Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 1
Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.
Bernardo : Who's there?
Francisco : Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.
Bernardo : Long live the King!
Francisco : Bernardo?
Bernardo : He.
Francisco : You come most carefully upon your hour.
Bernardo : 'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.
Francisco : For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold,
[p]And I am sick at
heart.
Bernardo : Have you had quiet guard?
Francisco : Not a mouse stirring.
Bernardo : Well, good night.
[p]If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
[p]The
rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
Francisco : I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?
Horatio : Friends to this ground.
Marcellus : And liegemen to the Dane.
Francisco : Give you good night.
Marcellus : O, farewell, honest soldier.
[p]Who hath reliev'd you?
Francisco : Bernardo hath my place.
[p]Give you good night. Exit.
Marcellus : Holla, Bernardo!
Bernardo : Say-
[p]What, is Horatio there ?
Horatio : A piece of him.
Bernardo : Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.
Marcellus : What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
Bernardo : I have seen nothing.
Marcellus : Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
[p]And will not let belief take
hold of him
[p]Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of
us.
[p]Therefore I have entreated him along,
[p]With us to watch the
minutes of this night,
[p]That, if again this apparition come,
[p]He
may approve our eyes and speak to it.
Horatio : Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
Bernardo : Sit down awhile,
[p]And let us once again assail your ears,
[p]That
are so fortified against our story,
[p]What we two nights have seen.
Horatio : Well, sit we down,
[p]And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Bernardo : Last night of all,
[p]When yond same star that's westward from the
pole
[p]Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven
[p]Where now
it burns, Marcellus and myself,
[p]The bell then beating one-
Marcellus : Peace! break thee off! Look where it comes again!
Bernardo : In the same figure, like the King that's dead.
Marcellus : Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
Bernardo : Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
Horatio : Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
Bernardo : It would be spoke to.
Marcellus : Question it, Horatio.
Horatio : What art thou that usurp'st this time of night
[p]Together with that
fair and warlike form
[p]In which the majesty of buried Denmark
[p]Did
sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak!
Marcellus : It is offended.
Bernardo : See, it stalks away!
Horatio : Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak!
Marcellus : 'Tis gone and will not answer.
Bernardo : How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.
[p]Is not this something
more than fantasy?
[p]What think you on't?
Horatio : Before my God, I might not this believe
[p]Without the sensible and
true avouch
[p]Of mine own eyes.
Marcellus : Is it not like the King?
Horatio : As thou art to thyself.
[p]Such was the very armour he had on
[p]When
he th' ambitious Norway combated.
[p]So frown'd he once when, in an
angry parle,
[p]He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
[p]'Tis
strange.
Marcellus : Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
[p]With martial stalk
hath he gone by our watch.
Horatio : In what particular thought to work I know not;
[p]But, in the gross
and scope of my opinion,
[p]This bodes some strange eruption to our
state.
Marcellus : Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows,
[p]Why this same strict
and most observant watch
[p]So nightly toils the subject of the
land,
[p]And why such daily cast of brazen cannon
[p]And foreign mart
for implements of war;
[p]Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore
task
[p]Does not divide the Sunday from the week.
[p]What might be
toward, that this sweaty haste
[p]Doth make the night joint-labourer
with the day?
[p]Who is't that can inform me?
Horatio : That can I.
[p]At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
[p]Whose
image even but now appear'd to us,
[p]Was, as you know, by Fortinbras
of Norway,
[p]Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
[p]Dar'd to
the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
[p](For so this side of our
known world esteem'd him)
[p]Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a
seal'd compact,
[p]Well ratified by law and heraldry,
[p]Did forfeit,
with his life, all those his lands
[p]Which he stood seiz'd of, to the
conqueror;
[p]Against the which a moiety competent
[p]Was gaged by our
king; which had return'd
[p]To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
[p]Had
he been vanquisher, as, by the same cov'nant
[p]And carriage of the
article design'd,
[p]His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young
Fortinbras,
[p]Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
[p]Hath in the
skirts of Norway, here and there,
[p]Shark'd up a list of lawless
resolutes,
[p]For food and diet, to some enterprise
[p]That hath a
stomach in't; which is no other,
[p]As it doth well appear unto our
state,
[p]But to recover of us, by strong hand
[p]And terms
compulsatory, those foresaid lands
[p]So by his father lost; and this,
I take it,
[p]Is the main motive of our preparations,
[p]The source of
this our watch, and the chief head
[p]Of this post-haste and romage in
the land.
Bernardo : I think it be no other but e'en so.
[p]Well may it sort that this
portentous figure
[p]Comes armed through our watch, so like the
King
[p]That was and is the question of these wars.
Horatio : A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
[p]In the most high and palmy
state of Rome,
[p]A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
[p]The
graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
[p]Did squeak and gibber
in the Roman streets;
[p]As stars with trains of fire, and dews of
blood,
[p]Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
[p]Upon whose
influence Neptune's empire stands
[p]Was sick almost to doomsday with
eclipse.
[p]And even the like precurse of fierce events,
[p]As
harbingers preceding still the fates
[p]And prologue to the omen
coming on,
[p]Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
[p]Unto our
climature and countrymen.
[p][Enter Ghost again.]
[p]But soft! behold!
Lo, where it comes again!
[p]I'll cross it, though it blast me.- Stay
illusion!
[p][Spreads his arms.]
[p]If thou hast any sound, or use of
voice,
[p]Speak to me.
[p]If there be any good thing to be
done,
[p]That may to thee do ease, and, race to me,
[p]Speak to me.
[p]If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
[p]Which happily
foreknowing may avoid,
[p]O, speak!
[p]Or if thou hast uphoarded in
thy life
[p]Extorted treasure in the womb of earth
[p](For which, they
say, you spirits oft walk in death),
[p][The cock crows.]
[p]Speak of
it! Stay, and speak!- Stop it, Marcellus!
Marcellus : Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
Horatio : Do, if it will not stand.
Bernardo : 'Tis here!
Horatio : 'Tis here!
Marcellus : 'Tis gone!
[p][Exit Ghost.]
[p]We do it wrong, being so
majestical,
[p]To offer it the show of violence;
[p]For it is as the
air, invulnerable,
[p]And our vain blows malicious mockery.
Bernardo : It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
Horatio : And then it started, like a guilty thing
[p]Upon a fearful summons. I
have heard
[p]The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
[p]Doth with
his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
[p]Awake the god of day; and at
his warning,
[p]Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
[p]Th'
extravagant and erring spirit hies
[p]To his confine; and of the truth
herein
[p]This present object made probation.
Marcellus : It faded on the crowing of the cock.
[p]Some say that ever, 'gainst
that season comes
[p]Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
[p]The
bird of dawning singeth all night long;
[p]And then, they say, no
spirit dare stir abroad,
[p]The nights are wholesome, then no planets
strike,
[p]No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
[p]So
hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
Horatio : So have I heard and do in part believe it.
[p]But look, the morn, in
russet mantle clad,
[p]Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward
hill.
[p]Break we our watch up; and by my advice
[p]Let us impart
what we have seen to-night
[p]Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my
life,
[p]This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
[p]Do you consent
we shall acquaint him with it,
[p]As needful in our loves, fitting our
duty?
[p]Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
[p]Where we shall
find him most conveniently.
Next: Act 1 - Scene 2
