ACT 1: SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO
BERNARDO
01 Who's there?
FRANCISCO
02 Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.
BERNARDO
03 Long live the king!
FRANCISCO
04 Bernardo?
BERNARDO
05 He.
FRANCISCO
06 You come most carefully upon your hour.
BERNARDO
07 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO
08 For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
09 And I am sick at heart.
BERNARDO
10 Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO
11 Not a mouse stirring.
BERNARDO
12 Well, good night.
13 If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
14 The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
FRANCISCO
15 I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?
Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS
HORATIO
16Friends to this ground.
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MARCELLUS17 And liegemen to the Dane.
FRANCISCO18 Give you good night.
MARCELLUS
19 O, farewell, honest soldier:
20 Who hath relieved you?
FRANCISCO
21 Bernardo has my place.
22 Give you good night.
Exit
MARCELLUS
23 Holla! Bernardo!
BERNARDO
24 Say,
25 What, is Horatio there?
HORATIO26 A piece of him.
BERNARDO27 Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.
MARCELLUS28 What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
BERNARDO29 I have seen nothing.
MARCELLUS
30 Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
31 And will not let belief take hold of him
32 Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
33 Therefore I have entreated him along
34 With us to watch the minutes of this night;
35 That if again this apparition come,
36 He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
HORATIO37 Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
BERNARDO
38 Sit down awhile;
39 And let us once again assail your ears,
40 That are so fortified against our story
41 What we have two nights seen.
HORATIO42 Well, sit we down,
43 And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
BERNARDO44 Last night of all,
45 When yond same star that's westward from the pole
46 Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
47 Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
48 The bell then beating one,--
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Enter Ghost
MARCELLUS
49 Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!
BERNARDO
50 In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
MARCELLUS
51 Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
BERNARDO
52 Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
HORATIO
53 Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.
BERNARDO
54 It would be spoke to.
MARCELLUS
55 Question it, Horatio.
HORATIO
56 What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
57 Together with that fair and warlike form
58 In which the majesty of buried Denmark
59 Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!
MARCELLUS
60 It is offended.
BERNARDO
61 See, it stalks away!
HORATIO
62 Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!
Exit Ghost
MARCELLUS
63 'Tis gone, and will not answer.
BERNARDO
64 How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
65 Is not this something more than fantasy?
66 What think you on't?
HORATIO
67 Before my God, I might not this believe
68 Without the sensible and true avouch
69 Of mine own eyes.
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MARCELLUS
70 Is it not like the king?
HORATIO
71 As thou art to thyself:
72 Such was the very armour he had on
73 When he the ambitious Norway combated;
74 So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
75 He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
76 'Tis strange.
MARCELLUS
77 Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
78 With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
HORATIO
79 In what particular thought to work I know not;
80 But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
81 This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
MARCELLUS
82 Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
83 Why this same strict and most observant watch
84 So nightly toils the subject of the land,
85 And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
86 And foreign mart for implements of war;
87 Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
88 Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
89 What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
90 Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
91 Who is't that can inform me?
HORATIO
92 That can I;
93 At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
94 Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
95 Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
96 Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
97 Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet--
98 For so this side of our known world esteem'd him--
99 Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
100 Well ratified by law and heraldry,
101 Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
102 Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
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103 Against the which, a moiety competent
104 Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
105 To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
106 Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
107 And carriage of the article design'd,
108 His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
109 Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
110 Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
111 Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
112 For food and diet, to some enterprise
113 That hath a stomach in't; which is no other--
114 As it doth well appear unto our state--
115 But to recover of us, by strong hand
116 And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
117 So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
118 Is the main motive of our preparations,
119 The source of this our watch and the chief head
120 Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
BERNARDO
121 I think it be no other but e'en so:
122 Well may it sort that this portentous figure
123 Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
124 That was and is the question of these wars.
HORATIO
125 A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
126 In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
127 A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
128 The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
129 Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
130 As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
131 Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
132 Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
133 Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
134 And even the like precurse of fierce events,
135 As harbingers preceding still the fates
136 And prologue to the omen coming on,
137 Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
138 Unto our climatures and countrymen.--
139 But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
Re-enter Ghost
15
140 I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
141 If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
142 Speak to me:
143 If there be any good thing to be done,
144 That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
145 Speak to me:
(Rooster crows)
146 If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
147 Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
148 Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
149 Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
150 For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
151 Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS
152 Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
HORATIO
153 Do, if it will not stand.
BERNARDO
154 'Tis here!
HORATIO
155 'Tis here!
MARCELLUS
156 'Tis gone!
