Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/47



Flourish. Enter the Lords, and Attendants.

King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe, Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature That we with wisest sorrow think on him, Together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, The imperial jointress of this warlike state, Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,— With one auspicious and one dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole,— Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd. Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along: for all, our thanks.