A.Z. Foreman | "How all occasions do inform against me" from Hamlet (Shakespeare in Early Modern Pronunciation) @a.z.foreman74 | Uploaded 1 year ago | Updated 12 hours ago
I voiced the captain with a dialect which had undergone the WAIT-MATE merger at /ɛ:/ whereas Hamlet himself (as he typically does in my readings) still distinguishes /æ:/ and /ai/, though when he gets really hotted up his vowel in "dare" momentarily raises particularly high.
If you like this video and want to help me make more things like it, wherein I read texts in dead accents, consider making a pledge at my patreon.
http://patreon.com/azforeman
There you can get access to all kinds of subscriber-only stuff like my weekly readings of Shakespeare's sonnets and the King James Bible in various 17th century accents, and you'll get advance access to my public recordings as well.
Got questions? Check my FAQ
patreon.com/posts/faq-64053058
***
HAMLET.
Good sir, whose powers are these?
CAPTAIN.
They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET.
How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?
CAPTAIN.
Against some part of Poland.
HAMLET.
Who commands them, sir?
CAPTAIN.
The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
HAMLET.
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
CAPTAIN.
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET.
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
CAPTAIN.
Yes, it is already garrison’d.
HAMLET.
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw!
This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
CAPTAIN.
God b’ wi’ you, sir.
ROSENCRANTZ.
Will’t please you go, my lord?
HAMLET.
I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.
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 godlike reason
To fust in us unus’d. Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th’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 eggshell. 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.
I voiced the captain with a dialect which had undergone the WAIT-MATE merger at /ɛ:/ whereas Hamlet himself (as he typically does in my readings) still distinguishes /æ:/ and /ai/, though when he gets really hotted up his vowel in "dare" momentarily raises particularly high.
If you like this video and want to help me make more things like it, wherein I read texts in dead accents, consider making a pledge at my patreon.
http://patreon.com/azforeman
There you can get access to all kinds of subscriber-only stuff like my weekly readings of Shakespeare's sonnets and the King James Bible in various 17th century accents, and you'll get advance access to my public recordings as well.
Got questions? Check my FAQ
patreon.com/posts/faq-64053058
***
HAMLET.
Good sir, whose powers are these?
CAPTAIN.
They are of Norway, sir.
HAMLET.
How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?
CAPTAIN.
Against some part of Poland.
HAMLET.
Who commands them, sir?
CAPTAIN.
The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
HAMLET.
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?
CAPTAIN.
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.
HAMLET.
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
CAPTAIN.
Yes, it is already garrison’d.
HAMLET.
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw!
This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.
CAPTAIN.
God b’ wi’ you, sir.
ROSENCRANTZ.
Will’t please you go, my lord?
HAMLET.
I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.
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 godlike reason
To fust in us unus’d. Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th’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 eggshell. 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.
