Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 2
Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.
Claudius : Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
[p]The memory be green,
and that it us befitted
[p]To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole
kingdom
[p]To be contracted in one brow of woe,
[p]Yet so far hath
discretion fought with nature
[p]That we with wisest sorrow think on
him
[p]Together with remembrance of ourselves.
[p]Therefore our
sometime sister, now our queen,
[p]Th' imperial jointress to this
warlike state,
[p]Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,
[p]With an
auspicious, and a dropping eye,
[p]With mirth in funeral, and with
dirge in marriage,
[p]In equal scale weighing delight and
dole,
[p]Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr'd
[p]Your better
wisdoms, which have freely gone
[p]With this affair along. For all,
our thanks.
[p]Now follows, that you know, young
Fortinbras,
[p]Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
[p]Or thinking by
our late dear brother's death
[p]Our state to be disjoint and out of
frame,
[p]Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
[p]He hath not
fail'd to pester us with message
[p]Importing the surrender of those
lands
[p]Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
[p]To our most
valiant brother. So much for him.
[p]Now for ourself and for this time
of meeting.
[p]Thus much the business is: we have here writ
[p]To
Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
[p]Who, impotent and bedrid,
scarcely hears
[p]Of this his nephew's purpose, to suppress
[p]His
further gait herein, in that the levies,
[p]The lists, and full
proportions are all made
[p]Out of his subject; and we here
dispatch
[p]You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
[p]For bearers of
this greeting to old Norway,
[p]Giving to you no further personal
power
[p]To business with the King, more than the scope
[p]Of these
dilated articles allow. [Gives a paper.]
[p]Farewell, and let your
haste commend your duty.
Cornelius : [with Voltemand] In that, and all things, will we show our duty.
Claudius : We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.
[p][Exeunt Voltemand and
Cornelius.]
[p]And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
[p]You told
us of some suit. What is't, Laertes?
[p]You cannot speak of reason to
the Dane
[p]And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg,
Laertes,
[p]That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
[p]The head is
not more native to the heart,
[p]The hand more instrumental to the
mouth,
[p]Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
[p]What wouldst
thou have, Laertes?
Laertes : My dread lord,
[p]Your leave and favour to return to France;
[p]From
whence though willingly I came to Denmark
[p]To show my duty in your
coronation,
[p]Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
[p]My thoughts
and wishes bend again toward France
[p]And bow them to your gracious
leave and pardon.
Claudius : Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
Polonius : He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
[p]By laboursome
petition, and at last
[p]Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent.
[p]I
do beseech you give him leave to go.
Claudius : Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,
[p]And thy best graces
spend it at thy will!
[p]But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-
Hamlet : [aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind!
Claudius : How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Hamlet : Not so, my lord. I am too much i' th' sun.
Gertrude : Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
[p]And let thine eye look
like a friend on Denmark.
[p]Do not for ever with thy vailed
lids
[p]Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
[p]Thou know'st 'tis
common. All that lives must die,
[p]Passing through nature to
eternity.
Hamlet : Ay, madam, it is common.
Gertrude : If it be,
[p]Why seems it so particular with thee?
Hamlet : Seems, madam, Nay, it is. I know not 'seems.'
[p]'Tis not alone my
inky cloak, good mother,
[p]Nor customary suits of solemn
black,
[p]Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
[p]No, nor the
fruitful river in the eye,
[p]Nor the dejected havior of the
visage,
[p]Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
[p]'That
can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
[p]For they are actions that a
man might play;
[p]But I have that within which passeth show-
[p]These
but the trappings and the suits of woe.
Claudius : 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
[p]To give these
mourning duties to your father;
[p]But you must know, your father lost
a father;
[p]That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
[p]In
filial obligation for some term
[p]To do obsequious sorrow. But to
persever
[p]In obstinate condolement is a course
[p]Of impious
stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief;
[p]It shows a will most incorrect to
heaven,
[p]A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
[p]An understanding
simple and unschool'd;
[p]For what we know must be, and is as
common
[p]As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
[p]Why should we in
our peevish opposition
[p]Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to
heaven,
[p]A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
[p]To reason
most absurd, whose common theme
[p]Is death of fathers, and who still
hath cried,
[p]From the first corse till he that died to-day,
[p]'This
must be so.' We pray you throw to earth
[p]This unprevailing woe, and
think of us
[p]As of a father; for let the world take note
[p]You are
the most immediate to our throne,
[p]And with no less nobility of
love
[p]Than that which dearest father bears his son
[p]Do I impart
toward you. For your intent
[p]In going back to school in
Wittenberg,
[p]It is most retrograde to our desire;
[p]And we beseech
you, bend you to remain
[p]Here in the cheer and comfort of our
eye,
[p]Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Gertrude : Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
[p]I pray thee stay with
us, go not to Wittenberg.
Hamlet : I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
Claudius : Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.
[p]Be as ourself in Denmark.
Madam, come.
[p]This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
[p]Sits
smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
[p]No jocund health that
Denmark drinks to-day
[p]But the great cannon to the clouds shall
tell,
[p]And the King's rouse the heaven shall bruit
again,
[p]Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.
Hamlet : O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
[p]Thaw, and resolve
itself into a dew!
[p]Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
[p]His
canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
[p]How weary, stale, flat,
and unprofitable
[p]Seem to me all the uses of this world!
