Elsinore. A Platform before the Castle.
 FRANCISCO at his post. Enter BARNARDO.

Barnardo	Who's there?

Francisco	Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

Barnardo	Long live the king!

Francisco	Barnardo?

Barnardo	He.

Francisco	You come most carefully upon your hour.

Barnardo	'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

Francisco	For this relief much thanks; 'tis bitter cold,
	And I am sick at heart.

Barnardo	Have you had quiet guard?

Francisco	Not a mouse stirring.

Barnardo	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 is 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	Barnardo hath my place. Give you good night.
												[Exit.
Marcellus	Holla, Barnardo!

Barnardo	Say, what, is Horatio there?

Horatio	A piece of him.

Barnardo	Welcome Horatio. Welcome good Marcellus.

Horatio	What, has this thing appeared again tonight?

Barnardo	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.

Barnardo										Sit down a while,
	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 Barnardo speak of this.

Barnardo	Last night of all,
	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-

                               Enter GHOST.

Marcellus	Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again!

Barnardo	In the same figure like the king that's dead.

Marcellus	Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.

Barnardo	Looks a' not like the king? Mark it, Horatio.

Horatio	Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

Barnardo	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.

Barnardo					See, it stalks away.

Horatio	Stay, speak, speak! I charge thee speak!
												[Exit GHOST.
Marcellus	'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Barnardo	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
	When he the ambitious Norway combated;
	So frowned 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,
	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;
	At least, the whisper goes so: our last king,
	Whose image even but now appeared to us,
	Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
	Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride,
	Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet-
	For so this side of our known world esteemed him-
	Did slay this Fortinbras, who, by a sealed compact
	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 gagd by our king, which had returned
	To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
	Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same cov'nant
	And carriage of the article designed,
	His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
	Of unimprovd metal hot and full,
	Hath, in the skirts of Norway here and there,
	Sharked 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 posthaste and rummage in the land.

Barnardo	I think it be no other but e'en so.
	Well may it sort that this portentous figure
	Comes armd through our watch, so like the king
	That was and is the question of these wars.

Horatio	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;
	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 feared 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.

                             Re-enter GHOST.

	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,
	Speak 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, your spirits oft walk in death,
	Speak of it, stay and speak!
												[The cock crows.

										Stop it, Marcellus.

Marcellus	Shall I strike it with my partisan?

Horatio	Do, if it will not stand.

Barnardo							'Tis here!

Horatio										'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,
	And our vain blows malicious mockery.

Barnardo	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,
	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.

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,
	And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
	The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
	No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
	So hallowed and so gracious is that time.

Horatio	So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
	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 tonight
	Unto young Hamlet, for, upon my life,
	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 convenient.
												[Exeunt.
