Hamlet

1

[BELL CHIMING]

[SQUEALING IN DISTANCE]

[SQUEALING CONTINUES

IN DISTANCE]

-Who's there?

-Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

Long live the king?

-Barnardo?

-He.

You come most carefully upon your hour.

'Tis now struck 12.

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.

FRANCISCO:

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

HORATIO:
Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS:
And liegemen to the Dane.

Give you good night.

Farewell, honest soldier.

Who hath relieved you?

Barnardo has my place.

Give you good night.

-Holla, Barnardo.

BARNARDO:
Say what, is Horatio there?

A piece of him.

Welcome, Horatio.

Welcome, good Marcellus.

-What, has this thing appeared again?

-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 a while,

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 Barnardo speak of this.

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 1 --

Peace, break thee off.

Look where it comes again.

[GASPING]

-Same figure as the king that's dead.

MARCELLUS:
Thou art a scholar. Speak to it.

BARNARDO:

Looks it not like the king?

-Mark it.

-Most like.

It harrows me with fear and wonder.

-It would be spoke to.

-Speak to 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.

MARCELLUS:
It is offended.

BARNARDO:
See, it stalks away.

HORATIO:

Stay, speak, speak, I charge thee speak.

MARCELLUS:

'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 th' 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 jump 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, look here,

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 gaged by our king, which had returned

to the inheritance of Fortinbras...

...had he been vanquisher,

as, by the same cov'nant...

...and carriage of the article designed,

his fell to Hamlet.

HORATIO:
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 head...

...of this post-haste

and rummage in the land.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But soft, behold.

Lo, where it comes again.

Ill 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, they say,

spirits oft walk in death...

...speak for it, stay and speak.

Stop it, Marcellus.

-Strike it with my partisan?

-Do if it will not stand.

MARCELLUS:
'Tis here.

-'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...

...th' extravagant and erring spirit hies

to his confine.

And of the truth herein,

this present object made probation.

BARNARDO:

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

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