The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark

1 Enter Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus.
2 HAMLET.
3 The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
4 HORATIO.
5 It is a nipping and an eager air.
6 HAMLET.
7 What hour now?
8 HORATIO.
9 I think it lacks of twelve.
10 MARCELLUS.
11 No, it is struck.
12 HORATIO.
13 Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season
14 Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
15 [_A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within._]
16 What does this mean, my lord?
17 HAMLET.
18 The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
19 Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels;
20 And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
21 The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
22 The triumph of his pledge.
23 HORATIO.
24 Is it a custom?
25 HAMLET.
26 Ay marry is’t;
27 And to my mind, though I am native here,
28 And to the manner born, it is a custom
29 More honour’d in the breach than the observance.
30 This heavy-headed revel east and west
31 Makes us traduc’d and tax’d of other nations:
32 They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
33 Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
34 From our achievements, though perform’d at height,
35 The pith and marrow of our attribute.
36 So oft it chances in particular men
37 That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
38 As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty,
39 Since nature cannot choose his origin,
40 By their o’ergrowth of some complexion,
41 Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
42 Or by some habit, that too much o’erleavens
43 The form of plausive manners;—that these men,
44 Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
45 Being Nature’s livery or Fortune’s star,—
46 His virtues else,—be they as pure as grace,
47 As infinite as man may undergo,
48 Shall in the general censure take corruption
49 From that particular fault. The dram of evil
50 Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
51 To his own scandal.
52 HORATIO.
53 Look, my lord, it comes!
54 Enter Ghost.
55 HAMLET.
56 Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
57 Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,
58 Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
59 Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
60 Thou com’st in such a questionable shape
61 That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee Hamlet,
62 King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me!
63 Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
64 Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death,
65 Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
66 Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,
67 Hath op’d his ponderous and marble jaws
68 To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
69 That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
70 Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,
71 Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
72 So horridly to shake our disposition
73 With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
74 Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
75 [_Ghost beckons Hamlet._]
76 HORATIO.
77 It beckons you to go away with it,
78 As if it some impartment did desire
79 To you alone.
80 MARCELLUS.
81 Look with what courteous action
82 It waves you to a more removed ground.
83 But do not go with it.
84 HORATIO.
85 No, by no means.
86 HAMLET.
87 It will not speak; then will I follow it.
88 HORATIO.
89 Do not, my lord.
90 HAMLET.
91 Why, what should be the fear?
92 I do not set my life at a pin’s fee;
93 And for my soul, what can it do to that,
94 Being a thing immortal as itself?
95 It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.
96 HORATIO.
97 What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
98 Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
99 That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
100 And there assume some other horrible form
101 Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
102 And draw you into madness? Think of it.
103 The very place puts toys of desperation,
104 Without more motive, into every brain
105 That looks so many fathoms to the sea
106 And hears it roar beneath.
107 HAMLET.
108 It waves me still.
109 Go on, I’ll follow thee.
110 MARCELLUS.
111 You shall not go, my lord.
112 HAMLET.
113 Hold off your hands.
114 HORATIO.
115 Be rul’d; you shall not go.
116 HAMLET.
117 My fate cries out,
118 And makes each petty artery in this body
119 As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
120 [_Ghost beckons._]
121 Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.
122 [_Breaking free from them._]
123 By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me.
124 I say, away!—Go on, I’ll follow thee.
125 [_Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet._]
126 HORATIO.
127 He waxes desperate with imagination.
128 MARCELLUS.
129 Let’s follow; ’tis not fit thus to obey him.
130 HORATIO.
131 Have after. To what issue will this come?
132 MARCELLUS.
133 Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
134 HORATIO.
135 Heaven will direct it.
136 MARCELLUS.
137 Nay, let’s follow him.
138 [_Exeunt._]