SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.

ACT I

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.

[Enter Francisco and Barnardo, two sentinels.]

BARNARDO

Who’s there?

FRANCISCO

Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDO

Long live the King!

FRANCISCO

Barnardo?

BARNARDO

He.

FRANCISCO

You come most carefully upon your hour.

BARNARDO

’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO

For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

BARNARDO

Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO

Not a mouse stirring.

BARNARDO

Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

[Enter Horatio and Marcellus.]

FRANCISCO

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

HORATIO

Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS

And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO

Give you good night.

MARCELLUS

O, farewell, honest soldier, who hath reliev’d you?

FRANCISCO

Barnardo has my place. Give you good-night.

[Exit.]

MARCELLUS

Holla, Barnardo!

BARNARDO

Say, what, is Horatio there?

HORATIO

A piece of him.

BARNARDO

Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

MARCELLUS

What, has this thing appear’d again tonight?

BARNARDO

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.

BARNARDO

Sit down awhile,

And let us once again assail your ears,

That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

HORATIO

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

BARNARDO

Last night of all,

When yond same star that’s westward from the pole,

Had made his course t’illume that part of heaven

Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

The bell then beating one—

MARCELLUS

Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again.

[Enter Ghost.]

BARNARDO

In the same figure, like the King that’s dead.

MARCELLUS

Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

BARNARDO

Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.

HORATIO

Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

BARNARDO

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.

BARNARDO

See, it stalks away.

HORATIO

Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee speak!

[Exit Ghost.]

MARCELLUS

’Tis gone, and will not answer.

BARNARDO

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 th’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,

Dar’d 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 seiz’d 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 cov’nant

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 rummage in the land.

BARNARDO

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.

[Re-enter Ghost.]

But, soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again! 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. 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!

[The cock crows.]

Stop it, Marcellus!

MARCELLUS

Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

HORATIO

Do, if it will not stand.

BARNARDO

’Tis here!

HORATIO

’Tis here!

[Exit Ghost.]

MARCELLUS

’Tis gone!

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.

BARNARDO

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,

Th’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 dare 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 tonight

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.]