Transcription
I like him not, nor stand it safe with us to let his madness range.
Therefore prepare you; your commission will forthwith dispatch, and he to England shall along with you.
The terms of our estate may not endure hazard, so nearest us of hourly grow out of his brows.
We will ourselves provide, most holy and religious fear it is to keep those many, many bodies safe that live and feed upon your majesty.
The single and peculiar life is bound with all the strength and armor of the mind to keep itself from annoyance.
But much more that spirit upon whose will depends and rests the lives of many.
The sense of majesty dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw what's near it with it.
Autumn wheel fixed on the summit of the highest mount, to whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things are mortised and adjoined.
Which, when it falls, each small annexment, petty consequence, attends the boisterous ruin.
Never alone did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage, for we will fetters put upon this fear which now goes to free-footed.
We will haste us.
My lord, he's going to his mother's closet behind the arrows.
I'll convey myself to hear the process.
I warrant she'll tax him home, and as you said, and wisely was it said, it is meet that some more audience than a mother, since nature makes them partial, should all hear the speech.
Advantage fare you well, my liege.
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed and tell you what I know.
Thanks, dear my lord.
Oh, my offenses rank; it smells to heaven.
It hath the primal eldest curse upon a brother's murder.
Pray, can I not, though inclination be as sharp as will?
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, and like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause.
But I shall first begin and both neglect.
What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow?
Whereto serves mercy but to confront the visage of offense?
And what's in prayer but this twofold force: to be forestaller of the day we come to fall, or pardoned being down?
Then I look up; my fault is past.
No, no!
What form of prayer can serve my turn?
Forgive me my foul murder!
That cannot be, since I'm still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder: my crown, my own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world, offenses guild at hand may shove by justice, and oft is seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law.
Which is not so above; there is no shuffling there.
The action lies in his true nature, and we ourselves compelled, even to the teeth and foreign of our faults, to give in evidence.
What then?
What rests?
Try what repentance can and what can it not.
Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
Oh, wretched state!
Oh, bosom black as death!
Oh, limed soul that's struggling to be free!
Out, more engaged!
Help, angels!
Make us say, "Bow stubborn knees and heart with strings of steel, be soft as sinews of the newborn babe."
Oh, maybe well now might I do it.
Pat, now is a praying; now I'll do it.
And so it goes to heaven, and so my revenge.
That would be scanned; a villain kills my father, and for that, I, soul son to this same villain's end, to heaven.
Why, this is higher and salary, not revenge.
I took my father grossly, full of bread, with all his crimes broad blown, as flush as may.
And how his ordered stands, who no save heaven but in our circumstance and course of thought is heavy with him.
And am I then revenged to take him in the purging of his soul when he is fit and seasoned for his passage?
Now, up sword, and know thou art more horrid hand when he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage, or in incestuous pleasure of his bed.
A game, a swearing, or about some act that has no relish of salvation in it.
Then trip him that his heels may kick at heaven, and that his soul may be as damned and black as hell.
Where to it goes, my mother stays; this physic but prolongs thy sickly days.
My words fly up; my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.