Mar. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.
Ber. Looks it not like the King? mark it, Horatio.
Hor. Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.
Ber. It would be spoke to.
Mar. Speak to it, Horatio.
Hor. What art thou, that ufurp'st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the Majesty of buried Denmark
Did fometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak. Mar. It is offended.
Ber. See! it stalks away.
Hor. Stay; speak; speak, I charge thee, speak.
Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.
Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale;
Is not this fomething more than fantasy ?
What think you of it?
Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.
Mar. Is it not like the King?
Hor. As thou art to thyself:
Such was the very armour he had on,
When he the ambitious Norway combated.;
So frown'd he once, when in an angry parle,
He fmote the fledded Polack on the ice.
Mar. Thus, twice before, and just at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not,
But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes fome strange eruption to our state.
Mar. Good now, fit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same strict and most obfervant watch
So nightly toils the fubject of the land;
And why such daily caft of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why fuch impress of shipwrights, whose fore tafk
Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty hafte
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't that can inform me?
At least the whisper goes so. Our laft king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which, our valiant Hamlet
(For so this fide of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a feal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seis'd of, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as, by the fame co-mart,
And carriage of the article design'd,
His fell to Hamlet: Now, Sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless refolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprize
That hath a stomach in't: which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our ftate)
But to recover of us, by ftrong hand,
And terms compulfatory, those forefaid lands
So by his father loft: And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;
The fource of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this poft-haste and romage in the land.
Ber. I think it be no other, but even fo;
Well may it fort, that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; fo like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.
Hor. 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.
As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,
Disasters in the fun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was fick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonftrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-
But, foft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illufion!
If thou hast any found, or use of voice,
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 treafsure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it:-stay, and speak. - Stop it Marcellus.
Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partizan?
Hor. Do, if it will not stand.
Ber. 'Tis here!
Hor. 'Tis here!
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.
Ber. It was about to speak when the cock crew.
Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful fummons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth, with his lofty and shrill-founding throat,
Awake the god of day; and at his warning,
Whether in fea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock;
Some fay, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and fo gracious is the time.
Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But look, the morn, in ruffet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill:
Break we our watch up; and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,'
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him:
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
Mar. Let's do't, I pray: and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most convenient.
A Room of State in Elfinore.
Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, LORDS, and
King. Though yet of Hamlet, our dear brother's death, The memory be green; and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe; Yet so far hath difcretion fought with nature, That we with wifest sorrow think on him, Together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, The imperial jointress of this warlike state, Have we, as'twere, with a defeated joyWith one aufpicious, and one dropping eye; With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole, Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along: -For all, our thanks.. Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
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