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

Bernardo

[SCENE: ELSInore, Denmark]

ACT I

SCENE I. [Elsinore. A platform before the castle]

FRANCISCO [at his post. Enter to him] BERNARDO

THO's there?

WH

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

Fran. Bernardo?

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.

93

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.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

Fran. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?

Hor. Friends to this ground.
Mar.

Fran. Give you good-night.
Mar.

Who hath reliev'd you?

Fran.

And liegemen to the Dane.

O, farewell, honest soldier.

Bernardo has my place.

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.
Hor. 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,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

Hor.

Sit down a while,

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

1 Partners.

Ber. Last night of all,

When yond 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,

Enter Ghost

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

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

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

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 avouch3

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 the ambitious Norway combated.
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

'Tis strange.

2 Appealing to the senses.

3 Evidence.

Exit Ghost.

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 scopes 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?

That can I;

Hor.
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 covenant,
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 landless resolutes,

4 Precisely.
6 Possessed of.

5 General view.

7 Pledged.

8 Tenor of the agreement. 9 Gathered in.

For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach10 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 romage12 in the land.
[Ber. I think it be no other but e'en so.

13

Well may it sort13 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 harbingers1 preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures15 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,

10 Relish. 11 Compulsory. 12 Turmoil. 13 Agree. 14 Fore-runners.

15 Regions.