1 The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies.
2 I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth Have you so slander any moment leisure As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
3 But in my terms of honour I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement Till by some elder masters of known honour I have a voice and precedent of peace To keep my name ungor'd.
4 And so have I a noble father lost, A sister driven into desperate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections.
5 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.
6 Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father; But you must know, your father lost a father, That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound In filial obligation, for some term To do obsequious sorrow.
7 Now, sir, young Fortinbras, Of unimproved mettle, hot and full, Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there, Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes, For food and diet, to some enterprise That hath a stomach in't; which is no other, As it doth well appear unto our state, But to recover of us by strong hand And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands So by his father lost.