SCENE II. A room of state in the castle. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark  Shakespeare homepage  |  Hamlet  | Act 1, Scene 2 

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 Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET,  POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants  KING CLAUDIUS  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 to this warlike state, 

 Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,-- 

 With an auspicious and a 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 dispatch 

 You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand, 

 For bearers of this greeting to old Norway; 

 Giving to you no further personal power 

 To business with the king, more than the scope 

 Of these delated articles allow. 

 Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty. 

 CORNELIUS  VOLTIMAND  In that and all things will we show our duty. 

 KING CLAUDIUS  We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell. 



 Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS  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 loose 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, 

 The hand more instrumental to the mouth, 

 Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father. 

 What wouldst thou have, Laertes? 

 LAERTES  My dread lord, 

 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 toward France 

 And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. 

 KING CLAUDIUS  Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius? 

 LORD POLONIUS  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 CLAUDIUS  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,-- 

 HAMLET  [Aside]  A little more than kin, and less than kind. 

 KING CLAUDIUS  How is it that the clouds still hang on you? 

 HAMLET  Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun. 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted 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 'tis common; all that lives must die, 

 Passing through nature to eternity. 

 HAMLET  Ay, madam, it is common. 

 QUEEN GERTRUDE  If it be, 

 Why seems it so particular with thee? 

 HAMLET  Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.' 

 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 

 Nor customary suits of solemn black, 

 Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, 

 No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 

 Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, 

 Together with all forms, moods, shapes 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 CLAUDIUS  'Tis 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; 'tis 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? Fie! 'tis 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 

 Than that which dearest father bears his son, 

 Do I impart toward 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 GERTRUDE  Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet: 

 I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg. 

 HAMLET  I shall in all my best obey you, madam. 

 KING CLAUDIUS  Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply: 

 Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come; 

 This gentle and unforced 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 all bruit again, 

 Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away. 



 Exeunt all but HAMLET  HAMLET  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! God! 

 How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, 

 Seem to me all the uses of this world! 

 Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis 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, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, 

 Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle, 

 My father's brother, but no more like my father 

 Than I to Hercules: within a month: 

 Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears 

 Had left the flushing in 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, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO  HORATIO  Hail to your lordship! 

 HAMLET  I am glad to see you well: 

 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: 

 And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus? 

 MARCELLUS  My good lord-- 

 HAMLET  I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir. 

 But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? 

 HORATIO  A truant disposition, good my lord. 

 HAMLET  I would not hear 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. 

 HORATIO  My lord, I came to see your father's funeral. 

 HAMLET  I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student; 

 I think it was to see my mother's wedding. 

 HORATIO  Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon. 

 HAMLET  Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats 

 Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 

 Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven 

 Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio! 

 My father!--methinks I see my father. 

 HORATIO  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, 

 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 awhile 

 With an attent ear, till I may deliver, 

 Upon the witness of these gentlemen, 

 This marvel to you. 

 HAMLET  For God's love, let me hear. 

 HORATIO  Two nights together had these gentlemen, 

 Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, 

 In the dead vast and middle of the night, 

 Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father, 

 Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe, 

 Appears before them, and with solemn march 

 Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd 

 By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes, 

 Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distilled 

 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. 

 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; 

 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. 

 HAMLET  'Tis very strange. 

 HORATIO  As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true; 

 And we did think it writ down in our duty 

 To let you know of it. 

 HAMLET  Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. 

 Hold you the watch to-night? 

 MARCELLUS  BERNARDO  We do, my lord. 

 HAMLET  Arm'd, say you? 

 MARCELLUS  BERNARDO  Arm'd, my lord. 

 HAMLET  From top to toe? 

 MARCELLUS  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 amazed you. 

 HAMLET  Very like, very like. Stay'd it long? 

 HORATIO  While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. 

 MARCELLUS  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, 

 A sable silver'd. 

 HAMLET  I will watch to-night; 

 Perchance 'twill walk again. 

 HORATIO  I warrant it will. 

 HAMLET  If it assume my noble father's person, 

 I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape 

 And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, 

 If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight, 

 Let it be tenable in your silence still; 

 And whatsoever else shall hap to-night, 

 Give it an understanding, but no tongue: 

 I will requite your loves. So, fare you well: 

 Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve, 

 I'll visit you. 

 All  Our duty to your honour. 

 HAMLET  Your loves, as mine to you: farewell. 



 Exeunt all but HAMLET  My father's spirit in arms! all is not well; 

 I doubt some foul play: would the night were come! 

 Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise, 

 Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. 



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