ACT I

 

 

           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...