[p]Fie
on't! ah, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
[p]That grows to seed; things
rank and gross in nature
[p]Possess it merely. That it should come to
this!
[p]But two months dead! Nay, not so much, not two.
[p]So
excellent a king, that was to this
[p]Hyperion to a satyr; so loving
to my mother
[p]That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
[p]Visit
her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
[p]Must I remember? Why, she
would hang on him
[p]As if increase of appetite had grown
[p]By what
it fed on; and yet, within a month-
[p]Let me not think on't! Frailty,
thy name is woman!-
[p]A little month, or ere those shoes were
old
[p]With which she followed my poor father's body
[p]Like Niobe,
all tears- why she, even she
[p](O God! a beast that wants discourse
of reason
[p]Would have mourn'd longer) married with my uncle;
[p]My
father's brother, but no more like my father
[p]Than I to Hercules.
Within a month,
[p]Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
[p]Had
left the flushing in her galled eyes,
[p]She married. O, most wicked
speed, to post
[p]With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
[p]It is
not, nor it cannot come to good.
[p]But break my heart, for I must
hold my tongue!
Horatio : Hail to your lordship!
Hamlet : I am glad to see you well.
[p]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.
[p]And what make
you from Wittenberg, Horatio?
[p]Marcellus?
Marcellus : My good lord!
Hamlet : I am very glad to see you.- [To Bernardo] Good even, sir.-
[p]But
what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Horatio : A truant disposition, good my lord.
Hamlet : I would not hear your enemy say so,
[p]Nor shall you do my ear that
violence
[p]To make it truster of your own report
[p]Against yourself.
I know you are no truant.
[p]But what is your affair in
Elsinore?
[p]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.
[p]I think it was to see my
mother's wedding.
Horatio : Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.
Hamlet : Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats
[p]Did coldly furnish
forth the marriage tables.
[p]Would I had met my dearest foe in
heaven
[p]Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
[p]My father- methinks
I see my father.
Horatio : O, 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.
[p]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?
Horatio : Season your admiration for a while
[p]With an attent ear, till I may
deliver
[p]Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
[p]This marvel to
you.
Hamlet : For God's love let me hear!
Horatio : Two nights together had these gentlemen
[p](Marcellus and Bernardo) on
their watch
[p]In the dead vast and middle of the night
[p]Been thus
encount'red. A figure like your father,
[p]Armed at point exactly,
cap-a-pe,
[p]Appears before them and with solemn march
[p]Goes slow
and stately by them. Thrice he walk'd
[p]By their oppress'd and
fear-surprised eyes,
[p]Within his truncheon's length; whilst they
distill'd
[p]Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
[p]Stand dumb and
speak not to him. This to me
[p]In dreadful secrecy impart they
did,
[p]And I with them the third night kept the watch;
[p]Where, as
they had deliver'd, both in time,
[p]Form of the thing, each word made
true and good,
[p]The apparition comes. I knew your father.
[p]These
hands are not more like.
Hamlet : But where was this?
Marcellus : My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.
Hamlet : Did you not speak to it?
Horatio : My lord, I did;
[p]But answer made it none. Yet once methought
[p]It
lifted up it head and did address
[p]Itself to motion, like as it
would speak;
[p]But even then the morning cock crew loud,
[p]And at
the sound it shrunk in haste away
[p]And vanish'd from our sight.
Hamlet : 'Tis very strange.
Horatio : As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
[p]And we did think it
writ down in our duty
[p]To let you know of it.
Hamlet : Indeed, indeed, sirs. But this troubles me.
[p]Hold you the watch
to-night?
Marcellus : [with Bernardo] We do, my lord.
Hamlet : Arm'd, say you?
Marcellus : [with Bernardo] Arm'd, my lord.
Hamlet : From top to toe?
Marcellus : [with Bernardo] My lord, from head to foot.
Hamlet : Then saw you not his face?
Horatio : O, yes, my lord! He wore his beaver up.
Hamlet : What, look'd he frowningly.
Horatio : A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
Hamlet : Pale or red?
Horatio : Nay, very pale.
Hamlet : And fix'd his eyes upon you?
Horatio : Most constantly.
Hamlet : I would I had been there.
Horatio : It would have much amaz'd you.
Hamlet : Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?
Horatio : While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
Marcellus : [with Bernardo] 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,
[p]A sable silver'd.
Hamlet : I will watch to-night.
[p]Perchance 'twill walk again.
Horatio : I warr'nt it will.
Hamlet : If it assume my noble father's person,
[p]I'll speak to it, though
hell itself should gape
[p]And bid me hold my peace. I pray you
all,
[p]If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
[p]Let it be
tenable in your silence still;
[p]And whatsoever else shall hap
to-night,
[p]Give it an understanding but no tongue.
[p]I will requite
your loves. So, fare you well.
[p]Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and
twelve,
[p]I'll visit you.
All : Our duty to your honour.
Hamlet : Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
[p][Exeunt [all but
Hamlet].]
[p]My father's spirit- in arms? All is not well.
[p]I doubt
some foul play. Would the night were come!
[p]Till then sit still, my
soul. Foul deeds will rise,
[p]Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to
men's eyes.
Previous: Act 1 - Scene 1
Next: Act 1 - Scene 3
