.

      MARCELLUS.

       Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

      BARNARDO.

       Looks it 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 th’ambitious Norway combated;

       So frown’d 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 appear’d to us,

       Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

       Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride,

       Dar’d to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet,

       For so this side of our known world esteem’d him,

       Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal’d compact,

       Well ratified by law and heraldry,

       Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

       Which he stood seiz’d of, to the conqueror;

       Against the which, a moiety competent

       Was gaged by our King; which had return’d

       To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

       Had he been vanquisher; as by the same cov’nant

       And carriage of the article design’d,

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

       Of unimproved mettle, hot and full,

       Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,

       Shark’d 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 post-haste 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 armed 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 fierce 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!

       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. Stay, and speak!

      [The cock crows.]

      Stop it, Marcellus!

      MARCELLUS.