62 William Shaksepeare: Hamlet: Act 1
Hamlet
By William Shakespeare
Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine
with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles
Folger Shakespeare Library
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/
Created on Apr 23, 2016, from FDT version 0.9.2.
Characters in the Play
THE GHOST
HAMLET, Prince of Denmark, son of the late King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude
QUEEN GERTRUDE, widow of King Hamlet, now married to Claudius
KING CLAUDIUS, brother to the late King Hamlet
OPHELIA
LAERTES, her brother
POLONIUS, father of Ophelia and Laertes, councillor to King Claudius
REYNALDO, servant to Polonius
HORATIO, Hamlet’s friend and confidant
Courtiers at the Danish court:
VOLTEMAND
CORNELIUS
ROSENCRANTZ
GUILDENSTERN
OSRIC
Gentlemen
A Lord
Danish soldiers:
FRANCISCO
BARNARDO
MARCELLUS
FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway
A Captain in Fortinbras’s army
Ambassadors to Denmark from England
Players who take the roles of Prologue, Player King, Player Queen, and Lucianus in The Murder of Gonzago
Two Messengers
Sailors
Gravedigger
Gravedigger’s companion
Doctor of Divinity
Attendants, Lords, Guards, Musicians, Laertes’s Followers, Soldiers, Officers
ACT 1
Scene 1
Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels.
BARNARDO Who’s there?
FRANCISCO
Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
BARNARDO Long live the King!
FRANCISCO Barnardo?
BARNARDO He. 5
FRANCISCO
You come most carefully upon your hour.
BARNARDO
’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO
For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
BARNARDO Have you had quiet guard? 10
FRANCISCO Not a mouse stirring.
BARNARDO 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? 15
HORATIO Friends to this ground.
MARCELLUS And liegemen to the Dane.
FRANCISCO Give you good night.
MARCELLUS
O farewell, honest soldier. Who hath relieved
you? 20
FRANCISCO
Barnardo hath my place. Give you good night.
Francisco exits.
MARCELLUS Holla, Barnardo.
BARNARDO Say, what, is Horatio there?
HORATIO A piece of him.
BARNARDO
Welcome, Horatio.—Welcome, good Marcellus. 25
HORATIO
What, has this thing appeared again tonight?
BARNARDO 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. 30
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. 35
BARNARDO Sit down awhile,
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we have two nights seen.
HORATIO Well, sit we down, 40
And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.
BARNARDO Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole
Had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, 45
The bell then beating one—
Enter Ghost.
MARCELLUS
Peace, break thee off! Look where it comes again.
BARNARDO
In the same figure like the King that’s dead.
MARCELLUS, to Horatio
Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.
BARNARDO
Looks he not like the King? Mark it, Horatio. 50
HORATIO
Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
BARNARDO
It would be spoke to.
MARCELLUS Speak to it, Horatio.
HORATIO
What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form 55
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven, I charge thee,
speak.
MARCELLUS
It is offended.
BARNARDO See, it stalks away. 60
HORATIO
Stay! speak! speak! I charge thee, speak!
Ghost exits.
MARCELLUS ’Tis gone and will not answer.
BARNARDO
How now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on ’t? 65
HORATIO
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.
MARCELLUS Is it not like the King?
HORATIO As thou art to thyself. 70
Such was the very armor he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated.
So frowned he once when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
’Tis strange. 75
MARCELLUS
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
HORATIO
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. 80
MARCELLUS
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, 85
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 laborer with the day?
Who is ’t that can inform me? 90
HORATIO That can I.
At least the whisper goes so: our last king,
Whose image even but now appeared to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride, 95
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteemed him)
Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands 100
Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror.
Against the which a moiety competent
Was gagèd by our king, which had returned
To the inheritance of Fortinbras
Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart 105
And carriage of the article designed,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimprovèd mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes 110
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 115
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 posthaste and rummage in the land.
BARNARDO
I think it be no other but e’en so. 120
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armèd 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, 125
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, 130
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of feared events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on, 135
Have heaven and Earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.
Enter Ghost.
But soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!
I’ll cross it though it blast me.—Stay, illusion!
It spreads his arms.
If thou hast any sound or use of voice, 140
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, 145
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, 150
Speak of it.The cock crows.
Stay and speak!—Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS
Shall I strike it with my partisan?
HORATIO Do, if it will not stand.
BARNARDO ’Tis here. 155
HORATIO ’Tis here.
Ghost exits.
MARCELLUS ’Tis gone.
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence,
For it is as the air, invulnerable, 160
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
BARNARDO
It was about to speak when the cock crew.
HORATIO
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, 165
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,
Th’ extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine, and of the truth herein 170
This present object made probation.
MARCELLUS
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long; 175
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is that time.
HORATIO
So have I heard and do in part believe it. 180
But look, the morn in russet mantle clad
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Break we our watch up, and by my advice
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life, 185
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?
