ACT I SCENE I� Setting: Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
[FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO]
| BERNARDO |
Who's there? |
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| FRANCISCO |
Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself. |
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| BERNARDO |
Long live the king! |
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| FRANCISCO |
Bernardo? |
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| BERNARDO |
He. |
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| FRANCISCO |
You come most carefully upon your hour. |
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| BERNARDO |
Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. |
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| FRANCISCO |
For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, |
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And I am sick at heart. |
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| BERNARDO |
Have you had quiet guard? |
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| FRANCISCO |
Not a mouse stirring. |
10 |
| BERNARDO |
Well, good night. |
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If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, |
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The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. |
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| FRANCISCO |
I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there? |
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| [Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS] |
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| HORATIO |
Friends to this ground. |
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| MARCELLUS |
And liegemen to the Dane. |
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| FRANCISCO |
Give you good night. |
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| MARCELLUS |
O, farewell, honest soldier: |
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Who hath relieved you? |
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| FRANCISCO |
Bernardo has my place. |
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Give you good night. |
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| [Exit] |
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| MARCELLUS |
Holla! Bernardo! |
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| BERNARDO |
Say, |
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What, is Horatio there? |
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| HORATIO |
A piece of him. |
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| BERNARDO |
Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus. |
20 |
| MARCELLUS |
What, has this thing appear'd again to–night? |
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| BERNARDO |
I have seen nothing. |
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| MARCELLUS |
Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy, |
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And will not let belief take hold of him |
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Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us: |
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Therefore I have entreated him along |
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With us to watch the minutes of this night; |
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That if again this apparition come, |
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He may approve our eyes and speak to it. |
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| HORATIO |
Tush, tush, 'twill not appear. |
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| BERNARDO |
Sit down awhile; |
30 |
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And let us once again assail your ears, |
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That are so fortified against our story |
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What we have two nights seen. |
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| HORATIO |
Well, sit we down, |
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And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. |
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| BERNARDO |
Last night of all, |
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When yond same star that's westward from the pole |
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Had made his course to illume that part of heaven |
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Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, |
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The bell then beating one,–– |
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| [Enter Ghost] |
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| MARCELLUS |
Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again! |
40 |
| BERNARDO |
In the same figure, like the king that's dead. |
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| MARCELLUS |
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. |
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| BERNARDO |
Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. |
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| HORATIO |
Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder. |
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| BERNARDO |
It would be spoke to. |
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| MARCELLUS |
Question it, Horatio. |
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| HORATIO |
What art thou that usurp'st this time of night, |
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Together with that fair and warlike form |
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In which the majesty of buried Denmark |
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Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak! |
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| MARCELLUS |
It is offended. |
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| BERNARDO |
See, it stalks away! |
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| HORATIO |
Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak! |
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| [Exit Ghost] |
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| MARCELLUS |
Tis gone, and will not answer. |
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| BERNARDO |
How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale: |
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Is not this something more than fantasy? |
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What think you on't? |
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| HORATIO |
Before my God, I might not this believe |
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Without the sensible and true avouch |
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Of mine own eyes. |
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| MARCELLUS |
Is it not like the king? |
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| HORATIO |
As thou art to thyself: |
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Such was the very armour he had on |
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When he the ambitious Norway combated; |
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So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle, |
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He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice. |
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Tis strange. |
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| MARCELLUS |
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour, |
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With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch. |
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| HORATIO |
In what particular thought to work I know not; |
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But in the gross and scope of my opinion, |
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This bodes some strange eruption to our state. |
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| MARCELLUS |
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, |
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Why this same strict and most observant watch |
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So nightly toils the subject of the land, |
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And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, |
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And foreign mart for implements of war; |
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Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task |
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Does not divide the Sunday from the week; |
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What might be toward, that this sweaty haste |
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Doth make the night joint–labourer with the day: |
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Who is't that can inform me? |
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| HORATIO |
That can I; |
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At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king, |
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Whose image even but now appear'd to us, |
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Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, |
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Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride, |
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Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet–– |
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For so this side of our known world esteem'd him–– |
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Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact, |
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Well ratified by law and heraldry, |
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Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands |
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Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror: |
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Against the which, a moiety competent |
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Was gaged by our king; which had return'd |
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To the inheritance of Fortinbras, |
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Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant, |
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And carriage of the article design'd, |
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His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras, |
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Of unimproved mettle hot and full, |
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Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there |
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Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes, |
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For food and diet, to some enterprise |
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That hath a stomach in't; which is no other–– |
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As it doth well appear unto our state–– |
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But to recover of us, by strong hand |
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And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands |
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So by his father lost: and this, I take it, |
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Is the main motive of our preparations, |
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The source of this our watch and the chief head |
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Of this post–haste and romage in the land. |
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| BERNARDO |
I think it be no other but e'en so: |
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Well may it sort that this portentous figure |
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Comes armed through our watch; so like the king |
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That was and is the question of these wars. |
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| HORATIO |
A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye. |
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In the most high and palmy state of Rome, |
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A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, |
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The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead |
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Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets: |
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As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, |
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Disasters in the sun; and the moist star |
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Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands |
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Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse: |
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And even the like precurse of fierce events, |
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As harbingers preceding still the fates |
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And prologue to the omen coming on, |
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Have heaven and earth together demonstrated |
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Unto our climatures and countrymen.–– |
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But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again! |
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| [Re–enter Ghost] |
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I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion! |
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If thou hast any sound, or use of voice, |
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Speak to me: |
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If there be any good thing to be done, |
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That may to thee do ease and grace to me, |
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Speak to me: |
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| [Cock crows] |
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If thou art privy to thy country's fate, |
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Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak! |
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Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life |
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Extorted treasure in the womb of earth, |
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For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, |
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Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus. |
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| MARCELLUS |
Shall I strike at it with my partisan? |
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| HORATIO |
Do, if it will not stand. |
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| BERNARDO |
Tis here! |
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| HORATIO |
Tis here! |
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| MARCELLUS |
Tis gone! |
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| [Exit Ghost] |
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We do it wrong, being so majestical, |
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To offer it the show of violence; |
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For it is, as the air, invulnerable, |
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And our vain blows malicious mockery. |
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| BERNARDO |
It was about to speak, when the cock crew. |
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| HORATIO |
And then it started like a guilty thing |
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Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, |
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The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, |
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Doth with his lofty and shrill–sounding throat |
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Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, |
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Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, |
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The extravagant and erring spirit hies |
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To his confine: and of the truth herein |
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This present object made probation. |
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| MARCELLUS |
It faded on the crowing of the cock. |
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Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes |
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Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, |
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The bird of dawning singeth all night long: |
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And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; |
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The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, |
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No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, |
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So hallow'd and so gracious is the time. |
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| HORATIO |
So have I heard and do in part believe it. |
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But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, |
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Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill: |
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Break we our watch up; and by my advice, |
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Let us impart what we have seen to–night |
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Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life, |
170 |
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This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. |
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Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, |
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As needful in our loves, fitting our duty? |
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| MARCELLUS |
Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know |
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Where we shall find him most conveniently. |
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| [Exeunt] |
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