Act 1, Scene 1

Who's there?

Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

Long live the king!

Bernardo?

He.

You come most carefully upon your hour.

'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

For this relief much thanks. ‘Tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

Have you had quiet guard?

Not a mouse stirring.

Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

I think I hear them. Stand! Who's there?

Friends to this ground.

And liegemen to the Dane.

Give you good night.

Oh, farewell, honest soldier.

Who has relieved you?

Bernardo has my place.

Give you good night.

Holla! Bernardo!

Say,

What, is Horatio there?

A piece of him.

Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

What, has this thing appeared again tonight?

I have seen nothing.

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.

Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

Sit down awhile,

And let us once again assail your ears,

That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

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 ...

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

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

Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.

Looks it not like the king? Mark it, Horatio.

Most like, it harrows me with fear and wonder.

It would be spoke to.

Question it, 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!

It is offended.

See, it stalks away!

Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

'Tis gone and will not answer.

How now, Horatio! You tremble and look pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you on't?

Before my God, I might not this believe

Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Is it not like the king?

As thou art to thyself.

Such was the very armor 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.

Thus twice before — and just at this dead hour —

With martial stalk, hath he gone by our watch.

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.

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-laborer with the day?

Who is't that can inform me?

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 gaged by our king, which had returned

To the inheritance of Fortinbras

Had he been vanquisher, as by the same covenant

And carriage of the article designed,

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,

Sharked up a list of landless resolutes,

For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in't, which is no other —

And 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

Of this post-haste and rummage in the land.

But soft, behold! Lo where it comes again!

I'll cross it though it blast me.

Stay, illusion!

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,

Oh, speak!

Or if thou hast uphoarded, in thy life,

Extorted treasure in the womb of earth

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

Speak of it. Stay and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

Do, if it will not stand.

'Tis here!

'Tis gone!

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.

It was about to speak when the cock crew.

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,

The extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine. And of the truth herein,

This present object made probation.

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes around

Wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long,

And then, they say, no spirit dares walk abroad.

The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

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 eastern 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?

Let's do't, I pray, and I this morning know

Where we shall find him most conveniently.