MARCELLUS
Let’s do ’t, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most convenient. 190
They exit.
Scene 2
Flourish. Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the
Queen, the Council, as Polonius, and his son Laertes,
Hamlet, with others, among them Voltemand and
Cornelius.
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 5
That we with wisest sorrow think on him
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we (as ’twere with a defeated joy, 10
With an auspicious and a 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 barred
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone 15
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, 20
Colleaguèd with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not failed to pester us with message
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother—so much for him. 25
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 bedrid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew’s purpose, to suppress 30
His further gait herein, in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions are all made
Out of his subject; and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway, 35
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the King more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.
Giving them a paper.
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
CORNELIUS/VOLTEMAND
In that and all things will we show our duty. 40
KING
We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.
Voltemand and Cornelius exit.
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 wouldst thou beg, 45
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, 50
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
LAERTES My dread lord,
Your leave and favor to return to France,
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
To show my duty in your coronation, 55
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
Hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave 60
By laborsome petition, and at last
Upon his will I sealed 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.— 65
But now, my cousin Hamlet and my son—
HAMLET, aside
A little more than kin and less than kind.
KING
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.
QUEEN
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, 70
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever with thy vailèd lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity. 75
HAMLET
Ay, madam, it is common.
QUEEN If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAMLET
“Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.”
’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 80
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, 85
That can denote me truly. These indeed “seem,”
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passes show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
KING
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, 90
Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father.
But you must know your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term 95
To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, 100
An understanding simple and unschooled.
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven, 105
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
“This must be so.” We pray you, throw to earth 110
This unprevailing woe and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son 115
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire,
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye, 120
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
QUEEN
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee, stay with us. Go not to Wittenberg.
HAMLET
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KING
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply. 125
Be as ourself in Denmark.—Madam, come.
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart, in grace whereof
No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell, 130
And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.
Flourish. All but Hamlet exit.
HAMLET
O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed 135
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on ’t, ah fie! ’Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature 140
Possess it merely. That it should come to this:
But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.
So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven 145
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and Earth,
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on. And yet, within a month
(Let me not think on ’t; frailty, thy name is woman!), 150
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father’s body,
Like Niobe, all tears—why she, even she
(O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer!), married with my 155
uncle,
My father’s brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her gallèd eyes, 160
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Barnardo.
HORATIO Hail to your Lordship. 165
HAMLET I am glad to see you well.
Horatio—or I do forget myself!
HORATIO
The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
HAMLET
Sir, my good friend. I’ll change that name with you.
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?— 170
Marcellus?
MARCELLUS My good lord.
HAMLET
I am very glad to see you. To Barnardo. Good
even, sir.—
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? 175
HORATIO
A truant disposition, good my lord.
HAMLET
I would not hear your enemy say so,
Nor shall you do my ear that violence
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant. 180
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
HORATIO
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.
HAMLET
I prithee, do not mock me, fellow student.
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding. 185
HORATIO
Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.
HAMLET
Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio! 190
My father—methinks I see my father.
HORATIO
Where, my lord?
HAMLET In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
HORATIO
I saw him once. He was a goodly king.
HAMLET
He was a man. Take him for all in all, 195
I shall not look upon his like again.
HORATIO
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
HAMLET Saw who?
HORATIO
My lord, the King your father.
HAMLET The King my father? 200
HORATIO
Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear, till I may deliver
Upon the witness of these gentlemen
This marvel to you.
HAMLET For God’s love, let me hear! 205
HORATIO
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encountered: a figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie, 210
Appears before them and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked
By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes
Within his truncheon’s length, whilst they, distilled
Almost to jelly with the act of fear, 215
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
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), 220
The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.
HAMLET But where was this?
MARCELLUS
My lord, upon the platform where we watch.
HAMLET
Did you not speak to it? 225
HORATIO My lord, I did,
But answer made it none. Yet once methought
It lifted up its head and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
But even then the morning cock crew loud, 230
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away
And vanished from our sight.
HAMLET ’Tis very strange.
HORATIO
As I do live, my honored lord, ’tis true.
And we did think it writ down in our duty 235
To let you know of it.
HAMLET Indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch tonight?
ALL We do, my lord.
HAMLET
Armed, say you? 240
ALL Armed, my lord.
HAMLET From top to toe?
ALL My lord, from head to foot.
HAMLET Then saw you not his face?
HORATIO
O, yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up. 245
HAMLET What, looked he frowningly?
HORATIO
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
HAMLET Pale or red?
HORATIO
Nay, very pale.
HAMLET And fixed his eyes upon you? 250
HORATIO
Most constantly.
HAMLET I would I had been there.
HORATIO It would have much amazed you.
HAMLET Very like. Stayed it long?
HORATIO
While one with moderate haste might tell a 255
hundred.
