The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark

1 Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius,
2 Laertes, Voltemand,
3 Cornelius, Lords and Attendant.
4 KING.
5 Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death
6 The memory be green, and that it us befitted
7 To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
8 To be contracted in one brow of woe;
9 Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
10 That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
11 Together with remembrance of ourselves.
12 Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
13 Th’imperial jointress to this warlike state,
14 Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy,
15 With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
16 With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
17 In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
18 Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr’d
19 Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
20 With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
21 Now follows, that you know young Fortinbras,
22 Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
23 Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death
24 Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
25 Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
26 He hath not fail’d to pester us with message,
27 Importing the surrender of those lands
28 Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
29 To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
30 Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
31 Thus much the business is: we have here writ
32 To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
33 Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
34 Of this his nephew’s purpose, to suppress
35 His further gait herein; in that the levies,
36 The lists, and full proportions are all made
37 Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
38 You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
39 For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,
40 Giving to you no further personal power
41 To business with the King, more than the scope
42 Of these dilated articles allow.
43 Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.
44 CORNELIUS and VOLTEMAND.
45 In that, and all things, will we show our duty.
46 KING.
47 We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
48 [_Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius._]
49 And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?
50 You told us of some suit. What is’t, Laertes?
51 You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
52 And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
53 That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
54 The head is not more native to the heart,
55 The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
56 Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
57 What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
58 LAERTES.
59 Dread my lord,
60 Your leave and favour to return to France,
61 From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
62 To show my duty in your coronation;
63 Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
64 My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
65 And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
66 KING.
67 Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?
68 POLONIUS.
69 He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
70 By laboursome petition; and at last
71 Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent.
72 I do beseech you give him leave to go.
73 KING.
74 Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
75 And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
76 But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—
77 HAMLET.
78 [_Aside._] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
79 KING.
80 How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
81 HAMLET.
82 Not so, my lord, I am too much i’ the sun.
83 QUEEN.
84 Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
85 And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
86 Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
87 Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
88 Thou know’st ’tis common, all that lives must die,
89 Passing through nature to eternity.
90 HAMLET.
91 Ay, madam, it is common.
92 QUEEN.
93 If it be,
94 Why seems it so particular with thee?
95 HAMLET.
96 Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.
97 ’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
98 Nor customary suits of solemn black,
99 Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath,
100 No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
101 Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
102 Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,
103 That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
104 For they are actions that a man might play;
105 But I have that within which passeth show;
106 These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
107 KING.
108 ’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
109 To give these mourning duties to your father;
110 But you must know, your father lost a father,
111 That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
112 In filial obligation, for some term
113 To do obsequious sorrow. But to persevere
114 In obstinate condolement is a course
115 Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief,
116 It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
117 A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
118 An understanding simple and unschool’d;
119 For what we know must be, and is as common
120 As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
121 Why should we in our peevish opposition
122 Take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven,
123 A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
124 To reason most absurd, whose common theme
125 Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
126 From the first corse till he that died today,
127 ‘This must be so.’ We pray you throw to earth
128 This unprevailing woe, and think of us
129 As of a father; for let the world take note
130 You are the most immediate to our throne,
131 And with no less nobility of love
132 Than that which dearest father bears his son
133 Do I impart toward you. For your intent
134 In going back to school in Wittenberg,
135 It is most retrograde to our desire:
136 And we beseech you bend you to remain
137 Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
138 Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
139 QUEEN.
140 Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
141 I pray thee stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
142 HAMLET.
143 I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
144 KING.
145 Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.
146 Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
147 This gentle and unforc’d accord of Hamlet
148 Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
149 No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
150 But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
151 And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
152 Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
153 [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]
