Page:Hamlet (1917) Yale.djvu/99

Prince of Denmark, III. iii 

King. I like him not, nor stands it safe with us

To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;

I your commission will forthwith dispatch,

And he to England shall along with you.

The terms of our estate may not endure

Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow

Out of his lunacies.

Guil. We will ourselves provide.

Most holy and religious fear it is

To keep those many many bodies safe

That live and feed upon your majesty.

Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound

With all the strength and armour of the mind

To keep itself from noyance; but much more

That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest

The lives of many. The cease of majesty

Dies not alone, but, like a gulf doth draw

What's near it with it; it is a massy wheel,

Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,

Each small annexment, petty consequence,

Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone

Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

 2 range: rove, roam

3 forthwith dispatch: prepare at once

5 terms: condition

8 fear: caution

11 single and peculiar: private individual

13 noyance: harm

14 weal: welfare

15 cease: cessation, euphemism for 'death'

16 gulf: whirlpool

21 annexment: appendage

22 Attends: accompanies

