| 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? | 5 |
| 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. | 10 |
| 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. | 15 |
| 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: | 20 |
| | Who hath relieved you? | |
| FRANCISCO | Bernardo has my place. | |
| | Give you good night. | |
| | Exit | |
| MARCELLUS | Holla! Bernardo! | |
| BERNARDO | Say, | 25 |
| | 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. | 30 |
| 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; | 35 |
| | 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, | 40 |
| | 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, | 45 |
| | 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! | 50 |
| 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. | 55 |
| 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! | 60 |
| 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: | 65 |
| | 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. | 70 |
| 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, | 75 |
| | 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; | 80 |
| | 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, | 85 |
| | 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 | 90 |
| | 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, | 95 |
| | 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, | 100 |
| | 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 | 105 |
| | 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, | 110 |
| | 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-- | 115 |
| | 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 | 120 |
| | 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. | 125 |
| 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: | 130 |
| | 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, | 135 |
| | 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! | 140 |
| | 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, | 145 |
| | 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, | 150 |
| | 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! | 155 |
| 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, | 160 |
| | 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, | 165 |
| | 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 | 170 |
| | 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: | 175 |
| | 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. | 180 |
| | 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, | 185 |
| | 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. | 190 |
| | Exeunt | |
