to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.Look to’t, I charge you: come your ways.
| Ophelia | I shall obey, my lord. |
| Exeunt | |
Scene IV. 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. |
| Hamlet | No, it is struck. |
| Horatio | Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the seasonWherein the spirit held his wont to walk. |
| A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within |
| What does this mean, my lord? |
| Hamlet | The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, |
| The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray outThe triumph of his pledge. |
| Horatio | Is it a custom? |
| Hamlet | Ay, marry, is’t:But to my mind, though I am native hereAnd to the manner born, it is a customMore honour’d in the breach than the observance.This heavy-headed revel east and westMakes us traduced and tax’d of other nations:They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phraseSoil our addition; and indeed it takesFrom our achievements, though perform’d 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’er-leavensThe form of plausive manners, that these men,Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,Being nature’s livery, or fortune’s star —Their virtues else — be they as pure as grace,As infinite as man may undergo —Shall in the general censure take corruptionFrom that particular fault: the dram of ealeDoth all the noble substance of a doubtTo his own scandal. |
| HoratioEnter Ghost | Look, my lord, it comes! |
| Hamlet | Angels and ministers of grace defend us!Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,Be thy intents wicked or charitable,Thou comest in such a questionable shapeThat I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet,King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!Let me not burst in ignorance; but tellWhy thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, |
| Ghost | Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,To cast thee up again. What may this mean,That thou, dead corse, again in complete steelRevisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,Making night hideous; and we fools of natureSo horridly to shake our dispositionWith thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?beckons Hamlet |
| Horatio | It beckons you to go away with it, |
| Marcellus | As if it some impartment did desireTo you alone.Look, with what courteous action |
| Horatio | It waves you to a more removed ground:But do not go with it.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? |
| Horatio | I do not set my life in 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.What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, |
| Hamlet | Or to the dreadful summit of the cliffThat beetles o’er his base into the sea,And there assume some other horrible form,Which might deprive your sovereignty of reasonAnd draw you into madness? think of it:The very place puts toys of desperation,Without more motive, into every brainThat looks so many fathoms to the seaAnd hears it roar beneath.It waves me still. |
| Marcellus | Go on; I’ll follow thee.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 artery in this bodyAs hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!I say, away! 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. |
| MarcellusExeunt | Nay, let’s follow him. |
Scene V. Another part of the platform.
| Enter Ghost and Hamlet |
| Hamlet | Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I’ll go no further. |
| Ghost | Mark me. |
| Hamlet | I will. |
| Ghost | My hour is almost come,When I to sulphurous and tormenting flamesMust render up myself. |
| Hamlet | Alas, poor ghost! |
| Ghost | Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearingTo what I shall unfold. |
| Hamlet | Speak; I am bound to hear. |
| Ghost | So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. |
| Hamlet | What? |
| Ghost | I am thy father’s spirit,Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,And for the day confined to fast in fires,Till the foul crimes done in my days of natureAre burnt and purged away. But that I am forbidTo tell the secrets of my prison-house, |
| I could a tale unfold whose lightest wordWould harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,Thy knotted and combined locks to partAnd each particular hair to stand on end,Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:But this eternal blazon must not beTo ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!If thou didst ever thy dear father love—— |
| Hamlet | O God! |
| Ghost | Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. |
| Hamlet | Murder! |
| Ghost | Murder most foul, as in the best it is;But this most foul, strange and unnatural. |
| Hamlet | Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swiftAs meditation or the thoughts of love,May sweep to my revenge. |
| Ghost | I find thee apt;And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weedThat roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of DenmarkIs by a forged process of my deathRankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,The serpent that did sting thy father’s lifeNow wears his crown. |
| Hamlet | O my prophetic soul! My uncle! |
| Ghost | Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts —O wicked wit and gifts, that have the powerSo to seduce! — won to his shameful lustThe will of my most seeming-virtuous queen:O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!From me, whose love was of that dignityThat it went hand in hand even with the vowI made to her in marriage, and to declineUpon a wretch whose natural gifts were poorTo those of mine!But virtue, as it never will be moved, |
| Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d,Will sate itself in a celestial bed,And prey on garbage.But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,My custom always of the afternoon,Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,And in the porches of my ears did pourThe leperous distilment; whose effectHolds such an enmity with blood of manThat swift as quicksilver it courses throughThe natural gates and alleys of the body,And with a sudden vigour doth possetAnd curd, like eager droppings into milk,The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;And a most instant tetter bark’d about,Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,All my smooth body.Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s handOf life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch’d:Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d,No reckoning made, but sent to my accountWith all my imperfections on my head:O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;Let not the royal bed of Denmark beA couch for luxury and damned incest.But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contriveAgainst
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