Murder most foul, as in the best it is; / But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

’Tis now the very witching time of night, / When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out / Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood, / And do such bitter business as the day / Would quake to look on.

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; / It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,— / A brother’s murder!

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying. / And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven; / And so am I reveng’d. That would be scann’d: / A villain kills my father, and for that / I, his sole son, do this same villain send / To heaven. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

I must be cruel, only to be kind: / Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

Do not forget. This visitation / Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

How now? A rat? [_Draws._] / Dead for a ducat, dead!

O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; / Revenge should have no bounds.