njured him that he would tell
the reason why he had left his grave, where they had seen him quietly
bestowed, to come again and visit the earth and the moonlight: and
besought him that he would let them know if there was any thing which
they could do to give peace to his spirit. And the ghost beckoned to
Hamlet, that he should go with him to some more removed place, where
they might be alone: and Horatio and Marcellus would have dissuaded
the young prince from following it, for they feared lest it should be
some evil spirit, who would tempt him to the neighbouring sea, or to
the top of some dreadful cliff, and there put on some horrible shape
which might deprive the prince of his reason. But their counsels and
intreaties could not alter Hamlet's determination, who cared too
little about life to fear the losing of it; and as to his soul, he
said, what could the spirit do to that, being a thing immortal as
itself? and he felt as hardy as a lion, and bursting from them who did
all they could to hold him, he followed whithersoever the spirit led
him.

And when they were alone together, the spirit broke silence, and told
him that he was the ghost of Hamlet, his father, who had been cruelly
murdered, and he told the manner of it; that it was done by his own
brother Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, as Hamlet had already but too much
suspected, for the hope of succeeding to his bed and crown. That as he
was sleeping in his garden, his custom always in the afternoon, his
treasonous brother stole upon him in his sleep, and poured the juice
of poisonous henbane into his ears, which has such an antipathy to
the life of man, that swift as quicksilver it courses through all the
veins of the body, baking up the blood, and spreading a crust-like
leprosy all over the skin: thus sleeping, by a brother's hand he
was cut off at once from his crown, his queen, and his life: and he
adjured Hamlet, if he did ever his dear father love, that he would
revenge his foul murder. And the ghost lamented to his son, that his
mother should so fall off from virtue, as to prove false to the wedded
love of her first husband, and to marry his murderer: but he cautioned
Hamlet, howsoever he proceeded in his revenge against his wicked
uncle, by no means to act any violence against the person of his
mother, but to leave her to heaven, and to the stings and thorns of
conscience. And Hamlet promised to observe the ghost's direction in
all things, and the ghost vanish