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. 10 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. 20 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; 30 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! 40 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! 50 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 60 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, 70 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... |