SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark  Shakespeare homepage  |  Hamlet  | Act 1, Scene 1 

 Next scene  SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle. 

 FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO  BERNARDO  Who's there? 

 FRANCISCO  Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself. 

 BERNARDO  Long live the king! 

 FRANCISCO  Bernardo? 

 BERNARDO  He. 

 FRANCISCO  You come most carefully upon your hour. 

 BERNARDO  'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. 

 FRANCISCO  For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, 

 And I am sick at heart. 

 BERNARDO  Have you had quiet guard? 

 FRANCISCO  Not a mouse stirring. 

 BERNARDO  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  Bernardo has my place. 

 Give you good night. 



 Exit  MARCELLUS  Holla! Bernardo! 

 BERNARDO  Say, 

 What, is Horatio there? 

 HORATIO  A piece of him. 

 BERNARDO  Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus. 

 MARCELLUS  What, has this thing appear'd again to-night? 

 BERNARDO  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. 

 BERNARDO  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 Bernardo speak of this. 

 BERNARDO  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! 

 BERNARDO  In the same figure, like the king that's dead. 

 MARCELLUS  Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. 

 BERNARDO  Looks it not like the king?  mark it, Horatio. 

 HORATIO  Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder. 

 BERNARDO  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. 

 BERNARDO  See, it stalks away! 

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



 Exit Ghost  MARCELLUS  'Tis gone, and will not answer. 

 BERNARDO  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. 

 BERNARDO  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! 



 Re-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. 

 BERNARDO  '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. 

 BERNARDO  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. 



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