154 HAMLET.
155 O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
156 Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
157 Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
158 His canon ’gainst self-slaughter. O God! O God!
159 How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
160 Seem to me all the uses of this world!
161 Fie on’t! Oh fie! ’tis an unweeded garden
162 That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
163 Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
164 But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two:
165 So excellent a king; that was to this
166 Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
167 That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
168 Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
169 Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
170 As if increase of appetite had grown
171 By what it fed on; and yet, within a month—
172 Let me not think on’t—Frailty, thy name is woman!
173 A little month, or ere those shoes were old
174 With which she followed my poor father’s body
175 Like Niobe, all tears.—Why she, even she—
176 O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason
177 Would have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle,
178 My father’s brother; but no more like my father
179 Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
180 Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
181 Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
182 She married. O most wicked speed, to post
183 With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
184 It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
185 But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
186 Enter Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.
187 HORATIO.
188 Hail to your lordship!
189 HAMLET.
190 I am glad to see you well:
191 Horatio, or I do forget myself.
192 HORATIO.
193 The same, my lord,
194 And your poor servant ever.
195 HAMLET.
196 Sir, my good friend;
197 I’ll change that name with you:
198 And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?—
199 Marcellus?
200 MARCELLUS.
201 My good lord.
202 HAMLET.
203 I am very glad to see you.—Good even, sir.—
204 But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
205 HORATIO.
206 A truant disposition, good my lord.
207 HAMLET.
208 I would not hear your enemy say so;
209 Nor shall you do my ear that violence,
210 To make it truster of your own report
211 Against yourself. I know you are no truant.
212 But what is your affair in Elsinore?
213 We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
214 HORATIO.
215 My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.
216 HAMLET.
217 I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student.
218 I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.
219 HORATIO.
220 Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.
221 HAMLET.
222 Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats
223 Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
224 Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
225 Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.
226 My father,—methinks I see my father.
227 HORATIO.
228 Where, my lord?
229 HAMLET.
230 In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
231 HORATIO.
232 I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
233 HAMLET.
234 He was a man, take him for all in all,
235 I shall not look upon his like again.
236 HORATIO.
237 My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
238 HAMLET.
239 Saw? Who?
240 HORATIO.
241 My lord, the King your father.
242 HAMLET.
243 The King my father!
244 HORATIO.
245 Season your admiration for a while
246 With an attent ear, till I may deliver
247 Upon the witness of these gentlemen
248 This marvel to you.
249 HAMLET.
250 For God’s love let me hear.
251 HORATIO.
252 Two nights together had these gentlemen,
253 Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch
254 In the dead waste and middle of the night,
255 Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,
256 Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie,
257 Appears before them, and with solemn march
258 Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d
259 By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,
260 Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distill’d
261 Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
262 Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
263 In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
264 And I with them the third night kept the watch,
265 Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,
266 Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
267 The apparition comes. I knew your father;
268 These hands are not more like.
269 HAMLET.
270 But where was this?
271 MARCELLUS.
272 My lord, upon the platform where we watch.
273 HAMLET.
274 Did you not speak to it?
275 HORATIO.
276 My lord, I did;
277 But answer made it none: yet once methought
278 It lifted up it head, and did address
279 Itself to motion, like as it would speak.
280 But even then the morning cock crew loud,
281 And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
282 And vanish’d from our sight.
283 HAMLET.
284 ’Tis very strange.
285 HORATIO.
286 As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true;
287 And we did think it writ down in our duty
288 To let you know of it.
289 HAMLET.
290 Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
291 Hold you the watch tonight?
292 MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.
293 We do, my lord.
294 HAMLET.
295 Arm’d, say you?
296 Both.
297 Arm’d, my lord.
298 HAMLET.
299 From top to toe?
300 BOTH.
301 My lord, from head to foot.
302 HAMLET.
303 Then saw you not his face?
304 HORATIO.
305 O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up.
306 HAMLET.
307 What, look’d he frowningly?
308 HORATIO.
309 A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
310 HAMLET.
311 Pale, or red?
312 HORATIO.
313 Nay, very pale.
314 HAMLET.
315 And fix’d his eyes upon you?
316 HORATIO.
317 Most constantly.
318 HAMLET.
319 I would I had been there.
320 HORATIO.
321 It would have much amaz’d you.
322 HAMLET.
323 Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?
324 HORATIO.
325 While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
326 MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.
327 Longer, longer.
328 HORATIO.
329 Not when I saw’t.
330 HAMLET.
331 His beard was grizzled, no?
332 HORATIO.
333 It was, as I have seen it in his life,
334 A sable silver’d.
335 HAMLET.
336 I will watch tonight;
337 Perchance ’twill walk again.
338 HORATIO.
339 I warrant you it will.
340 HAMLET.
341 If it assume my noble father’s person,
342 I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
343 And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
344 If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,
345 Let it be tenable in your silence still;
346 And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,
347 Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
348 I will requite your loves. So, fare ye well.
349 Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve,
350 I’ll visit you.
351 ALL.
352 Our duty to your honour.
353 HAMLET.
354 Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
355 [_Exeunt Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo._]
356 My father’s spirit in arms! All is not well;
357 I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
358 Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
359 Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
360 [_Exit._]