SCENE IV. The platform. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark  Shakespeare homepage  |  Hamlet  | Act 1, Scene 4 

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 Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS  HAMLET  The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. 

 HORATIO  It is a nipping and an eager air. 

 HAMLET  What hour now? 

 HORATIO  I think it lacks of twelve. 

 HAMLET  No, it is struck. 

 HORATIO  Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season 

 Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. 



 A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within  What does this mean, my lord? 

 HAMLET  The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, 

 Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels; 

 And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, 

 The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out 

 The triumph of his pledge. 

 HORATIO  Is it a custom? 

 HAMLET  Ay, marry, is't: 

 But to my mind, though I am native here 

 And to the manner born, it is a custom 

 More honour'd in the breach than the observance. 

 This heavy-headed revel east and west 

 Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations: 

 They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase 

 Soil our addition; and indeed it takes 

 From our achievements, though perform'd at height, 

 The pith and marrow of our attribute. 

 So, oft it chances in particular men, 

 That for some vicious mole of nature in them, 

 As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty, 

 Since nature cannot choose his origin-- 

 By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, 

 Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, 

 Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens 

 The form of plausive manners, that these men, 

 Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, 

 Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,-- 

 Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace, 

 As infinite as man may undergo-- 

 Shall in the general censure take corruption 

 From that particular fault: the dram of eale 

 Doth all the noble substance of a doubt 

 To his own scandal. 

 HORATIO  Look, my lord, it comes! 



 Enter Ghost  HAMLET  Angels and ministers of grace defend us! 

 Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd, 

 Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, 

 Be thy intents wicked or charitable, 

 Thou comest in such a questionable shape 

 That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet, 

 King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me! 

 Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell 

 Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, 

 Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, 

 Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, 

 Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws, 

 To cast thee up again. What may this mean, 

 That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel 

 Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, 

 Making night hideous; and we fools of nature 

 So horridly to shake our disposition 

 With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? 

 Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do? 



 Ghost beckons HAMLET  HORATIO  It beckons you to go away with it, 

 As if it some impartment did desire 

 To you alone. 

 MARCELLUS  Look, with what courteous action 

 It waves you to a more removed ground: 

 But do not go with it. 

 HORATIO  No, by no means. 

 HAMLET  It will not speak; then I will follow it. 

 HORATIO  Do not, my lord. 

 HAMLET  Why, what should be the fear? 

 I do not set my life in a pin's fee; 

 And for my soul, what can it do to that, 

 Being a thing immortal as itself? 

 It waves me forth again: I'll follow it. 

 HORATIO  What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, 

 Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff 

 That beetles o'er his base into the sea, 

 And there assume some other horrible form, 

 Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason 

 And draw you into madness? think of it: 

 The very place puts toys of desperation, 

 Without more motive, into every brain 

 That looks so many fathoms to the sea 

 And hears it roar beneath. 

 HAMLET  It waves me still. 

 Go on; I'll follow thee. 

 MARCELLUS  You shall not go, my lord. 

 HAMLET  Hold off your hands. 

 HORATIO  Be ruled; you shall not go. 

 HAMLET  My fate cries out, 

 And makes each petty artery in this body 

 As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve. 

 Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen. 

 By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me! 

 I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee. 



 Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET  HORATIO  He waxes desperate with imagination. 

 MARCELLUS  Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him. 

 HORATIO  Have after. To what issue will this come? 

 MARCELLUS  Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 

 HORATIO  Heaven will direct it. 

 MARCELLUS  Nay, let's follow him. 



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