Why such impress[b 1] of shipwrights, whose sore task 75
Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
What might be toward,[b 2] that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is 't that can inform me?
Hor. That can I;
At least the whisper goes so. Our last king, 80
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate[b 3] pride,
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet—
For so this side of our known world esteem'd him— 85
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact[b 4]
Well ratified by law and heraldry,[b 5]
Did forfeit, with his life, all those[a 1] his lands
Which he stood seized of,[a 2][b 6] to the conqueror;
Against the which, a moiety[b 7] competent 90
Was gaged by our king; which had returned[a 3]
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
- ↑ 75. impress] impressment, as in Troilus and Cressida, II. i. 107.
- ↑ 77. toward] imminent, as in V. ii. 376.
- ↑ 83. emulate] emulous; not elsewhere in Shakespeare.
- ↑ 86. compact] Always accented by Shakespeare on the last syllable, with one exception: 1 Henry VI, V. iv. 163
- ↑ 87. heraldry] Part of a herald's duty was to regulate the forms connected with a challenge and combat of state importance.
- ↑ 89. seized of] possessed of—the legal term still in use.
- ↑ 90. moiety] a portion, not necessarily a half. 1 Henry IV. III. i. 96: "my moiety . . . equals not one of yours."
