.
Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father killed, a mother stained,
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 nothing worth!"_

The beautiful Ophelia becomes insane after her father's death, and wanders
about the castle singing disjointed love songs and uttering musings.

Queen Gertrude says:

_"How now, Ophelia?"_

She sings:

_"How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff
And his sandal shoon."_

The king asks:

_"How do you do, pretty lady?"_

She replies:

_"They say the owl was a banker's daughter;
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be."_

Laertes returns from France and finds his sister insane from grief over the
loss of her father, and viewing this innocent wreck parading palace halls,
exclaims:

_"Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is it possible a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?"_

Ophelia unconsciously sings:

_"They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey no nonny, nonny hey nonny;
And in his grave rained many a tear--
Fare you well, my dove!"_

Holding a spray of flowers in her hands she fitfully plucks them and
murmurs:

_"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance;
Pray you, love, remember;
And there is pansies, that's for thoughts;
There's fennel for you, and columbines;
There's rue for you, and here's some for me;
We may call it herb of grace on Sunday;
O, you must wear your rue with a difference.
There's a daisy; I would give you some violets--
But they withered all when my father died!"_

Hamlet and his party in sailing for England encounter a war-like pirate
ship, and in the fight and grapple Hamlet alone is taken prisoner and his
keepers go to destruction.

He suddenly appears at Elsinore, and goes to the churchyard, where a grave
is being prepared for Ophelia, who was drowned in a garden stream in h