Exit Ghost
157 We do it wrong, being so majestical,
158 To offer it the show of violence;
159 For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
160 And our vain blows malicious mockery.
BERNARDO
161 It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
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HORATIO
162 And then it started like a guilty thing
163 Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
164 The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
165 Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
166 Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
167 Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
168 The extravagant and erring spirit hies
169 To his confine: and of the truth herein
170 This present object made probation.
MARCELLUS
171 It faded on the crowing of the cock.
172 Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
173 Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
174 The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
175 And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
176 The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
177 No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
178 So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
HORATIO
179 So have I heard and do in part believe it.
180 But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
181 Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
182 Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
183 Let us impart what we have seen to-night
184 Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
185 This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
186 Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
187 As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
MARCELLUS
188 Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
189 Where we shall find him most conveniently.
Exeunt
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SCENE II. A room of state in the castle.
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants
KING CLAUDIUS
01 Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
02 The memory be green, and that it us befitted
03 To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
04 To be contracted in one brow of woe,
05 Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
06 That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
07 Together with remembrance of ourselves.
08 Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
09 The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
10 Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--
11 With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
12 With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
13 In equal scale weighing delight and dole,--
14 Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
15 Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
16 With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
17 Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
18 Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
19 Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
20 Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
21 Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
22 He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
23 Importing the surrender of those lands
24 Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
25 To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
26 Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
27 Thus much the business is: we have here writ
28 To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
29 Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
30 Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
31 His further gait herein; in that the levies,
32 The lists and full proportions, are all made
33 Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
34 You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
35 For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
36 Giving to you no further personal power
37 To business with the king, more than the scope
38 Of these delated articles allow.
39 Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
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CORNELIUS & VOLTIMAND
40 In that and all things will we show our duty.
KING CLAUDIUS
41 We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS
42 And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
43 You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes?
44 You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
45 And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
46 That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
47 The head is not more native to the heart,
48 The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
49 Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
50 What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
LAERTES
51 My dread lord,
52 Your leave and favour to return to France;
53 From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
54 To show my duty in your coronation,
55 Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
56 My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
57 And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
KING CLAUDIUS
58 Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
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LORD POLONIUS
59 He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
60 By laboursome petition, and at last
61 Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
62 I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
KING CLAUDIUS
63 Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
64 And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
65 But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--
HAMLET
66 (Aside) A little more than kin, and less than kind.
KING CLAUDIUS
67 How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
HAMLET
68 Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
69 Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
70 And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
71 Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
72 Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
73 Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
74 Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET
75 Ay, madam, it is common.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
76 If it be,
77 Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAMLET
78 Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
79 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
80 Nor customary suits of solemn black,
81 Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
82 No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
83 Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
84 Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
85 That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
86 For they are actions that a man might play:
87 But I have that within which passeth show;
88 These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
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KING CLAUDIUS
89 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
90 To give these mourning duties to your father:
91 But, you must know, your father lost a father;
92 That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
93 In filial obligation for some term
94 To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
95 In obstinate condolement is a course
96 Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
97 It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
98 A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
99 An understanding simple and unschool'd:
100 For what we know must be and is as common
101 As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
102 Why should we in our peevish opposition
103 Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
104 A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
105 To reason most absurd: whose common theme
106 Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
107 From the first corse till he that died to-day,
108 'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
109 This unprevailing woe, and think of us
110 As of a father: for let the world take note,
111 You are the most immediate to our throne;
112 And with no less nobility of love
113 Than that which dearest father bears his son,
114 Do I impart toward you. For your intent
115 In going back to school in Wittenberg,
116 It is most retrograde to our desire:
117 And we beseech you, bend you to remain
118 Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
119 Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
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QUEEN GERTRUDE
120 Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
121 I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
HAMLET
122 I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KING CLAUDIUS
123 Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
124 Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
125 This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
126 Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
127 No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
128 But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
129 And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again,
130 Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
Exeunt all but HAMLET
HAMLET
131 O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
132 Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
133 Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
134 His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
135 How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
136 Seem to me all the uses of this world!
137 Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
138 That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
139 Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
140 But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
141 So excellent a king; that was, to this,
142 Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
143 That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
144 Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
145 Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
146 As if increase of appetite had grown
147 By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
148 Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
149 A little month, or ere those shoes were old
150 With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
151 Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
152 O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
153 Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
154 My father's brother, but no more like my father
155 Than I to Hercules: within a month:
156 Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
157 Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
158 She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
159 With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
160 It is not nor it cannot come to good:
161 But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO
29
HORATIO
162 Hail to your lordship!
HAMLET
163 I am glad to see you well:
164 Horatio,--or I do forget myself.
HORATIO
165 The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
HAMLET
166 Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you:
167 And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?
MARCELLUS
168 My good lord--
HAMLET
169 I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.
170 But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
HORATIO
171 A truant disposition, good my lord.
HAMLET
172 I would not hear your enemy say so,
173 Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
174 To make it truster of your own report
175 Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
176 But what is your affair in Elsinore?
177 We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
31
HORATIO
178 My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.