Bernardo and Marcellus bring Horatio to witness the ghost of the dead King Hamlet, which appears but will not speak. Horatio interprets the apparition as a warning of danger to Denmark amid preparations against young Fortinbras. After the ghost reappears and vanishes at dawn, the men resolve to tell Prince Hamlet.
SCENE II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.
Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltemand, Cornelius, Lords and Attendant.
KING
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s deathThe memory be green, and that it us befittedTo bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdomTo be contracted in one brow of woe;Yet so far hath discretion fought with natureThat we with wisest sorrow think on him,Together with remembrance of ourselves.Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,Th’imperial jointressa widow who possesses an estate or income settled on her for life. to this warlike state,Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy,With one auspicious and one dropping eye,With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,In equal scale weighing delight and dole,Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr’dYour better wisdoms, which have freely goneWith this affair along. For all, our thanks.Now follows, that you know young Fortinbras,Holding a weak supposal of our worth,Or thinking by our late dear brother’s deathOur state to be disjoint and out of frame,Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,He hath not fail’d to pester us with message,Importing the surrender of those landsLost by his father, with all bonds of law,To our most valiant brother. So much for him.Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:Thus much the business is: we have here writTo Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hearsOf this his nephew’s purpose, to suppressHis further gait herein; in that the levies,The lists, and full proportions are all madeOut of his subject: and we here dispatchYou, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,Giving to you no further personal powerTo business with the King, more than the scopeOf these dilated articles allow.Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.
KING
CORNELIUS and VOLTEMAND.In that, and all things, will we show our duty.
KING
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.
KING
And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?You told us of some suit. What is’t, Laertes?You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?The head is not more native to the heart,The hand more instrumental to the mouth,Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
LAERTES
Dread my lord,Your leave and favour to return to France,From whence though willingly I came to DenmarkTo show my duty in your coronation;Yet now I must confess, that duty done,My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
KING
Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?
POLONIUS
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leaveBy laboursome petition; and at lastUpon his will I seal’d my hard consent.I do beseech you give him leave to go.
KING
Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,And thy best graces spend it at thy will!But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—
HAMLET
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
KING
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
HAMLET
Not so, my lord, I am too much i’ the sun.
QUEEN
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.Do not for ever with thy vailedto lower or let fall as a sign of submission or respect. lidsSeek for thy noble father in the dust.Thou know’st ’tis common, all that lives must die,Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET
Ay, madam, it is common.
QUEEN
If it be,Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAMLET
Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,Nor customary suits of solemn black,Nor windy suspirationa sigh or act of sighing. of forc’d breath,No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,For they are actions that a man might play;But I have that within which passeth show;These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
KING
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,To give these mourning duties to your father;But you must know, your father lost a father,That father lost, lost his, and the survivor boundIn filial obligation, for some termTo do obsequious sorrow. But to persevereIn obstinate condolementan expression of shared grief or sympathy. is a courseOf impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief,It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,An understanding simple and unschool’d;For what we know must be, and is as commonAs any the most vulgar thing to sense,Why should we in our peevish oppositionTake it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven,A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,To reason most absurd, whose common themeIs death of fathers, and who still hath cried,From the first corse till he that died today,‘This must be so.’ We pray you throw to earthThis unprevailing woe, and think of usAs of a father; for let the world take noteYou are the most immediate to our throne,And with no less nobility of loveThan that which dearest father bears his sonDo I impart toward you. For your intentIn going back to school in Wittenberg,It is most retrograde to our desire:And we beseech you bend you to remainHere in the cheer and comfort of our eye,Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
QUEEN
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.I pray thee stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
HAMLET
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
KING
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;This gentle and unforc’d accord of HamletSits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,No jocund health that Denmark drinks todayBut the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,And the King’s rousea full cup of liquor drunk as a toast or carousal. the heaven shall bruit again,Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
Exeunt all but Hamlet.
