
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
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ACT I
SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

    FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO 

BERNARDO

    Who's there?

FRANCISCO

    Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

BERNARDO

    Long live the king!

FRANCISCO

    Bernardo?

BERNARDO

    He.

FRANCISCO

    You come most carefully upon your hour.

BERNARDO

    'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO

    For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
    And I am sick at heart.

BERNARDO

    Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO

    Not a mouse stirring.

BERNARDO

    Well, good night.
    If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
    The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

FRANCISCO

    I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?

    Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

HORATIO

    Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS

    And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO

    Give you good night.

MARCELLUS

    O, farewell, honest soldier:
    Who hath relieved you?

FRANCISCO

    Bernardo has my place.
    Give you good night.

    Exit

MARCELLUS

    Holla! Bernardo!

BERNARDO

    Say,
    What, is Horatio there?

HORATIO

    A piece of him.

BERNARDO

    Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

MARCELLUS

    What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

BERNARDO

    I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS

    Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
    And will not let belief take hold of him
    Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
    Therefore I have entreated him along
    With us to watch the minutes of this night;
    That if again this apparition come,
    He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

HORATIO

    Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

BERNARDO

    Sit down awhile;
    And let us once again assail your ears,
    That are so fortified against our story
    What we have two nights seen.

HORATIO

    Well, sit we down,
    And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

BERNARDO

    Last night of all,
    When yond same star that's westward from the pole
    Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
    Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
    The bell then beating one,--

    Enter Ghost

MARCELLUS

    Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

BERNARDO

    In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

MARCELLUS

    Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

BERNARDO

    Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

HORATIO

    Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

BERNARDO

    It would be spoke to.

MARCELLUS

    Question it, Horatio.

HORATIO

    What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
    Together with that fair and warlike form
    In which the majesty of buried Denmark
    Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

MARCELLUS

    It is offended.

BERNARDO

    See, it stalks away!

HORATIO

    Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

    Exit Ghost

MARCELLUS

    'Tis gone, and will not answer.

BERNARDO

    How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
    Is not this something more than fantasy?
    What think you on't?

HORATIO

    Before my God, I might not this believe
    Without the sensible and true avouch
    Of mine own eyes.

MARCELLUS

    Is it not like the king?

HORATIO

    As thou art to thyself:
    Such was the very armour he had on
    When he the ambitious Norway combated;
    So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
    He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
    'Tis strange.

MARCELLUS

    Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
    With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

HORATIO

    In what particular thought to work I know not;
    But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
    This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

MARCELLUS

    Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
    Why this same strict and most observant watch
    So nightly toils the subject of the land,
    And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
    And foreign mart for implements of war;
    Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
    Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
    What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
    Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
    Who is't that can inform me?

HORATIO

    That can I;
    At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
    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 pride,
    Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet--
    For so this side of our known world esteem'd him--
    Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
    Well ratified by law and heraldry,
    Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
    Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
    Against the which, a moiety competent
    Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
    To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
    Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
    And carriage of the article design'd,
    His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
    Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
    Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
    Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
    For food and diet, to some enterprise
    That hath a stomach in't; which is no other--
    As it doth well appear unto our state--
    But to recover of us, by strong hand
    And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
    So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
    Is the main motive of our preparations,
    The source of this our watch and the chief head
    Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

BERNARDO

    I think it be no other but e'en so:
    Well may it sort that this portentous figure
    Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
    That was and is the question of these wars.

HORATIO

    A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
    In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
    A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
    The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
    Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
    As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
    Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
    Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
    Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
    And even the like precurse of fierce events,
    As harbingers preceding still the fates
    And prologue to the omen coming on,
    Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
    Unto our climatures and countrymen.--
    But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

    Re-enter Ghost
    I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
    If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
    Speak to me:
    If there be any good thing to be done,
    That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
    Speak to me:

    Cock crows
    If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
    Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
    Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
    Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
    For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
    Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

MARCELLUS

    Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

HORATIO

    Do, if it will not stand.

BERNARDO

    'Tis here!

HORATIO

    'Tis here!

MARCELLUS

    'Tis gone!

    Exit Ghost
    We do it wrong, being so majestical,
    To offer it the show of violence;
    For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
    And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BERNARDO

    It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

HORATIO

    And then it started like a guilty thing
    Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
    The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
    Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
    Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
    Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
    The extravagant and erring spirit hies
    To his confine: and of the truth herein
    This present object made probation.

MARCELLUS

    It faded on the crowing of the cock.
    Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
    Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
    The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
    And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
    The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
    No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
    So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

HORATIO

    So have I heard and do in part believe it.
    But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
    Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
    Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
    Let us impart what we have seen to-night
    Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
    This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
    Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
    As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MARCELLUS

    Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
    Where we shall find him most conveniently.

    Exeunt
