1 Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
2 One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow.
3 With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclin'd.
4 What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
5 The cease of majesty Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it.
6 I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.
7 Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
8 The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies.
9 There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will.
10 Proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardour gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn, And reason panders will.
11 Heaven's face doth glow, Yea this solidity and compound mass, With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act.
12 That monster custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits evil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on.
13 The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels; And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge.
14 The great man down, you mark his favourite flies, The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies; And hitherto doth love on fortune tend: For who not needs shall never lack a friend, And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy.
15 Her speech is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to collection; they aim at it, And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts, Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them, Indeed would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
16 Now, sir, young Fortinbras, Of unimproved mettle, hot and full, Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there, Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes, For food and diet, to some enterprise That hath a stomach in't; which is no other, As it doth well appear unto our state, But to recover of us by strong hand And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands So by his father lost.