The Platform.
 Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS.

Hamlet	The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.

Horatio	It is a nipping and an eager air.

Hamlet	What hour now?

Horatio					I think it lacks of twelve.

Marcellus	No, it is struck.

Horatio	Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season
	Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
				 [A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces go off.

	What does this mean, my lord?

Hamlet	The king doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
	Keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring up-spring reels,
	And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
	The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
	The triumph of his pledge.

Horatio									Is it a custom?

Hamlet	Ay, marry, is't,
	But to my mind, though I am native here
	And to the manner born, it is a custom
	More honoured in the breach than the observance.
	This heavy-headed revel east and west
	Makes us traduced, and taxed of other nations.
	They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
	Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
	From our achievements, though performed at height,
	The pith and marrow of our attribute.
	So, oft it chances in particular men
	That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
	As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty,
	Since nature cannot choose his origin,
	By their o'ergrowth of some complexion,
	Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
	Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens
	The form of plausive manners, that these men,
	Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
	Being nature's livery or fortune's star,
	His virtues else, be they as pure as grace,
	As infinite as man may undergo,
	Shall in the general censure take corruption
	From that particular fault. The dram of evil
	Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
	To his own scandal.

                               Enter GHOST.

Horatio							Look, my lord, it comes.

Hamlet	Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
	Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
	Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
	Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
	Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
	That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,
	King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me!
	Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
	Why thy canonized bones, hearsd in death,
	Have burst their cerements? Why the sepulchre,
	Wherein we saw thee quietly enurned,
	Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws
	To cast thee up again? What may this mean,
	That thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel,
	Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
	Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
	So horridly to shake our disposition
	With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
	Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
												[GHOST beckons to HAMLET.

Horatio	It beckons you to go away with it,
	As if it some impartment did desire
	To you alone.

Marcellus					Look with what courteous action
	It waves you to a more removd ground.
	But do not go with it.

Horatio									No, by no means.

Hamlet	It will not speak; then I will follow it.

Horatio	Do not, my lord.

Hamlet						Why, what should be the fear?
	I do not set my life at a pin's fee,
	And for my soul, what can it do to that,
	Being a thing immortal as itself?
												[GHOST beckons to HAMLET.
	It waves me forth again, I'll follow it.

Horatio	What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
	Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
	That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
	And there assume some other horrible form
	Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
	And draw you into madness? Think of it.
	The very place puts toys of desperation,
	Without more motive, into every brain
	That looks so many fathoms to the sea
	And hears it roar beneath.
												[GHOST beckons to HAMLET.

Hamlet	It waves me still. [To the GHOST.] Go on, I'll follow thee.

Marcellus	You shall not go, my lord.

Hamlet									Hold off your hands!

Horatio	Be ruled, you shall not go.

Hamlet								My fate cries out,
	And makes each petty arture in this body
	As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
												[GHOST beckons to HAMLET.
	Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.
	By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
	I say, away. [To GHOST.] Go on, I'll follow thee.
												[Exeunt GHOST and HAMLET.

Horatio	He waxes desperate with imagination.

Marcellus	Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

Horatio	Have after. To what issue will this come?

Marcellus	Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Horatio	Heaven will direct it.

Marcellus								Nay, let's follow him.
												[Exeunt.