BARNARDO/MARCELLUS Longer, longer.
HORATIO
Not when I saw ’t.
HAMLET His beard was grizzled, no?
HORATIO
It was as I have seen it in his life, 260
A sable silvered.
HAMLET I will watch tonight.
Perchance ’twill walk again.
HORATIO I warrant it will.
HAMLET
If it assume my noble father’s person, 265
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 whatsomever else shall hap tonight, 270
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.
ALL Our duty to your Honor. 275
HAMLET
Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
All but Hamlet exit.
My father’s spirit—in arms! All is not well.
I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come!
Till then, sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s 280
eyes.
He exits.
Scene 3
Enter Laertes and Ophelia, his sister.
LAERTES
My necessaries are embarked. Farewell.
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
And convey is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.
OPHELIA Do you doubt that? 5
LAERTES
For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute, 10
No more.
OPHELIA No more but so?
LAERTES Think it no more.
For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes, 15
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
His greatness weighed, his will is not his own, 20
For he himself is subject to his birth.
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself, for on his choice depends
The safety and the health of this whole state.
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed. 25
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head. Then, if he says he loves
you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place. 30
May give his saying deed, which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs
Or lose your heart or your chaste treasure open 35
To his unmastered importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia; fear it, my dear sister,
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough 40
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes.
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
And, in the morn and liquid dew of youth, 45
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary, then; best safety lies in fear.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
OPHELIA
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, 50
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede. 55
LAERTES O, fear me not.
Enter Polonius.
I stay too long. But here my father comes.
A double blessing is a double grace.
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
POLONIUS
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame! 60
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with
thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, 65
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 70
Of each new-hatched, unfledged courage. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear ’t that th’ opposèd may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. 75
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy (rich, not gaudy),
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that. 80
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day, 85
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee.
LAERTES
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
POLONIUS
The time invests you. Go, your servants tend.
LAERTES
Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well 90
What I have said to you.
OPHELIA ’Tis in my memory locked,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
LAERTES Farewell.Laertes exits.
POLONIUS
What is ’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you? 95
OPHELIA
So please you, something touching the Lord
Hamlet.
POLONIUS Marry, well bethought.
’Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you, and you yourself 100
Have of your audience been most free and
bounteous.
If it be so (as so ’tis put on me,
And that in way of caution), I must tell you
You do not understand yourself so clearly 105
As it behooves my daughter and your honor.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.
OPHELIA
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.
POLONIUS
Affection, puh! You speak like a green girl 110
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his “tenders,” as you call them?
OPHELIA
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
POLONIUS
Marry, I will teach you. Think yourself a baby
That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay, 115
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly,
Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Running it thus) you’ll tender me a fool.
OPHELIA
My lord, he hath importuned me with love
In honorable fashion— 120
POLONIUS
Ay, “fashion” you may call it. Go to, go to!
OPHELIA
And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
POLONIUS
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul 125
Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both
Even in their promise as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be something scanter of your maiden presence. 130
Set your entreatments at a higher rate
Than a command to parle. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him that he is young,
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia, 135
Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds
The better to beguile. This is for all: 140
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have you so slander any moment leisure
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to ’t, I charge you. Come your ways.
OPHELIA I shall obey, my lord. 145
They exit.
Scene 4
Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.
HAMLET
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO
It is a nipping and an eager air.
HAMLET What hour now?
HORATIO I think it lacks of twelve.
MARCELLUS No, it is struck. 5
HORATIO
Indeed, I heard it not. It then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
A flourish of trumpets and two pieces goes off.
What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET
The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring upspring reels; 10
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
HORATIO Is it a custom?
HAMLET Ay, marry, is ’t, 15
But, to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations. 20
They clepe us drunkards and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition. And, indeed, it takes
From our achievements, though performed at
height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute. 25
So oft it chances in particular men
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As in their birth (wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin),
By the o’ergrowth of some complexion 30
(Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason),
Or by some habit that too much o’erleavens
The form of plausive manners—that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature’s livery or fortune’s star, 35
His virtues else, be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault. The dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt 40
To his own scandal.
Enter Ghost.
HORATIO Look, my lord, it comes.
HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from 45
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,”
“King,” “Father,” “Royal Dane.” O, answer me! 50
Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsèd in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulcher,
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws 55
To cast thee up again. What may this mean
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition 60
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
Ghost beckons.
HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone. 65
MARCELLUS Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removèd ground.
But do not go with it.
HORATIO No, by no means.
HAMLET
It will not speak. Then I will follow it. 70
HORATIO
Do not, my lord.
HAMLET 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,
Being a thing immortal as itself? 75
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.
HORATIO
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,
And there assume some other horrible form 80
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
That looks so many fathoms to the sea 85
And hears it roar beneath.
HAMLET
It waves me still.—Go on, I’ll follow thee.
