| |
FRANCISCO. Stand, ho! Who is there? | |
| HORATIO. Friends to this ground. | |
| MARCELLUS. And liegemen to the Dane. | |
| FRAN. Give you good night. | |
| MAR. O, farewell, honest soldier; | 5 |
| Who hath relieved you? | |
| FRAN. Bernardo hath my place. | |
| Give you good night. [Exit FRANCISCO. | |
| MAR. Holla! Bernardo! | |
| BER. Say, | 10 |
| What, is Horatio there? | |
| HOR. A piece of him. | |
| BER. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus. | |
| HOR. What, has this thing appear’d again to-night? | |
| BER. I have seen nothing. | 15 |
| MAR. Horatio says ’t is 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; | 20 |
| That, if again this apparition come, | |
| He may approve our eyes, and speak to it. | |
| HOR. Tush! tush! ’t will not appear. | |
| BER. Sit down awhile; | |
| And let us once again assail your ears, | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| 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! | 35 |
| |
(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. | 40 |
| MAR. Speak to 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. | 45 |
| MAR. It is offended. | |
| BER. See! it stalks away. | |
| HOR. Stay; speak: speak, I charge thee speak. [Exit GHOST. | |
| MAR. ’T is gone, and will not answer. | |
| BER. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale; | 50 |
| 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 | |
| Of mine own eyes. | 55 |
| 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 frowned he once, when, in an angry parle, | 60 |
| He smote the sledded Polack on the ice. | |
| ’T is strange. * * * * *
(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. | 65 |
| 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, | 70 |
| 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. | 75 |
| MAR. Shall I strike at it with my partisan? | |
| HOR. Do, if it will not stand. | |
| BER. ’T is here! | |
| HOR. ’T is here! | |
| MAR. ’T is gone! [Exit GHOST. | 80 |
| 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. | 85 |
| 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, | 90 |
| 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. | 95 |
| 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, | 100 |
| 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. | 105 |
| 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, | 110 |
| 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. [Exeunt. * * * * * | |
| HOR. Two nights together had these gentlemen, | |
| Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, | 115 |
| In the dead waste and middle of the night, | |
| Been thus encountered: A figure like your father, | |
| Armed at all points, exactly, cap-à-pé, | |
| Appears before them, and, with solemn march, | |
| Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked, | 120 |
| By their oppressed and fear-surprised eyes, | |
| Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distilled | |
| Almost to jelly with the act of fear, | |
| Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me | |
| In dreadful secrecy impart they did; | 125 |
| And I, with them, the third night kept the watch; | |
| Where, as they had delivered, both in time, | |
| Form of the thing, each word made true and good, | |
| The apparition comes. I knew your father; | |
| These hands are not more like. | 130 |
| HAMLET. But where was this? | |
| HOR. My lord, upon the platform where we watched. | |
| HAM. Did you not speak to it? | |
| HOR. My lord, I did. | |
| But answer made it none; yet once, methought, | 135 |
| It lifted up its head, and did address | |
| Itself to motion, like as it would speak; | |
| But, even then, the morning cock crew loud; | |
| And at the sound it shrunk in haste away, | |
| And vanished from our sight. | 140 |
| HAM. ’T is very strange. | |
| HOR. As I do live, my honored lord, ’t is true; | |
| And we did think it writ down in our duty | |
| To let you know of it. | |
| HAM. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. | 145 |
| Hold you the watch to-night? | |
| ALL. We do, my lord. | |
| HAM. Armed, say you? | |
| ALL. Armed, my lord. | |
| HAM. From top to toe? | 150 |
| ALL. My lord, from head to foot. | |
| HAM. Then saw you not | |
| His face? | |
| HOR. O yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up. | |
| HAM. What, looked he frowningly? | 155 |
| HOR. A countenance more | |
| In sorrow than in anger. | |
| HAM. Pale, or red? | |
| HOR. Nay, very pale. | |
| HAM. And fixed his eyes upon you? | 160 |
| HOR. Most constantly. | |
| HAM. I would I had been there. | |
| HOR. It would have much amazed you. | |
| HAM. Very like, | |
| Very like. Staid it long? | 165 |
| HOR. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. | |
| MAR., BER. Longer, longer. | |
| HOR. Not when I saw it. | |
| HAM. His beard was grizzled? no? | |
| HOR. It was as I have seen it in his life, | 170 |
| A sable silvered. | |
| HAM. I will watch to-night; | |
| Perchance ’t will walk again. | |
| HOR. I warrant you it will. | |
| HAM. If it assume my noble father’s person, | 175 |
| I ’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape, | |
| And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, | |
| If you have hitherto concealed this sight, | |
| Let it be tenable in your silence still; | |
| And whatsoever else shall hap to-night, | 180 |
| Give it an understanding, but no tongue; | |
| I will requite your loves. So, fare you well. | |
| Upon the platform, ’twixt eleven and twelve, | |
| I ’ll visit you. * * * * *
(Enter GHOST.) HOR. Look, my lord, it comes! | |
| HAM. Angels and ministers of grace, defend us! | 185 |
| Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned, | |
| Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, | |
| Be thy intents wicked, or charitable, | |
| Thou com’st in such a questionable shape, | |
| That I will speak to thee. I ’ll call thee, Hamlet, | 190 |
| King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me. | |
| Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell, | |
| Why thy canónized bones, hearsed in death, | |
| Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre, | |
| Wherein we saw thee quietly inurned, | 195 |
| Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws, | |
| To cast thee up again! What may this mean, | |
| That thou, dead corse, again, in cómplete steel, | |
| Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon, | |
| Making night hideous; and we fools of nature, | 200 |
| So horridly to shake our disposition, | |
| With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? | |
| Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do? | |
| HOR. It beckons you to go away with it, | |
| As if it some impartment did desire | 205 |
| To you alone. | |
| MAR. Look, with what courteous action | |
| It waves you to a more removed ground! | |
| But do not go with it. | |
| HOR. No, by no means. | 210 |
| HAM. It will not speak; then I will follow it. | |
| HOR. Do not, my lord. | |
| HAM. Why, what should be the fear? | |
| I do not set my life at a pin’s fee; | |
| And, for my soul, what can it do to that, | 215 |
| Being a thing immortal as itself? | |
| It waves me forth again;—I ’ll follow it. | |
| HOR. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, | |
| Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff, | |
| That beetles o’er his base into the sea? | 220 |
| And there assume some other horrible form, | |
| Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason, | |
| And draw you into madness? Think of it. | |
| The very place puts toys of desperation, | |
| Without more motive, into every brain, | 225 |
| That looks so many fathoms to the sea, | |
| And hears it roar beneath. | |
| HAM. It waves me still. | |
| Go on, I ’ll follow thee. | |
| MAR. You shall not go, my lord. | 230 |
| HAM. Hold off your hands. | |
| HOR. Be ruled: you shall not go. | |
| HAM. My fate cries out, | |
| And makes each petty artery in this body | |
| As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.— | 235 |
(GHOST beckons.) Still am I called;—unhand me, gentlemen;— | |
(Breaking from them.) By Heaven, I ’ll make a ghost of him that lets me: | |
| I say, away;—go on, I ’ll follow thee. [Exeunt GHOST and HAMLET. | |
| HOR. He waxes desperate with imagination. | |
| MAR. Let ’s follow; ’t is not fit thus to obey him. | 240 |
| HOR. Have after.—To what issue will this come? | |
| MAR. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. | |
| HOR. Heaven will direct it. | |
| MAR. Nay, let ’s follow him. [Exeunt. | |
(Enter GHOST and HAMLET.) HAM. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak, I ’ll go no further. | 245 |
| GHOST. Mark me. | |
| HAM. I will. | |
| GHOST. My hour is almost come, | |
| When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames | |
| Must render up myself. | 250 |
| HAM. Alas, poor ghost! | |
| GHOST. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing | |
| To what I shall unfold. | |
| HAM. Speak; I am bound to hear. | |
| GHOST. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. | 255 |
| HAM. What? | |
| GHOST. I am thy father’s spirit; | |
| Doomed for a certain term to walk the night; | |
| And, for the day, confined to fast in fires, | |
| Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, | 260 |
| Are burned and purged away. But that I am forbid | |
| To tell the secrets of my prison-house, | |
| I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word | |
| Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood; | |
| Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres; | 265 |
| Thy knotted and combined locks to part, | |
| And each particular hair to stand on end, | |
| Like quills upon the fretful porcupine. | |
| But this eternal blazon must not be | |
| To ears of flesh and blood.—List, list, O, list!— | 270 |
| If thou didst ever thy dear father love—— | |
| HAM. O Heaven! | |
| GHOST. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. | |
| HAM. Murder? | |
| GHOST. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; | 275 |
| But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. | |
| HAM. Haste me to know it; that I, with wings as swift | |
| As meditation, or the thoughts of love, | |
| May sweep to my revenge. | |
| GHOST. I find thee apt; | 280 |
| And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed | |
| That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, | |
| Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear. | |
| ’T is given out, that, sleeping in mine orchard, | |
| A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark | 285 |
| Is by a forged process of my death | |
| Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, | |
| The serpent that did sting thy father’s life | |
| Now wears his crown. | |
| HAM. O my prophetic soul! my uncle! | 290 |
| GHOST. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, | |
| With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, | |
| (O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power | |
| So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust | |
| The will of my most seeming virtuous queen. | 295 |
| O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there! | |
| From me, whose love was of that dignity, | |
| That it went hand in hand even with the vow | |
| I made to her in marriage; and to decline | |
| Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor | 300 |
| To those of mine! | |
| But virtue, as it never will be moved, | |
| Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven; | |
| So lust, though to a radiant angel linked, | |
| Will sate itself in a celestial bed, | 305 |
| And prey on garbage. | |
| But soft! methinks I scent the morning air; | |
| Brief let me be.—Sleeping within mine orchard, | |
| My custom always of the afternoon, | |
| Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, | 310 |
| With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, | |
| And in the porches of mine ears did pour | |
| The leperous distilment; whose effect | |
| Holds such an enmity with blood of man, | |
| That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through | 315 |
| The natural gates and alleys of the body; | |
| And with a sudden vigor, it doth posset | |
| And curd, like eager droppings into milk, | |
| The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine, | |
| And a most instant tetter barked about, | 320 |
| Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, | |
| All my smooth body. | |
| Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand, | |
| Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatched; | |
| Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, | 325 |
| Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled; | |
| No reckoning made, but sent to my account | |
| With all my imperfections on my head. | |
| O horrible! O horrible! most horrible! | |
| If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not; | 330 |
| Let not the royal bed of Denmark be | |
| A couch for luxury and damned incest. | |
| But, howsoever thou pursu’st this act, | |
| Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive | |
| Against thy mother aught; leave her to Heaven, | 335 |
| And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, | |
| To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once! | |
| The glowworm shows the matin to be near, | |
| And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire; | |
| Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me. [Exit. | 340 |
| HAM. O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? | |
| And shall I couple hell?—O fie!—Hold, hold, my heart; | |
| And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, | |
| But bear me stiffly up!—Remember thee? | |
| Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat | 345 |
| In this distracted globe. Remember thee? | |
| Yea, from the tables of my memory | |
| I ’ll wipe away all trivial, fond records, | |
| All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, | |
| That youth and observation copied there; | 350 |
| And thy commandment all alone shall live | |
| Within the book and volume of my brain, | |
| Unmixed with baser matter. | |
| |
