, and see another, as I see thee now, decked in thy rites as thou art stalled in mine. Long die thy happy days before thy death, and, after many lengthy hours of grief, die neither mother, wife, nor England's queen. Rivers endorse it, you were standards by, and so was thou, Lord Hastings, when my son was stabbed with bloody daggers. God, I pray him, that none of you may live your natural age, but by some unlooked accident cut off. And of what were you snarling all? From Richard III, Act 1, Scene 3, this recording is in the public domain. Recording by Squid Vajralakova, found at frisco-squid.blogspot.com Virtue a Fig, from Othello Act 1, Scene 3. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Caitlyn Hire. Virtue a Fig. Disen ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are gardeners, to the which our wills are gardeners, so that if we will plant nettles or so let us, set his up and weed up time, supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many, either to have it stare with idleness or manored with industry. Why the power and courageable authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unditted lusts. Where have I taken this that you call love to be a sect or scion? It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Come, be a man! Drown myself? Drown cats and blind puppies. I professed me thy friend, and I will confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of produrable toughness. I could never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse. Follow thou the wars, defeat thy favour with a usurped beard. I say put money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to the more. Put money in thy purse, nor he his to her. It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration. Put but money in thy purse. These moors are changeable in their wills. Fill thy purse with money. The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts shall be to him shortly as a serve, as kalo quintira. She must change for youth. When she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her choice. She must have changed. She must. Therefore put money in thy purse. If thou wilt need damn thyself, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an airing barbarian, and a super subtle venetian, be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her. Therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyself, it is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without her. And a virtue, a fig, from a fellow, Act 1, Scene 3. This recording is in the public domain. The speech of Brutus from Act 3, Scene 2 of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org. Be patient till the last. Romans, countrymen and lovers, hear me for my cause and be silent that you may hear. Believe me for my honor and have respect to my honor that you may believe. Sense ye me in your wisdom and awake your senses that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer. Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves than that Caesar were dead to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him. As he was fortunate, I rejoice at it. As he was valiant, I honor him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valour, and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondsman, if any speak for him have I offended? Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any speak for him have I offended? Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any speak for him have I offended? I pause for a reply. Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the capital, his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy, nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the Commonwealth, as which of you shall not. With this I depart, that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death. End of recording. Look on my country from Henry VI Part 1, X3 Scene 3. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jeanette Selig. Look on my country, look on fertile France, and see the cities and the towns defaced by wasting ruin of the cruel foe, as looks the mother on her lowly babe, when death doth close his tender dying eyes. See, see the pining melody of France, behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds, which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast. Turn thy edged sword another way, strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help. One drop of blood drawn from thy country's bosom should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore. Return thee therefore with a flood of tears, and wash away thy country's staining spots. Besides, all French and France exclaims on thee, doubting thy birth and lawful progeny. Who joints thou with but with a lordly nation that will not trust thee, but for profit's sake? When Talbot hath set footing once in France, and fashioned thee that instrument of ill, who then but English Henry will be lord, and thou be thrust out like a fugitive? Call we to mind, and mark but this for proof, was not the Duke of Orleans thy foe, and was he not an England prisoner? But when they heard he was thine enemy, they set him free without his ransom paid, in spite of Burgundy and all his friends. See then, thou fightest against thy countrymen, and joints with them will be thy slaughtermen. Come, come, return, return, thou wandering lord. Charles and the rest will take thee in their arms. End of look on thy country. From Henry VI, Part 1, Act 3, Scene 3. This recording is in the public domain. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, from Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Zachary Brewstergeis. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle, life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. End of Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, from Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5. This recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Zachary Brewstergeis, Greenbelt, Maryland, May 2007. Crispian's Day, from Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3, by William Shakespeare. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage. This day is called the Feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day and comes safe home will stand at Tiptoe when the day is named and rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day and see old age will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours and say, Tomorrow is St. Crispian. Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars and say, These wounds I had on Crispian's Day. Old men forget. Yet all shall be forgot, but he'll remember with advantages what feats he did that day. Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words, Harry the King, Bedford an Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. This story shall the good man teach his son, and Crispian, Crispian shall near go by from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he near so vile this day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England, now a bed, shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks that fought with us upon St. Crispian's Day. End of recording. This recording is in the public domain. All the world's a stage. Spoken by Jack from As You Like It, Act One, Scene Seven. This is a LibriFox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriFox.org. All the world's a stage. And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant mulling and puking in the nurse's arms, and then the whining schoolboy with his satchel and shining morning face creeping like snail, unwilling to school. And then the lover sighing like furnace with a woeful ballad made to his mistress's eyebrow. Then a soldier full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice. In fair round belly, with good cap on lined, with eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, full of wise sores and modern instances. And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slippard pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch by side, his youthful hose well-saved, a world too wide. For his shrunk shank and his big manly voice, turning again towards childish treble pipes, and whistles in his sound last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history, his second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. You are three men of sin, whom destiny that hath to instrument this lower world and what is in it, the never-survived sea hath caused to belch up, and on this island where man doth not inhabit, you, amongst men, being most unfit to live. I have made you mad, and even with such like valor men hang and drown their proper selves. You fools! I and my fellows are ministers of fate, the elements of whom your swords are tempered may as well wound the loud winds or with be mocked at stabs kill the still-clothing waters as diminish one dowel that's in my plume. My fellow ministers are like invulnerable. If you could hurt, your swords are now too massy for your strengths and will not be uplifted. But remember, for that's my business to you, that you three from a land did supplant good prospero, exposed unto the sea which hath recrit it, him and his innocent child, for which foul deed the powers delaying not, forgetting, having sensed the seas and shores, yea, all creatures against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso, they have bereft, and do pronounce by me lingering perdition, worse than any death can be at once, shall step by step attend you and your ways, whose wrasts to guard you from, which here, in this most desolatile, else falls upon your heads is nothing but heart sorrow and a clear life ensuing. And of you are three men of sin, from the tempest. Act 3, Scene 3. This recording is in the public domain. As I remember, Adam, spoken by Orlando from as you like it, Act 1, Scene 1. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Jonathan Hornyblow. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by Wilbert poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother on his blessing to breed me well, and there begins my sadness. My brother, Jack, he keeps at school, and reports speaks golden me of his profit. For my part he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept. For call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better, for, beside that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly hired. But I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth. For the which his animals on his dung-hills are as much bound to him as I. Besides, this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something that nature gives me his countenance seems to take from me. He lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me, and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it. End of As I remember, Adam, from As You Like It, Act 1, Scene 1. This recording is in the public domain. Some or other some can be. Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so. He will not know what all but he do know. And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, so I admiring of his qualities. Things base and vile, holding no quantity. Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste. Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste. And therefore is love said to be a child, because in choice he is so oft beguiled, as waggish boys in game themselves forswear, so the boy love is perjured everywhere. For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia's eye. He hailed down oaths that he was only mine. And when this hails some heat from Hermia felt, so he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him a fair Hermia's flight. Then to the wood will he to-morrow night pursue her. And for this intelligence, if I have thanks, it is a dear expense. But herein mean I to enrich my pain, to have his sight thither and back again. End of How Happy Summer Othersome Can Be From A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. This recording is in the public domain. Rebellious Subjects From Romeo and Juliet Act 1, Scene 1 This is a LibriVox recording. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace, the feigners of this neighbor stain and steal, will they not hear? What? Who? You men, you beasts that quench the fire of your pernicious rage, with purple fountains issuing from your veins. On pain of torture, from those bloody hands, throw your mistempered weapons to the ground, and hear the sentence of your move at Prince. Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, by the old Capulet and Montague, had thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets, and made Verona's ancient citizens cast by their grave-beseeming ornaments to wield old partisans, in hands as old, cankered with peace, to part your cankered hate. If ever you disturb our streets again, your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace. For this time, or the rest, depart away. You, Capulet, shall go along with me, and Montague, come you this afternoon to know our father pleasure in this case, to old Freetown, our common judgment place. Once more, on pain of death, all men depart. End of The Rebellious Subjects, from Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene I. This recording is in the public domain. Oh, that this too-too-solid flesh would melt, thaw, resolve itself into a dew, or that the everlasting had not fixed his ken against self-slaughter. Oh, God! God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world, a fiant, ah, a fight, as an unweeded garden that grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature possess it merely. That it should come to this. But two months dead. Nay, not so much. Not two. So excellent a king that was to this, Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth, must I remember, why she would hang on him, as if increase in appetite had grown by what it fed on, and yet within a month. Let me not think, aunt, frailty thy name is woman, a little month, or ere those shoes were old, with which she followed my poor father's body, like Naiyabi, all tears, why she, even she, oh, God, a beast that once discourse of reason would have mourned longer, married with my uncle, my father's brother, but no more like my father than I to Hercules. Within a month ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her gollate eyes, she married. Oh, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets, it is not, nor it cannot come to good, but break my heart, for I must hold my tongue, and of, oh, that this two-two solid flesh would melt. From Hamlet, Act One, Scene Two. This recording is in the public domain. To be or not to be. From Hamlet, Act Two, Scene One. This recording is in the public domain, recording by Michael Sirwa. To be or not to be. That is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them to die, to sleep no more, and by asleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, to a consummation devoutly to be wished, to die, to sleep, to sleep for chance to dream. Aye, there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life, for who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressors wrong, the proud men's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes when he himself might as quiet as make with a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose born no traveler returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sickly to oar with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with disregard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action! Soft you now, the ferophilia, nymph in thy orisons be all my sins remembered, end of to be or not to be, from Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1, this recording is in the public domain. How all occasions do inform against me, from Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 4, this recording is in the public domain, recording by Michael Sirwa. I'll be with you straight, go a little before. How all occasions do inform against me, and spur my dull revenge. What is a man if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed, a beast no more? Sure, he that made us with such large discourse looking before and after gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fuss to us unused. Now, whether it be bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event, thought which quartered hath but one part wisdom and ever three parts coward, I do not know why yet I live to say this things to do, sith I have cause and will and strength and means to do it. Examples gross as earth exhort me, witness this army of such mass and charge, led by a delicate and tender prince, whose spirit with divine ambition puffed makes mouths at the invisible event, exposing what is mortal and unsure to all that fortune, death, and danger dare, even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great is not to stir without great argument, but greatly to find quarrel and straw when honors at the stake. How stand I, then, that have a father killed, a mother stained, excitements of my reason and my blood and let all sleep, while to my shame I see the imminent death of twenty thousand men that for a fantasy and trick of fame go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, which is not tomb enough and continent to hide the slain? Oh, from this time forth my thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth. End of How All Occasions Do Inform Against Me, from Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 4. This recording is in the public domain. I am thy father's spirit, from Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5. This is a LibriVox recording. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night, and for the day confined too 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 it locks to part, and each particular hair to stand and end, like quills upon the fretful porcupine. But this eternal blazing must not be to ears of flesh and blood. List, list, oh list, if thou didst ever thy dear father love, oh 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 it that I with wings as swift as meditation or thoughts of love may sweep to my revenge. I find thee apt. And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed that roots itself in ease on lethy wharf, which thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear, it is given out that sleeping in my orchard a serpent stung me, so the whole ear of Denmark is by a forgid process of my death rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown. Oh, my prophetic soul, my uncle! Aye, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, with witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts. Oh, wicked wit and gifts that have the power so to seduce. One to his shameful lust, the will of my most seeming virtuous queen. Oh, Hamlet, what a falling off was there. For me, whose love was of that dignity that it went hand in hand, even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine. But virtue as it never will be moved, though lewdness courted in a shape of heaven, so lust, though to a radiant angel linked, will set itself in a celestial bed and prey on garbage. But soft me thinks I sent the morning air, brief let me be. Sleeping within mine 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 mine ears did poor this leprous distillment, whose effect hold such enmity with blood of man that swift as quick silver at courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body. And with a sudden vigor at doth poset and curd like eager droppings into milk, the thin and wholesome blood, so did it mine. And a most instant tether barked about, most laser-like with vial 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, unannealed, no reckoning made but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head. Oh, horrible. Oh, 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-art. 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 matten to be near and gins to pale his unaffectual fire. Adieu. Adieu, Hamlet. Remember me. End of I Am Thy Father's Spirit, from Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5.