TPTT The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: ACT I
Introduction
ACT I
SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
SCENE II. A room of state in the castle.
SCENE III. A room in Polonius' house.
SCENE IV. The platform.
SCENE V. Another part of the platform.
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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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
5     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
10    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
15    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:
20    Who hath relieved you?
FRANCISCO
      Bernardo has my place.
      Give you good night.
Exit
MARCELLUS
      Holla! Bernardo!
BERNARDO
      Say,
25    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
30    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;
35    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,
40    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,
45    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
50    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
55    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
60    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:
65    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
70    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,
75    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;
80    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,
85    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
90    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,
95    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,
100   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
105   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,
110   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--
115   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
120   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
125   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:
130   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,
135   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

140   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,
145   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,
150   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
155   '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,
160   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,
165   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
170   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:
175   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.
180   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,
185   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.
Exeunt
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