shows.vtheatre.net/hamlet
Enter BARNARDO and FRANCISCO,
two sentinels, [meeting].
BARNARDO
1 Who's there?
FRANCISCO
2 Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.
BARNARDO
3 Long live the king!
FRANCISCO
4 Barnardo?
BARNARDO
5 He.
FRANCISCO
6 You come most carefully upon your hour.
BARNARDO
7 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO
8 For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
9 And I am sick at heart.
BARNARDO
10 Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO
10 Not a mouse stirring.
BARNARDO
11 Well, good night.
12 If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
13 The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
FRANCISCO
14 I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?
Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
HORATIO
15 Friends to this ground.
MARCELLUS
15 And liegemen to the Dane.
FRANCISCO
16 Give you good night.
MARCELLUS
16 O, farewell, honest soldier:
17 Who hath relieved you?
FRANCISCO
17 Barnardo has my place.
18 Give you good night.
Exit Francisco.
MARCELLUS
18 Holla! Barnardo!
BARNARDO
18 Say—
19 What, is Horatio there?
HORATIO
19 A piece of him.
BARNARDO
20 Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.
HORATIO
21 What, has this thing appear'd again tonight?
BARNARDO
22 I have seen nothing.
MARCELLUS
23 Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
24 And will not let belief take hold of him
25 Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
26 Therefore I have entreated him along
27 With us to watch the minutes of this night;
28 That if again this apparition come,
29 He may approve our eyes and speak to it.
HORATIO
30 Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
BARNARDO
30 Sit down awhile;
31 And let us once again assail your ears,
32 That are so fortified against our story
33 What we have two nights seen.
HORATIO
33 Well, sit we down,
34 And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.
BARNARDO
35 Last night of all,
36 When yond same star that's westward from the pole
37 Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
38 Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
39 The bell then beating one—
Summary
Enter Ghost.
MARCELLUS
40 Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!
BARNARDO
41 In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
MARCELLUS
42 Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
BARNARDO
43 Looks 'a not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
HORATIO
44 Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.
BARNARDO
45 It would be spoke to.
MARCELLUS
45 Speak to it, Horatio.
HORATIO
46 What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
47 Together with that fair and warlike form
48 In which the majesty of buried Denmark
49 Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!
MARCELLUS
50 It is offended.
BARNARDO
50 See, it stalks away!
HORATIO
51 Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!
Exit Ghost.
MARCELLUS
52 'Tis gone, and will not answer.
BARNARDO
53 How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
54 Is not this something more than fantasy?
55 What think you on't?
HORATIO
56 Before my God, I might not this believe
57 Without the sensible and true avouch
58 Of mine own eyes.
MARCELLUS
58 Is it not like the king?
HORATIO
59 As thou art to thyself:
60 Such was the very armour he had on
61 When he the ambitious Norway combated;
62 So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
63 He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
64 'Tis strange.
MARCELLUS
65 Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
66 With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
HORATIO
67 In what particular thought to work I know not;
68 But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
69 This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
MARCELLUS
70 Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
71 Why this same strict and most observant watch
72 So nightly toils the subject of the land,
73 And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
74 And foreign mart for implements of war;
75 Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
76 Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
77 What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
78 Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
79 Who is't that can inform me?
HORATIO
79 That can I;
80 At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
81 Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
82 Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
83 Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
84 Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet—
85 For so this side of our known world esteem'd him—
86 Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
87 Well ratified by law and heraldry,
88 Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
89 Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
90 Against the which, a moiety competent
91 Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
92 To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
93 Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
94 And carriage of the article design'd,
95 His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
96 Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
97 Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
98 Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
99 For food and diet, to some enterprise
100 That hath a stomach in't; which is no other—
101 As it doth well appear unto our state—
102 But to recover of us, by strong hand
103 And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
104 So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
105 Is the main motive of our preparations,
106 The source of this our watch and the chief head
107 Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
BARNARDO
108 I think it be no other but e'en so:
109 Well may it sort that this portentous figure
110 Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
111 That was and is the question of these wars.
HORATIO
112 A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
113 In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
114 A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
115 The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
116 Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
117 As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
118 Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
119 Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
120 Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
121 And even the like precurse of fierce events,
122 As harbingers preceding still the fates
123 And prologue to the omen coming on,
124 Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
125 Unto our climatures and countrymen.—
Enter GHOST.
126 But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
Summary
It spreads his arms.
127 I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
128 If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
129 Speak to me:
130 If there be any good thing to be done,
131 That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
132 Speak to me:
133 If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
134 Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
135 O, speak!
136 Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
137 Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
138 For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
The cock crows.
139 Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS
140 Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
HORATIO
141 Do, if it will not stand.
BARNARDO
141 'Tis here!
HORATIO
141 'Tis here!
MARCELLUS
142 'Tis gone!
Summary
[Exit Ghost.]
143 We do it wrong, being so majestical,
144 To offer it the show of violence;
145 For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
146 And our vain blows malicious mockery.
BARNARDO
147 It was about to speak when the cock crew.
HORATIO
148 And then it started like a guilty thing
149 Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
150 The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
151 Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
152 Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
153 Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
154 The extravagant and erring spirit hies
155 To his confine: and of the truth herein
156 This present object made probation.
MARCELLUS
157 It faded on the crowing of the cock.
158 Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
159 Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
160 The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
161 And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
162 The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
163 No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
164 So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
HORATIO
165 So have I heard and do in part believe it.
166 But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
167 Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
168 Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
169 Let us impart what we have seen to-night
170 Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
171 This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
172 Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
173 As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
MARCELLUS
174 Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
175 Where we shall find him most conveniently.
Exeunt.
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