Ham. O! that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew;
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! 132
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.
Fie on 't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature 136
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother 140
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown 144
By what it fed on; and yet, within a month,
Let me not think on 't: Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears; why she, even she,— 149
O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,—married with mine uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month, 153
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O! most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets. 157
130 resolve: dissolve
132 canon: law
134 uses: usages
137 merely: entirely
140 Hyperion; cf. n.
141 beteem: allow
149 Niobe; cf. n.
150 discourse of reason: reasoning power
155 flushing: redness
galled: sore with weeping
156 post: hasten
157 dexterity: facility
