THE DANISH SENTINELS.

FRANCISCO -BERNARDO HOFATIO MARCELLUS

Ber. Who's there?

Fran. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold Yourself.

Ber. Long live the king!

Fran.

Ber.

Bernardo?

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: 't is bitter cold,

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.
Hor. What, has this thing appeared again to-night?
Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says, 't is but our fantasy ;

And will not let belief take hold of him,

Touching this dreadful 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! 't will 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 yon same star that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to 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.

Speak to it, Horatio.

Hor. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night, Together with that fair and war-like 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 trenible, and look pale :

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe,

Without the sensible and true avouch

Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armor he had on,

When he the ambitious Norway combated;

So frowned he once, when, in an angry parle

He smote the sledded Polack on the ice.

"T is 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 mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Mar. food 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-laborer 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 appeared to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride,

Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteemed him,)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a sealed compact.
Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit with his life all those his lands,
Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror;
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had returned
To the inheritance of Fortinbras.

Had he been vanquisher; as by the same co-mart
And carriage of the article designed,

His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,"

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Sharked up a list of landless 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 romage in the land.
Ber. I think it be no other, but even 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 tronble 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.

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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 dooms-day 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.

(Cock crows.)

Stop it, Marcellus.
Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Ber.

Hor.

Mar. 'Tis gone!

'Tis here!

'T is here.

(Exit Ghost.)

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.

Ber. It was about to speak when the cock crew.
Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet of 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,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine

and of the truth herein

This present object made probation.

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

Hor. 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 eastern hill:
Break we our watch up: and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
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?

Mar. Let's do 't, I pray; and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most convenient.

SHAKSPEARE

Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. Ham. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?

Marcellus?

Mar. My good lord,

Ham. I am very glad to see you; good even, sır. —

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.

Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so,

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself: I know, you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore ?