O, farewell, honest soldier: who hath reliev'd you
Bernardo hath my place; give you good night.
Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.
What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
I have seen nothing.
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.
Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
Sit down a while, I pray,
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we have two nights seen.
And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
When yond same star that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course t'illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one-
Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again.
In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
Most like; it horrors me with fear and wonder.
It would be spoke to.
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!
It is offended.
Stay! speak, speak: I charge thee, speak!
"Tis gone, and will not answer.
How now, Horatio? you tremble and look pale;
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on't?
Before my God, I might not this believe,
Without the sensible and true avouch
He smote the sledded pole-axe on the ice.
'Tis strange.
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
In what particular thought to work, I know not;
But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
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 ?
Marry, 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 of, to the conqueror.
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart,
And carriage of the article desseigne,
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.
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.
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 :
Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell,
Disasters veil'd 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 fear'd 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 :
I'll cross it, though it blast me! Stay, illusion:
[Ghost spreads its arms]
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,
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. [The cock crows] Stop it,
Shall I strike it with my partizan ?
Do, if it will not stand.
O, 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.
It was about to speak when the cock crew.
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;
Th'extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine and of the truth herein,
This present object made probation.
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 dare stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
|