Hamlet, Act IV, Scene IV [How all occasions do inform against me]

How all occasions do inform against me, 
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, 
If his chief good and market of his time 
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. 
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, 
Looking before and after, gave us not 
That capability and god-like reason 
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be 
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple 
Of thinking too precisely on the event, 
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom 
And ever three parts coward, I do not know 
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;' 
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means 
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me: 
Witness this army of such mass and charge 
Led by a delicate and tender prince, 
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd 
Makes mouths at the invisible event, 
Exposing what is mortal and unsure 
To all that fortune, death and danger dare, 
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great 
Is not to stir without great argument, 
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw 
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then, 
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, 
Excitements of my reason and my blood, 
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see 
The imminent death of twenty thousand men, 
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame, 
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot 
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, 
Which is not tomb enough and continent 
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth, 
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

This poem is in the public domain.