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sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 4.

HORATIO, friend to Hamlet.

Appears, Act I. se. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act III. sc. 2. Act IV.
sc. 5; sc. 6. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2.
LAERTES, son to Polonius.

Appears, Act I. sc. 2; sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 5; sc. 6. Act V. sc. 1;

sc. 2.

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BERNARDO, an officer.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 2.
FRANCISCO, a soldier.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1.

REYNALDO, servant to Polonius.
Appears, Act II. sc. 1.
A Captain.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 4.

An Ambassador.
Appears, Act V. sc. 2.

Ghost of Hamlet's Father.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act III. sc. 4.
FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.
Act V. sc. 2.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 4.
GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, and mother of Hamlet
Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 2. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. .
Act IV. sc.; sc. 5; sc. 6. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 2.
OPHELIA, daughter of Polonius.

Appears, Act 1. sc. 3. Act II. sc. 1. Act III. sc. 1; sc. 2.
IV. sc. 5.

Act

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Grave. diggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, ELSINORE.

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Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.

Ber. "T is now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Fran-
cisco.

Fran. For this relief, much thanks: 't is bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.

Ber. Have you had quiet guard?
Fran.

Ber. Well, good night.

What, is Horatio there?

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.
Mar. What, has this thing appear'd agai

night?

Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says, 't is but our fantasy;
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us :

Not a mouse stirring. Therefore I have entreated him along

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

tu

With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.
Hor. Tush! tush! 't will not appear.
Sit down awhile;
Ber.
And let us once again assail your ears,
And liegemen to the Dane. That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.
Well, sit we down,
Hor.
And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Ber. Last night of all,

Fran. I think I hear them.-Stand! who is there?
Hor. Friends to this ground.
Mar.

Fran. Give you good night.

Answer me. I, the sentinel, challenge you. Bernardo then gives the answer to the challenge, or watch-word-" Long live the king!"

Reals partners, companions.

This form of expression is an abbreviation of "may God give you good night;" and our "good night" is an abbieviation abbreviated.

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Mar.

Question it, Horatio.

Hor. 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.
Mar. It is offended.

Ber.
See it stalks away.
Hor. Stay; speak: speak I charge thee, speak.
[Exit GHOST.

Mar. "T is gone, and will not answer.
Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look
pale:

Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on 't?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe,
Without the sensible and true avouch

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Mar. Thus, twice before, and just at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Hor. 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.

Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprize
That hath a stomach in 't: which is no other
(And it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsative, 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.

Ber. I think it be no other, but even 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.

Hor. A moth 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 omend coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.

Re-enter GHOST.

But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
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!

Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

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?

Hor.

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 heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd on, 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 cov'nant
And carriage of the article design'd,

His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

Exorcisms were usually performed in Latin-the language of the church-service. b Polacks-Poles.

What might be in preparatum. To-weard, to-ward, is the Anglo-Saxon participle, equivalent to coming, about to come.

Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death.

[Cock cries Speak of it :-stay, and speak.--Stop it, Marcellus. Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partizan? Hor. Do, if it will not stand. Ber.

Hor.

Mar. T is gone!

"T is here!

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.

"T is here! [Exit GHOST

Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. Hor. 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.

Mar. 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 :

a Unimproved. Improve was originally used for reprons b Romage. The stowing of a ship is the roomage," the slower is the romager.

The moist star is the moon. d Omen is here put for "

portentous event."

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And then, they say, no spirit can walk 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.

Hor. 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 eastern 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?

Mar. Let's do 't, I pray and I this morning know Where we shall find him most conveniently. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the

same.

Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, and Lords Attend

ant.

King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green; and that it us befitted

To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 't were, with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye;
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage
In equal scale, weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along:-For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth;
Or thinking, by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,

To our most valiant brother.-So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: We have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose, to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject: and we here despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearing of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power

To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.

Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.
Cor., Vol. In that, and all things, will we show our
duty.

King. We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell. [Exeunt Voi.. and Cox. And now, Laertes, what 's the news with you? You told us of some suit? What is 't, Laertes? You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,

And lose your voice: What wouldst thou beg, Laertes, That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?

The head is not more native to the heart,

• Takes-seizes with disease.

b Ga-progress, the act of going.

Out of his subject-out of those subject to him.