MARCELLUS
You shall not go, my lord.They hold back Hamlet.
HAMLET Hold off your hands.
HORATIO
Be ruled. You shall not go. 90
HAMLET My fate cries out
And makes each petty arture in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me! 95
I say, away!—Go on. I’ll follow thee.
Ghost and Hamlet exit.
HORATIO
He waxes desperate with imagination.
MARCELLUS
Let’s follow. ’Tis not fit thus to obey him.
HORATIO
Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 100
HORATIO
Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS Nay, let’s follow him.
They exit.
Scene 5
Enter Ghost and Hamlet.
HAMLET
Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak. I’ll go no
further.
GHOST
Mark me.
HAMLET I will.
GHOST My hour is almost come 5
When I to sulf’rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
HAMLET Alas, poor ghost!
GHOST
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold. 10
HAMLET Speak. I am bound to hear.
GHOST
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
HAMLET What?
GHOST I am thy father’s spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night 15
And for the day confined to fast in fires
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word 20
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their
spheres,
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand an end, 25
Like quills upon the fearful porpentine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—
HAMLET O God! 30
GHOST
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
HAMLET Murder?
GHOST
Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
HAMLET
Haste me to know ’t, that I, with wings as swift 35
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.
GHOST I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, 40
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.
’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgèd process of my death
Rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, 45
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.
HAMLET O, my prophetic soul! My uncle!
GHOST
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wits, with traitorous gifts— 50
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.
O Hamlet, what a falling off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity 55
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
To those of mine.
But virtue, as it never will be moved, 60
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So, lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
But soft, methinks I scent the morning air. 65
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole
With juice of cursèd hebona in a vial
And in the porches of my ears did pour 70
The leprous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigor it doth posset 75
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine,
And a most instant tetter barked about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body. 80
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,
Cut off, even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,
No reck’ning made, but sent to my account 85
With all my imperfections on my head.
O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damnèd incest. 90
But, howsomever thou pursues this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once. 95
The glowworm shows the matin to be near
And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me.He exits.
HAMLET
O all you host of heaven! O Earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? O fie! Hold, hold, my heart, 100
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory 105
I’ll wipe away all trivial, fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain, 110
Unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down
That one may smile and smile and be a villain. 115
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
He writes.
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word.
It is “adieu, adieu, remember me.”
I have sworn ’t.
Enter Horatio and Marcellus.
HORATIO My lord, my lord! 120
MARCELLUS Lord Hamlet.
HORATIO Heavens secure him!
HAMLET So be it.
MARCELLUS Illo, ho, ho, my lord!
HAMLET Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come! 125
MARCELLUS
How is ’t, my noble lord?
HORATIO What news, my lord?
HAMLET O, wonderful!
HORATIO
Good my lord, tell it.
HAMLET No, you will reveal it. 130
HORATIO
Not I, my lord, by heaven.
MARCELLUS Nor I, my lord.
HAMLET
How say you, then? Would heart of man once think
it?
But you’ll be secret? 135
HORATIO/MARCELLUS Ay, by heaven, my lord.
HAMLET
There’s never a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave.
HORATIO
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this. 140
HAMLET Why, right, you are in the right.
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part,
You, as your business and desire shall point you
(For every man hath business and desire, 145
Such as it is), and for my own poor part,
I will go pray.
HORATIO
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
HAMLET
I am sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes, faith, heartily. 150
HORATIO There’s no offense, my lord.
HAMLET
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offense, too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost—that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us, 155
O’ermaster ’t as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.
HORATIO What is ’t, my lord? We will.
HAMLET
Never make known what you have seen tonight. 160
HORATIO/MARCELLUS My lord, we will not.
HAMLET Nay, but swear ’t.
HORATIO In faith, my lord, not I.
MARCELLUS Nor I, my lord, in faith.
HAMLET
Upon my sword. 165
MARCELLUS We have sworn, my lord, already.
HAMLET Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
GHOST cries under the stage Swear.
HAMLET
Ha, ha, boy, sayst thou so? Art thou there,
truepenny? 170
Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Consent to swear.
HORATIO Propose the oath, my lord.
HAMLET
Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword. 175
GHOST, beneath Swear.
HAMLET
Hic et ubique? Then we’ll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword.
Swear by my sword 180
Never to speak of this that you have heard.
GHOST, beneath Swear by his sword.
HAMLET
Well said, old mole. Canst work i’ th’ earth so fast?—
A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.
HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange. 185
HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come.
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd some’er I bear myself 190
(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on)
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumbered thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, 195
As “Well, well, we know,” or “We could an if we
would,”
Or “If we list to speak,” or “There be an if they
might,”
Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note 200
That you know aught of me—this do swear,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you.
GHOST, beneath Swear.
HAMLET
Rest, rest, perturbèd spirit.—So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you, 205
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t’ express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite 210
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.
They exit.
