Quoted By:
>Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
>The memory be green, and that it us befitted
>To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
>To be contracted in one brow of woe,
>Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
>That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
>Together with remembrance of ourselves.
>Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
>The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
>Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--
>With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
>With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
>In equal scale weighing delight and dole,--
>Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
>Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
>With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
>Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
>Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
>Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
>Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
>Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
>He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
>Importing the surrender of those lands
>Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
>To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
>Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
>Thus much the business is: we have here writ
>To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
>Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
>Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
>His further gait herein; in that the levies,
>The lists and full proportions, are all made
>Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
>You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
>For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
>Giving to you no further personal power
>To business with the king, more than the scope
>Of these delated articles allow.
>Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
