Hamlet

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- Stand, ho!

- Who's there?

Nay, answer me.

Stand and unfold yourself.

- Long live the King!

- Bernardo?

He.

For this relief much thanks.

'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.

- Have you had quiet guard?

- Not a mouse stirring.

If you meet the rivals of my watch,

bid them make haste.

I think I hear them.

Stand, ho! Who goes there?

- Friends to this ground.

- And liegemen to the Dane.

Give you good night.

Welcome, Horatio.

- 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.

Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

Last night of all, when yond same

star that's westward from the pole...

Look where it comes again.

In the same figure,

like the King that's dead.

Thou art a scholar; 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!

- It is offended.

Stay! Speak, speak!

I charge thee, speak!

'Tis gone, and will not answer.

How now, Horatio? Is not this

something more than fantasy?

- Is it not like the King?

- As thou art to thyself. '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 mine opinion,

this bodes some strange eruption

to our state.

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 thou art privy to thy country's fate,

which happily foreknowing may avoid,

O, speak! Speak of it.

Stay, and speak.

- Stop it, Marcellus!

- Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

'Tis gone.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

to offer it the show of violence;

for it is, as the air, invulnerable.

It was about to speak,

when the cock crew.

And then it started like a guilty thing

upon a fearful summons.

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that

ever 'gainst that season comes

wherein our Saviour's birth

is celebrated,

the bird of dawning

singeth all night long;

and then, they say,

no spirit dare stir abroad.

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,

Iet us impart what we have seen tonight

unto young Hamlet;

for upon my life, this spirit,

dumb to us, will speak to him.

Though yet of Hamlet our dear

brother's death the memory be green,

yet so far hath discretion

fought with nature

that we with wisest sorrow think on him,

together with remembrance of ourselves.

Therefore our sometime sister,

now our queen,

th' imperial jointress

to this warlike state,

have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,

with mirth in funeral, and with dirge

in marriage, taken to wife.

Now follows that you know:

young Fortinbras,

holding a weak supposal of our worth,

he hath not failed to pester us

with message

importing the surrender of those lands

lost by his father with all bands of law,

to our most valiant brother.

We have here writ to Norway,

uncle of young Fortinbras,

who, impotent and bed-rid...

...scarcely hears of this

his nephew's purpose,

to suppress his further gait herein.

So much for him!

So, Laertes, what's the news with you?

My dread lord, your leave

and favour to return to France;

from whence though willingly

I came to Denmark

to show my duty in your coronation,

yet now, I must confess, that duty done,

my thoughts and wishes

bend again towards France.

Have you your father's leave?

What says Polonius?

He hath, my lord, wrung from me

my slow leave by laboursome petition.

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

Take thy fair hour, Laertes;

time be thine,

and thy best graces spend it at thy will!

And now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,

how is it that the clouds

still hang on you?

Not so, my lord;

I am too much in the sun.

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,

and let thine eye

look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not for ever with they vailed lids

seek for thy noble father in the dust.

Thou know'st 'tis common -

all that lives must die,

passing through nature to eternity.

Aye, madam, it is common.

If it be,

why seems it so particular with thee?

Seems? Nay, madam, it is;

I know not seems.

'Tis not alone my inky cloak,

good mother,

nor customary suits of solemn black,

nor the dejected haviour of the visage,

together with all forms, moods, shapes

of grief, that can denote me truly.

These, indeed, seem;

for they are actions

that a man might play.

But I have that within which passes show;

these but the trappings

and the suits of woe.

It is sweet and commendable

in your nature, Hamlet,

to give these mourning duties

to you father,

but you must know

your father lost a father,

that father lost lost his.

But to persever in obstinate condolement

is a course of impious stubbornness;

'tis unmanly grief.

We pray you throw to earth

this unprevailing woe

and think of us as of a father;

for let the world take note you are

the most immediate to our throne.

For your intent in going back to school

in Wittenberg,

it is most retrograde to our desire; and

we beseech you bend you to remain here,

in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

our chiefest courtier,

cousin, and our son.

Let not thy mother lose her prayers,

Hamlet:

I pray thee stay with us;

go not to Wittenberg.

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

Why, 'tis a fair and loving reply.

Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;

this gentle and unforc'd accord

of Hamlet sits smiling in my heart;

in grace whereof, no jocund health

that Denmark drinks today,

but the great cannon

to the clouds shall tell,

and the King's rouse the heavens

shall bruit again,

re-speaking earthly thunder.

O, that this too too sullied flesh

would melt,

thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!

O God! O God!

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,

seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't; Ah, fie!

'Tis an unweeded garden,

that grows to seed;

things rank and gross in nature

possess it merely.

That it should come to this!

But two months dead!

Nay, not so much, not two.

So excellent a king

that was to this Hyperion to a satyr;

so loving to my mother, that he might

not beteem the winds of heaven

visit her face too roughly.

Heaven and earth! Must I remember?

Why, she should hang on him

as if increase of appetite had grown

by what it fed on;

and yet, within a month...

Let me not think on't.

Frailty, thy name is woman.

A little month,

or ere those shoes were old

with which she followed

my poor father's body,

Iike Niobe, all tears,

why she, even she

- O God! a beast that wants discourse

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