William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

ACT V. 2. Scene II. A hall in the Castle.

[Enter Hamlet and Horatio.]

Ham.
So much for this, sir: now let me see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?

Hor.
Remember it, my lord!

Ham.
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly,
And prais'd be rashness for it,--let us know,
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well,
When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

Hor.
That is most certain.

Ham.
Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
Grop'd I to find out them: had my desire;
Finger'd their packet; and, in fine, withdrew
To mine own room again: making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,
O royal knavery! an exact command,--
Larded with many several sorts of reasons,
Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,--
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.

Hor.
Is't possible?

Ham.
Here's the commission: read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou bear me how I did proceed?

Hor.
I beseech you.

Ham.
Being thus benetted round with villanies,--
Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play,--I sat me down;
Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?

Hor.
Ay, good my lord.