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Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation;

Yet now,
I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again towards France,
And how them to your gracious leave and pardon.
King. Have you your father's leave? What says
Polonius?

Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave,
By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,-
Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind."

[Aside. King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Ham. Not so, my lord, I am too much i' the sun. Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Thou know'st, 't is common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity. Ham. Ay, madam, it is common. Queen.

If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems.
'T is not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: These, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
King. "T is sweet and commendable in your nature,
Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: But to persever
In obstinate condolement, is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 't is unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what, we know, must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fye! 't is a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse, till he that died to-day,
"This must be so." We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe; and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And, with no less nobility of love,

The King has called him "my cousin Hamlet." He says, in a suppressed toue, "A little more than kin"-a little more than cousin. The King adds, "and my son." Hamlet says, "less than kind;"-I am little of the same nature with you. Kind is constantly used in the sense of nature by Ben Jonson and other contemporaries of Shakspere.

b Obsequious sorrow-funereal sorrow,-from obsequies.

Than that which dearest father bears nis son,
Do I impart towards you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And, we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet; I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
King. Why, 't is a loving and a fair reply;
Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come;
This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;
And the king's rouse the heavens shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Ex. KING, QUEEN, Lords, &c., POL., and LAERTES. Ham. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seems to me all the uses of this world!
Fye on 't! O fye! 't is an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead!-nay, not so much, not two;
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,-
Let me not think on 't;-Frailty, thy name is woman!-
A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears, why she, even she,-

O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason," Would have mourn'd longer, married with mine uncle,

My father's brother; but no inore like my father,
Than I to Hercules: Within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She married :-O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets;
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good;

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS.
Hor. Hail to your lordship!
Ham.

I am glad to see you well:
Horatio, or I do forget myself.
Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
Ham. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name

with you. And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?Marcellus?

Mar. My good lord,

.

Ham. I am very glad to see you; good even, sir,But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord. Ham. I would not have your enemy say so; Nor shall you do mine ear that violence, To make it truster of your own report Against yourself: I know, you are no truant. But what is your affair in Elsinore? We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart.

a Discourse of reason is the discursion of reason-the faculty of pursuing a train of thought, or of passing from one thought

to another.

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Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio.
Hor. I saw him once, he was a goodly king.
Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Ham. Saw! who?

Hor. My lord, the king your father.
Ham.

The king my father!
Hor. Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear; till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

Ham.
For heaven's love, let me hear.
Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Arm'd at all points, exactly, cap-à-pé,
Appears before them, and, with solemn march,
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd,
By their oppress'd and fear-surprized eyes,
Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, bestill'd
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them the third night kept the watch:
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.

Ham.

But where was this! Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watch d Ham. Did you not speak to it?

Hor.

My lord, I did:
But answer made it none: yet once, methought,
It lifted up
its head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak:
But, even then, the morning cock crew loud;
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish'd from our sight.

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Oph. No more but so? Laer.

a

Think it no more:
For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
In thews, and bulk; but, as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps, he loves you now;
And now no soil, nor cautel, doth besmirch
The virtue of his will: but, you must fear,
His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The sanctity and health of the whole state;

And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd

Unto the voice and yielding of that body,

Whereof he is the head: Then if he says, he loves you, It fits your wisdom so far to believe it,

As he in his peculiar sect and force

May give his saying deed; which is no further,

Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,

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If with too credent ear you list his

songs; Or lose your heart; or your chaste treasure open To his unmaster'd importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
And keep within the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes :
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then best safety lies in fear;
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

Oph. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, As watchmen to my heart: But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.b

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I stay too long;-But here my father comes.
Enter POLONIUS.

A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

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Pol. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame;
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are staid for. There, my blessing with you'
[Laying his hand on LAERTES' head
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,
Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:

For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,-To thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Pol. The time invites you; go, your servants tend.
Laer. Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
What I have said to you.
Oph.
'T is in my memory lock'd,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laer. Farewell.

[Exit LAERTES. Pol. What is 't, Ophelia, he hath said to you? Oph. So please you, something touching the lord

Hamlet.

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Chief. Chef, literally the head, here signifies eminence, superiority. Those of the best rank and station are of a not select and generous superiority in the indication of their dignity by their apparel.

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