ACT 1, SCENE 1 Elsinore.

A platform O, farewell, honest soldier:

before the castle Who hath relieved you?
FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him FRANCISCO
BERNARDO Bernardo has my place.
BERNARDO Give you good night.
Who’s there? Exit
FRANCISCO MARCELLUS
Nay, answer me: stand, and Holla! Bernardo!
unfold yourself. BERNARDO
BERNARDO Say,
Long live the king! What, is Horatio there?
FRANCISCO
Bernardo? HORATIO
BERNARDO A piece of him.
FRANCISCO
You come most carefully BERNARDO
upon your hour.BERNARDO Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good
‘Tis now struck twelve; get thee Marcellus.
to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO MARCELLUS
For this relief much thanks: What, has this thing appear’d again to-
’tis bitter cold, night?
And I am sick at heart.
BERNARDO BERNARDO
Have you had quiet guard? I have seen nothing.
FRANCISCO
Not a mouse stirring. MARCELLUS
BERNARDO Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,
Well, good night. And will not let belief take hold of him
If you do meet Horatio and Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of
Marcellus, us:
The rivals of my watch, bid Therefore I have entreated him along
them make haste. With us to watch the minutes of this night;
FRANCISCO That if again this apparition come,
I think I hear them. Stand, ho! He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
Who’s there?
HORATIO
Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.

HORATIO
Friends to this ground. BERNARDO
MARCELLUS Sit down awhile;
And liegemen to the Dane. And let us once again assail your ears,
FRANCISCO That are so fortified against our story
Give you good night. What we have two nights seen.
MARCELLUS
HORATIO Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge
Well, sit we down, thee, speak!
And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
MARCELLUS
BERNARDO It is offended.
Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from BERNARDO
the pole See, it stalks away!
Had made his course to illume that part of
heaven HORATIO
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!
The bell then beating one,–
Exit Ghost
Enter Ghost
MARCELLUS
MARCELLUS ‘Tis gone, and will not answer.
Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes
again!
BERNARDO
BERNARDO How now, Horatio! you tremble and look
pale:
In the same figure, like the king that’s dead. Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on’t?
MARCELLUS
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. HORATIO
Before my God, I might not this believe
BERNARDO Without the sensible and true avouch
Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. Of mine own eyes.

MARCELLUS
HORATIO Is it not like the king?
Most like: it harrows me with fear and
wonder. HORATIO
As thou art to thyself:
BERNARDO Such was the very armour he had on
It would be spoke to. When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown’d he once, when, in an angry
MARCELLUS parle,
Question it, Horatio. He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
‘Tis strange.
HORATIO
What art thou that usurp’st this time of MARCELLUS
night, Thus twice before, and jump at this dead
Together with that fair and warlike form hour,
In which the majesty of buried Denmark With martial stalk hath he gone by our
watch.
 And carriage of the article design’d,
HORATIO His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young
In what particular thought to work I know Fortinbras,
not; Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
But in the gross and scope of my opinion, Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
This bodes some strange eruption to our Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,
state. 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–
MARCELLUS But to recover of us, by strong hand
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that And terms compulsatory, those foresaid
knows, lands
Why this same strict and most observant So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
watch Is the main motive of our preparations,
So nightly toils the subject of the land, The source of this our watch and the chief
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, head
And foreign mart for implements of war; Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose
sore task BERNARDO
Does not divide the Sunday from the week; I think it be no other but e’en so:
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the Comes armed through our watch; so like the
day: king
Who is’t that can inform me? That was and is the question of these wars.

HORATIO
HORATIO A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.
That can I; In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
Whose image even but now appear’d to us, The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, dead
Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride, Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant As stars with trains of fire and dews of
Hamlet– blood,
For so this side of our known world Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
esteem’d him– Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire
Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal’d stands
compact, Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
Well ratified by law and heraldry, And even the like precurse of fierce events,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands As harbingers preceding still the fates
Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror: And prologue to the omen coming on,
Against the which, a moiety competent Have heaven and earth together
Was gaged by our king; which had return’d demonstrated
To the inheritance of Fortinbras, Unto our climatures and countrymen.–
Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
covenant,
Re-enter Ghost
HORATIO
And then it started like a guilty thing
I’ll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
illusion! The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding
Speak to me: throat
If there be any good thing to be done, Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
That may to thee do ease and grace to me, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
Speak to me: The extravagant and erring spirit hies
Cock crows To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, MARCELLUS
speak! It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life Some say that ever ‘gainst that season
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, comes
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
death, The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, And then, they say, no spirit dares stir
Marcellus. abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets
MARCELLUS strike,
Shall I strike at it with my partisan? No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to
charm,
HORATIO So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.
Do, if it will not stand.
HORATIO
BERNARDO So have I heard and do in part believe it.
‘Tis here! But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward
HORATIO hill:
‘Tis here! Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
MARCELLUS Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
‘Tis gone! This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with
Exit Ghost it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence; MARCELLUS
For it is, as the air, invulnerable, Let’s do’t, I pray; and I this morning know
And our vain blows malicious mockery. Where we shall find him most conveniently.

BERNARDO
It was about to speak, when the cock crew.