Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

(Barnardo; Francisco; Horatio; Marcellus; Ghost)

Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels, meeting.

BARNARDO
Who’s there?

FRANCISCO
Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDO
Long live the King!

FRANCISCO
Barnardo.

BARNARDO
He.

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?

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?

HORATIO
Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS
And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO
Give you good night.

MARCELLUS
O, farewell, honest soldier.

Who hath reliev’d you?

FRANCISCO
Barnardo hath my place.

Give you good night.

Exit Francisco.

MARCELLUS
Holla, Barnardo!

BARNARDO
Say—

What, is Horatio there?

HORATIO
A piece of him.

BARNARDO
Welcome, Horatio, welcome, good Marcellus.

HORATIO
What, has this thing appear’d 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;

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.

BARNARDO
Sit down a while,

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,

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,

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
Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.

BARNARDO
Looks ’a not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.

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

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!

HORATIO
Stay! Speak, speak, I charge thee speak!

Exit Ghost.

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?

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.

Such was the very armor 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.

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.

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,

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?

HORATIO
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,

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 heraldy,

Did forfeit (with his life) all those his lands

Which he stood seiz’d of, to the conqueror;

Against the which a moi’ty competent

Was gaged by our king, which had return’d

To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as by the same comart

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

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

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.

BARNARDO
I think it be no other but e’en so.

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.

HORATIO
A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

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

Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

And even the like precurse of fear’d events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates

And prologue to the omen coming on,

Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

Unto our climatures and countrymen.

Enter Ghost.

But soft, behold! Lo where it comes again!

It spreads his arms.

I’ll cross it though it blast me. Stay, illusion!

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.

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,

For which, they say, your spirits oft walk in death,

Speak of it, stay and speak!

The cock crows.

Stop it, Marcellus.

MARCELLUS
Shall I strike it with my partisan?

HORATIO
Do, if it will not stand.

BARNARDO
’Tis here!

HORATIO
’Tis here!

MARCELLUS
’Tis gone!

Exit Ghost.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence,

For it is as the air, invulnerable,

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,

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

This present object made probation.

MARCELLUS
It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,

This bird of dawning singeth all night long,

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.

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,

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.

Exeunt.