EXTRACT A Ghost HAMLET My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames 5 Must render up myself. Alas, poor ghost! Ghost Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold. HAMLET Speak; I am bound to hear. Ghost HAMLET So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. What? Ghost I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confined to fast in fires, 10 Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid 15 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 locks to part 20 And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porpentine: But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love-- 25 45 HAMLET Ghost HAMLET Ghost HAMLET O 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't, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge. [Act 1, scene 5] 30
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