HAMLET
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fix’dHis canon ’gainst self-slaughter. O God! O God!How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitableSeem to me all the uses of this world!Fie on’t! Oh fie! ’tis an unweeded gardenThat grows to seed; things rank and gross in naturePossess it merely. That it should come to this!But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two:So excellent a king; that was to thisHyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,That he might not beteemTo grant, permit or bestow. the winds of heavenVisit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!Must I remember? Why, she would hang on himAs if increase of appetite had grownBy what it fed on; and yet, within a month—Let me not think on’t—Frailty, thy name is woman!A little month, or ere those shoes were oldWith which she followed my poor father’s bodyLike NiobeA mythical queen whose children were killed and who became an emblem of inconsolable weeping., all tears.—Why she, even she—O God! A beast that wants discourse of reasonWould have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle,My father’s brother; but no more like my fatherThan I to Hercules. Within a month,Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tearsHad left the flushing in her galled eyes,She married. O most wicked speed, to postWith such dexterity to incestuous sheets!It is not, nor it cannot come to good.But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
Enter Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.
HORATIO
Hail to your lordship!
HAMLET
I am glad to see you well:Horatio, or I do forget myself.
HORATIO
The same, my lord,And your poor servant ever.
HAMLET
Sir, my good friend;I’ll change that name with you:And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?—Marcellus?
MARCELLUS
My good lord.
HAMLET
I am very glad to see you.—Good even, sir.—But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
HORATIO
A truant disposition, good my lord.
HAMLET
I would not hear your enemy say so;Nor shall you do my ear that violence,To make it truster of your own reportAgainst yourself. I know you are no truant.But what is your affair in Elsinore?We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
HORATIO
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.
HAMLET
I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student.I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.
HORATIO
Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.
HAMLET
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meatsDid coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.Would I had met my dearest foe in heavenOr ever I had seen that day, Horatio.My father,—methinks I see my father.
HORATIO
Where, my lord?
HAMLET
In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
HORATIO
I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
HAMLET
He was a man, take him for all in all,I shall not look upon his like again.
HORATIO
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
HAMLET
Saw? Who?
HORATIO
My lord, the King your father.
HAMLET
The King my father!
HORATIO
Season your admiration for a whileWith an attent ear, till I may deliverUpon the witness of these gentlemenThis marvel to you.
HAMLET
For God’s love let me hear.
HORATIO
Two nights together had these gentlemen,Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watchIn the dead waste and middle of the night,Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pieFrom head to foot; completely armed or covered.,Appears before them, and with solemn marchGoes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’dBy their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distill’dAlmost to jelly with the act of fear,Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to meIn dreadful secrecy impart they did,And I with them the third night kept the watch,Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,Form of the thing, each word made true and good,The apparition comes. I knew your father;These hands are not more like.
HAMLET
But where was this?
MARCELLUS
My lord, upon the platform where we watch.
HAMLET
Did you not speak to it?
HORATIO
My lord, I did;But answer made it none: yet once methoughtIt lifted up it head, and did addressItself to motion, like as it would speak.But even then the morning cock crew loud,And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,And vanish’d from our sight.
HAMLET
’Tis very strange.
HORATIO
As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true;And we did think it writ down in our dutyTo let you know of it.
HAMLET
Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.Hold you the watch tonight?
HAMLET
MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.We do, my lord.
HAMLET
Arm’d, say you?
HAMLET
Both.Arm’d, my lord.
HAMLET
From top to toe?
BOTH
My lord, from head to foot.
HAMLET
Then saw you not his face?
HORATIO
O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up.
HAMLET
What, look’d he frowningly?
HORATIO
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
HAMLET
Pale, or red?
HORATIO
Nay, very pale.
HAMLET
And fix’d his eyes upon you?
HORATIO
Most constantly.
HAMLET
I would I had been there.
HORATIO
It would have much amaz’d you.
HAMLET
Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?
HORATIO
While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
HORATIO
MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.Longer, longer.
HORATIO
Not when I saw’t.
HAMLET
His beard was grizzled, no?
HORATIO
It was, as I have seen it in his life,A sable silver’d.
HAMLET
I will watch tonight;Perchance ’twill walk again.
HORATIO
I warrant you it will.
HAMLET
If it assume my noble father’s person,I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gapeAnd bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,Let it be tenable in your silence still;And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,Give it an understanding, but no tongue.I will requite your loves. So, fare ye well.Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve,I’ll visit you.
ALL
Our duty to your honour.
HAMLET
Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
Exeunt Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.
HAMLET
My father’s spirit in arms! All is not well;I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.