HAMLET,

PRINCE OF DENMARK.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

CLAUDIUS, king of Denmark.

MARCELLUS,

HAMLET, son to the former, and BERNARDO,

nephew to the present king.

POLONIUS, lord chamberlain.
HORATIO, friend to Hamlet.
LAERTES, son to Polonius.

officers.

FRANCISCO, a soldier.
REYNALDO, servant to Polonius.
Players.

Two Clowns, grave-diggers.
FORTINBRAS, prince of Norway.
A Captain.

English Ambassadors,

GERTRUDE, queen of Denmark,

and mother to Hamlet.

OPHELIA, daughter to Polonius.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and other

Attendants.

Ghost of Hamlet's Father.

SCENE - Elsinore; except in the fourth scene of the fourth act, where it is a plain in Denmark.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO.

Ber. Who's there?

Fran. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.
Ber. Long live the king!

Fran. Bernardo?

Shakespeare. VI.

1

Ber. He.

Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.

Ber. "Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. Fran. For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

Ber. Have you had quiet guard?
Fran.

Ber. Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

Not a mouse stirring.

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

Fran. I think I hear them.

Stand, ho! Who is there?

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Hor. Friends to this ground.
Mar.
Fran. Give you good night.
Mar.

Who hath reliev'd you?

And liegemen to the Dane.

O, farewell, honest soldier: Bernardo has my place.

Fran.

Give you good night.

[Exit.

Ber. Welcome, Horatio:

welcome, good Marcellus.

Mar. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. 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.
Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

Ber.

And let us once again assail your ears,

Sit down awhile;

That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

Hor.

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Ber. 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,

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

Enter Ghost.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
Hor. Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.
Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar.

Question it, Horatio. Hor. 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!
Mar. It is offended.

Ber.

See, it stalks away!

Hor. Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

[Exit Ghost.

Ber. How now, Horatio! you tremble, and look pale:

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you on't?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe

Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar.

Is it not like the king?

Hor. 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.

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

Hor. 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.

Mar. 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?

Hor.

That can I;
Our last king,

At least, the whisper goes so.
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 co-mart,
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 compulsative, 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.

Ber. 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.

Hor. 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 climature 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: