    Hamlet: The Prince of Denmark
	by William Shakespeare

Act I
Scene I


                            [FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BARNARDO]
 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. 
 FRANCISCO 
                            I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there? 
  
                            [Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS] 
 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? 
 FRANCISCO 
                            Barnardo has 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. 
 MARCELLUS 
                            What, has this thing appear'd again to-night? 
 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 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,   
                            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 to 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 it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. 
 HORATIO 
                            Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder. 
 BARNARDO 
                            It would be spoke to. 
 MARCELLUS 
                            Question 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 armour 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 my 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-labourer 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,   
                            Dared 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 heraldry,   
                            Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands   
                            Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:   
                            Against the which, a moiety competent   
                            Was gaged by our king; which had return'd   
                            To the inheritance of Fortinbras,   
                            Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,   
                            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 fierce 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.--   
                            But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again! 
  
                            [Enter GHOST] 
  
                            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: 
  
                            [Cock crows] 
  
                            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, you spirits oft walk in death,   
                            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. 
 BARNARDO 
                            'Tis here! 
 HORATIO 
                            'Tis here! 
  
                            [Exit GHOST] 
 MARCELLUS
                            'Tis gone! 
  
                            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,   
                            The 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,   
                            The bird of dawning singeth all night long:   
                            And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;   
                            The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,   
                            No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,   
                            So hallow'd and so gracious is the 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 to-night   
                            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 conveniently. 
  
                            [Exeunt] 
