ACT I.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Courtiers.

Officers.

And I am sick at heart.

BERNARDO-Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO-Not a mouse stiring.

BERNARDO-Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

FRANCISCO-I think I hear them. -Stand, ho! Who is there?

HORATIO Friends to this ground.
MARCELLUS-And legenen to the Dane.
FRANCISCO-Give you good night.

MARCELLUS-O, farewell, honest soldier!

Who hath reliev'd you?

FRANCISCO-Bernardo hath my place.

Give you good night.

BERNARDO-I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS-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.
HORATIO-Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
BERNARDO-Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

HORATIO-Well, sit we down.

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

PERNARDO-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,-

MARCELLUS--Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

En. GHOST.

BERNARDO-I the same figure, like the king that's dead. scholar, speak to it,

MARCELLUS-Thou art a

Horatio.

SCENE-Elsinore.

HOKATIO-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.
MARCELLUS-Good now, sit down, and tell me, he
that knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subjects 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?
HORATIO-That can I;

Our last king,
At least, the whisper goes 80.
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 clay 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: New, s.r. yung Fortinbras,
Of unimproved metal hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd 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.
BERNARDO-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.
HORATIO-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.

But, soft; behold! lo. where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illusion!
If thou has 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,
(Cock crows.)
Speak of it:-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS Shall I strike at it with my partizan?
HORATIO-Do, if it will not stand.
BERNARDO-'Tis here!
HORATIO-'Tis here!

MARCELLUS 'Tis gone!

[Exit Ghost.

crew.

HORATIO-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 the 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.
MARCELLUS-It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the
same.

Enter the KING, QUEEN. HAMLET, POLONIUS,
LAERTES, VOLTJMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords and
Attendants.

KING-Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's
death

The memory be green; and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe:

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye;
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole.-
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along:-For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,-
Holding a weak supposal of our worth;
Or thinking, by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands,
Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
To our most valiant brother.-So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: We have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras.—
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose.-to suppress
His farther gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subjects; and we here despatch
You. good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no farther personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.

Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty. CORNELIUS and VOLTIMAND-in that, and all things, will we show our duty

KING-We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell.
[Exeunt Voltimand and Cornelius.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is't. Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice: What would'st thou beg,
Laertes,

That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What would'st thou have, Laertes?
LAFKTES-My dread lord.

Your leave and favour to return to France,
From whence, though willingly, I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation;

Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,

My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France, And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. KING-Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?

POLONIUS-He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave

By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent;

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
KING-Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces; spend it at thy will-
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,-
HAMLET-A little more than kin, and less than kind.
Aside.
KING-How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
HAMLET-Not so, my lord, I am too much i'the sun.
QUEEN-Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye lock like a friend on Denmark.
Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st, 'tis common; that live must die.
Passing through nature to eternity.