ACT 1
Scene 1
Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

FRANCISCO    
I think I hear them.—Stand ho! Who is there?
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.
Francisco exits.
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 awhile,
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 , to Horatio    
Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.
BARNARDO    
Looks he not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
HORATIO    
Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
BARNARDO    
It would be spoke to.
MARCELLUS    Speak to 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!
Ghost exits.
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 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.
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 mine 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 laborer 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 gagèd by our king, which had returned
To the inheritance of Fortinbras
Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart
And carriage of the article designed,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimprovèd mettle 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 armèd 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.

Enter Ghost.

But soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!
I’ll cross it though it blast me.—Stay, illusion!
It spreads his 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, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it.The cock crows.
Stay and speak!—Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS    
Shall I strike it with my partisan?
HORATIO    Do, if it will not stand.
BARNARDO    ’Tis here.
HORATIO    ’Tis here.
Ghost exits.
MARCELLUS    ’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.
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 Savior’s birth is celebrated,
This 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.
They exit.
Scene 2
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. To Barnardo. 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 report
Against 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 followed hard upon.
HAMLET    
Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or 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 while
With an attent ear, till I may deliver
Upon the witness of these gentlemen
This marvel to you.
HAMLET    For God’s love, let me hear!
HORATIO    
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encountered: a figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie,
Appears before them and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked
By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes
Within his truncheon’s length, whilst they, distilled
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where, as they had delivered, 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 methought
It lifted up its head and did address
Itself 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 vanished from our sight.
HAMLET    ’Tis very strange.
HORATIO    
As I do live, my honored lord, ’tis true.
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.
HAMLET    Indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch tonight?
ALL    We do, my lord.
HAMLET    
Armed, say you?
ALL    Armed, my lord.
HAMLET    From top to toe?
ALL    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, looked he frowningly?
HORATIO    
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
HAMLET    Pale or red?
HORATIO    
Nay, very pale.
HAMLET    And fixed his eyes upon you?
HORATIO    
Most constantly.
HAMLET    I would I had been there.
HORATIO    It would have much amazed you.
HAMLET    Very like. Stayed it long?
HORATIO    
While one with moderate haste might tell a
hundred.
BARNARDO/MARCELLUS    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 silvered.
HAMLET    I will watch tonight.
Perchance ’twill walk again.
HORATIO    I warrant it will.
HAMLET    
If it assume my noble father’s person,
I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto concealed this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsomever else shall hap tonight,
Give it an understanding but no tongue.
I will requite your loves. So fare you well.
Upon the platform, ’twixt eleven and twelve,
I’ll visit you.
ALL    Our duty to your Honor.
HAMLET    
Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.
All but Hamlet exit.
Scene 4
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 goes off.
What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET    
The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring upspring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettledrum 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 honored 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 the 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, hearsèd in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulcher,
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again. What may this mean
That thou, dead corse, 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.
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 removèd 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?
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.
HAMLET    
It waves me still.—Go on, I’ll follow thee.
MARCELLUS    
You shall not go, my lord.They hold back Hamlet.
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.
Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away!—Go on. I’ll follow thee.
Ghost and Hamlet exit.
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.
They exit.
Scene 5
Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

HORATIO    My lord, my lord!
MARCELLUS    Lord Hamlet.
HORATIO    Heavens secure him!
HAMLET    So be it.
MARCELLUS    Illo, ho, ho, my lord!
HAMLET    Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come!
MARCELLUS    
How is ’t, my noble lord?
HORATIO    What news, my lord?
HAMLET    O, wonderful!
HORATIO    
Good my lord, tell it.
HAMLET    No, you will reveal it.
HORATIO    
Not I, my lord, by heaven.
MARCELLUS    Nor I, my lord.
HAMLET    
How say you, then? Would heart of man once think
it?
But you’ll be secret?
HORATIO/MARCELLUS     Ay, by heaven, my lord.
HAMLET    
There’s never a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave.
HORATIO    
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
HAMLET    Why, right, you are in the right.
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part,
You, as your business and desire shall point you
(For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is), and for my own poor part,
I will go pray.
HORATIO    
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.
HAMLET    
I am sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes, faith, heartily.
HORATIO    There’s no offense, my lord.
HAMLET    
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offense, too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost—that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us,
O’ermaster ’t as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.
HORATIO    What is ’t, my lord? We will.
HAMLET    
Never make known what you have seen tonight.
HORATIO/MARCELLUS     My lord, we will not.
HAMLET    Nay, but swear ’t.
HORATIO    In faith, my lord, not I.
MARCELLUS    Nor I, my lord, in faith.
HAMLET    
Upon my sword.
MARCELLUS    We have sworn, my lord, already.
HAMLET    Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
GHOST cries under the stage    Swear.
HAMLET    
Ha, ha, boy, sayst thou so? Art thou there,
truepenny?
Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Consent to swear.
HORATIO    Propose the oath, my lord.
HAMLET    
Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.
GHOST , beneath    Swear.
HAMLET    
Hic et ubique? Then we’ll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword.
Swear by my sword
Never to speak of this that you have heard.
GHOST , beneath    Swear by his sword.
HAMLET    
Well said, old mole. Canst work i’ th’ earth so fast?—
A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.
HORATIO    
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.
HAMLET    
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come.
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd some’er I bear myself
(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on)
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumbered thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As “Well, well, we know,” or “We could an if we
would,”
Or “If we list to speak,” or “There be an if they
might,”
Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note
That you know aught of me—this do swear,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you.
GHOST , beneath    Swear.
HAMLET    
Rest, rest, perturbèd spirit.—So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you,
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t’ express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.
They exit.