- [first lines]
- Narrator: Something was rotten in the state of Denmark. The King was dead, poisoned by a serpent in his orchards, so it was said. And the poison lingered on.
- [last lines]
- Hamlet: I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu. This fell sergeant, death is strict in his arrest. If thou did'st ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile, and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, to tell my story. The rest is silence.