HAMLET

The Tragedy of Hamlet
ACT IV, SCENE IV

I'll be with you straight go a little before.



How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death and danger dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!
—
"Some misread Hamlet all their life!"
—
A NOTE TO BARKER:

Regarding Richard Prince. I'm glad you like him too. I have been following Prince for quite a few years now — on and off. He is one of my favorite artists and I've accumulated an immense understanding of the artist and the rapscallions he struggles with on a daily basis. I've always found that everything he does is misinterpreted and debased by people who don't even know the works factualism (especially feminists). 'Prince has long been in the business of outrage. But at the beginning of his career, it was not his subject matter that was seen as outrageous but his method.' He is a brilliant man and not someone whose works should be looked at in a contrived and harefooted way. First impressions are bullshit... you have to peel back the layers until the semblance just blows away in the wind. Then, and only then will you understand the meaning behind the work. Written words and pictures — while they document subject matter — only victimize the substance of works, allowing critics of all sorts to add conjecture to their otherwise unascertained evaluation.

— Schaefer