Ghost
Mark me.
Hamlet
I will.
Ghost
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
Hamlet
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
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
Hamlet
What?
Ghost
I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
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,
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 —
Hamlet
O God!
Ghost
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Hamlet
Murder!
Ghost
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Hamlet
Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge.