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Elsinore. A Platform before the Castle. | |
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FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO. | |
| Ber. Who’s there? | |
| Fran. Nay, answer me; stand, and unfold yourself. | |
| Ber. Long live the king! | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| And I am sick at heart. | |
| Ber. Have you had quiet guard? | |
| Fran. Not a mouse stirring. | |
| Ber. Well, good-night. | |
| If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, | 15 |
| The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. | |
| Fran. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who’s there? | |
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Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS. | |
| Hor. Friends to this ground. | |
| Mar. And liegemen to the Dane. | 20 |
| Fran. Give you good-night. | |
| Mar. O! farewell, honest soldier: | |
| Who hath reliev’d you? | |
| Fran. Bernardo has my place. | |
| Give you good-night. [Exit. | 25 |
| Mar. Holla! Bernardo! | |
| Ber. Say, | |
| What! is Horatio there? | |
| Hor. A piece of him. | |
| Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus. | 30 |
| Mar. 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: | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| Ber. Sit down a while, | |
| And let us once again assail your ears, | |
| That are so fortified against our story, | |
| What we two nights have seen. | |
| Hor. Well, sit we down, | 45 |
| And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. | |
| 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, | 50 |
| The bell then beating one,— | |
| Mar. Peace! break thee off; look, where it comes again! | |
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Enter Ghost. | |
| Ber. In the same figure, like the king that’s dead. | |
| Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. | 55 |
| 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, | 60 |
| 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. | 65 |
| Hor. Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak! [Exit Ghost. | |
| 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? | 70 |
| Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe | |
| Without the sensible and true avouch | |
| Of mine own eyes. | |
| Mar. Is it not like the king? | |
| Hor. As thou art to thyself: | 75 |
| 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. | 80 |
| 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 my opinion, | |
| This bodes some strange eruption to our state. | 85 |
| 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; | 90 |
| 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? | 95 |
| Hor. That can I; | |
| 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, | 100 |
| 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 | 105 |
| 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, | 110 |
| 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 lawless resolutes, | 115 |
| 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 compulsative, those foresaid lands | 120 |
| 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 e’en so; | 125 |
| 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 trouble the mind’s eye. | |
| In the most high and palmy state of Rome, | 130 |
| 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 | 135 |
| Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands | |
| Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse; | |
| And even the like precurse of fierce events, | |
| As harbingers preceding still the fates | |
| And prologue to the omen coming on, | 140 |
| Have heaven and earth together demonstrated | |
| Unto our climatures and countrymen. | |
| But, soft! behold! lo! where it comes again. | |
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Re-enter Ghost. | |
| I’ll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion! | 145 |
| 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: | 150 |
| 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, | 155 |
| For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, [Cock crows. | |
| Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus. | |
| Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan? | |
| Hor. Do, if it will not stand. | |
| Ber. ’Tis here! | 160 |
| Hor. ’Tis here! [Exit Ghost. | |
| Mar. ’Tis gone! | |
| We do it wrong, being so majestical, | |
| To offer it the show of violence; | |
| For it is, as the air, invulnerable, | 165 |
| 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 to the morn, | 170 |
| 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 | 175 |
| 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, | |
| The bird of dawning singeth all night long; | 180 |
| And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; | |
| The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, | |
| No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, | |
| So hallow’d and so gracious is the time. | |
| Hor. So have I heard and do in part believe it. | 185 |
| 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, | 190 |
| 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 conveniently. [Exeunt. | 195 |
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