| ACT I SCENE IV | The platform. | |
| | Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS. | |
| HAMLET | The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. | |
| HORATIO | It is a nipping and an eager air. | |
| HAMLET | What hour now? | |
| HORATIO | think it lacks of twelve. | 5 |
| HAMLET | No, it is struck. | |
| HORATIO | Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season | |
| | Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. | |
| | A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within. | |
| | What does this mean, my lord? | |
| HAMLET | The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, | 10 |
| | Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels; | |
| | And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, | |
| | The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out | |
| | The triumph of his pledge. | |
| HORATIO | Is it a custom? | 15 |
| HAMLET | Ay, marry, is't: | |
| | But to my mind, though I am native here | |
| | And to the manner born, it is a custom | |
| | More honour'd in the breach than the observance. | |
| | This heavy-headed revel east and west | 20 |
| | Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations: | |
| | They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase | |
| | Soil our addition; and indeed it takes | |
| | From our achievements, though perform'd at height, | |
| | The pith and marrow of our attribute. | 25 |
| | So, oft it chances in particular men, | |
| | That for some vicious mole of nature in them, | |
| | As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty, | |
| | Since nature cannot choose his origin-- | |
| | By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, | 30 |
| | Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, | |
| | Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens | |
| | The form of plausive manners, that these men, | |
| | Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, | |
| | Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,-- | 35 |
| | Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace, | |
| | As infinite as man may undergo-- | |
| |
Shall in the general censure take corruption | |
| | From that particular fault: the dram of eale | |
| | Doth all the noble substance of a doubt | 40 |
| | To his own scandal. | |
| HORATIO | Look, my lord, it comes! | |
| | Enter Ghost. | |
| HAMLET | Angels and ministers of grace defend us! | |
| | Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd, | |
| | Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, | 45 |
| | Be thy intents wicked or charitable, | |
| | Thou comest in such a questionable shape | |
| | That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet, | |
| | King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me! | |
| | Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell | 50 |
| | Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, | |
| | Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, | |
| | Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, | |
| | Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws, | |
| | To cast thee up again. What may this mean, | 55 |
| | That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel | |
| | Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, | |
| | Making night hideous; and we fools of nature | |
| | So horridly to shake our disposition | |
| | With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? | 60 |
| | Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do? | |
| | Ghost beckons HAMLET. | |
| HORATIO | It beckons you to go away with it, | |
| | As if it some impartment did desire | |
| | To you alone. | |
| MARCELLUS | Look, with what courteous action | 65 |
| | It waves you to a more removed ground: | |
| | But do not go with it. | |
| HORATIO | No, by no means. | |
| HAMLET | It will not speak; then I will follow it. | |
| HORATIO | Do not, my lord. | 70 |
| HAMLET | Why, what should be the fear? | |
| | I do not set my life in a pin's fee; | |
| | And for my soul, what can it do to that, | |
| | Being a thing immortal as itself? | |
| | It waves me forth again: I'll follow it. | 75 |
| HORATIO | What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, | |
| | Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff | |
| | That beetles o'er his base into the sea, | |
| | And there assume some other horrible form, | |
| | Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason | 80 |
| | And draw you into madness? think of it: | |
| | The very place puts toys of desperation, | |
| | Without more motive, into every brain | |
| | That looks so many fathoms to the sea | |
| | And hears it roar beneath. | 85 |
| HAMLET | It waves me still. | |
| | Go on; I'll follow thee. | |
| MARCELLUS | You shall not go, my lord. | |
| HAMLET | Hold off your hands. | |
| HORATIO | Be ruled; you shall not go. | 90 |
| HAMLET | My fate cries out, | |
| | And makes each petty artery in this body | |
| | As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve. | |
| | Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen. | |
| | By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me! | 95 |
| | I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee. | |
| | Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET. | |
| HORATIO | He waxes desperate with imagination. | |
| MARCELLUS | Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him. | |
| HORATIO | Have after. To what issue will this come? | |
| MARCELLUS | Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. | 100 |
| HORATIO | Heaven will direct it. | |
| MARCELLUS | Nay, let's follow him. | |
| | Exeunt | |
