[Stage] Fortinbras enters with his army and a Captain.
Fortinbras(福廷布拉斯)
Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king
Tell him that, by his license, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promised march
Over his kingdom.
You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye,
And let him know so.
Captain(船长)
I will do ’t, my lord.
Fortinbras(福廷布拉斯)
Go softly on.
[Stage] All except the Captain exits.
[Stage] Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others enter.
Hamlet(哈姆雷特)
Good sir, whose powers are these?
Captain(船长)
They are of Norway, sir.
Hamlet(哈姆雷特)
How purposed, sir, I pray you?
Captain(船长)
Against some part of Poland.
Hamlet(哈姆雷特)
Who commands them, sir?
Captain(船长)
The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
Hamlet(哈姆雷特)
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
Captain(船长)
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it.
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
Hamlet(哈姆雷特)
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Captain(船长)
Yes, it is already garrisoned.
Hamlet(哈姆雷特)
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw.
This is th’ impostume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.
—I humbly thank you, sir.
Captain(船长)
God be wi’ you, sir.
[Stage] The Captain exits.
Rosencrantz(罗森克朗兹)
Will ’t please you go, my lord?
Hamlet(哈姆雷特)
I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.
[Stage] Everyone exits except Hamlet.
Hamlet(哈姆雷特)
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 fust in us unused.
Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th’ event—
A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward—I do not know
Why yet I live to say “This thing’s to do,”
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do ’t. 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 in a straw
When honor’s 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!
[Stage] He exits.