Enter GHOST.

Mar. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead. 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 usurp'st this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of bury'd Denmark Did sometimes march? By Heaven, I charge thee, speak.

Mar. It is offended.

Ber. See! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay speak; speak, I charge thee, speak.

[Exit GHOST.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble and look

pale:

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think

you of it?

Hor. 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.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump 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 some strange eruption to our state.

Enter GHOST.

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 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 the earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, [Cock crows.

Speak of it!

Stay, and speak!

Mar. "Tis gone!

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence.

Exit GHOST.

Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. Hor. 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,

The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine.

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward 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.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

The Palace.

Flourish of Trumpets and Drums.

Enter POLONIUS, the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, LAERTES, GENTLEMEN, and LADIES.

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 discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves:
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,
Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along :-For all, our thanks.—
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit: what is't, Laertes ?
Laer. 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 toward France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
King. Have you your father's leave? What says
Polonius?

Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave,

By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent :
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy best graces; spend it at thy will. But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son

Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind. King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Ham. Not so, my lord : I am too much i' the sun. Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids,

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know'st, 'tis common; all, that live, must die, Passing through nature to eternity.

Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.

Queen. If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not

seems.

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor the dejected 'haviour of my visage,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Together with all forms, modes, shows 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 passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,
Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term,

To do obsequious sorrow: But to persevere
In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief
It shows a will most incorrect to Heaven.

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,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:

I pray thee, stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.
Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply;
Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
Re-speaking earthly thunder.

[Flourish of Trumpets and Drums. Exeunt
all but HAMLET.

Ham. Oh, that this too, too solid 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! Oh 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 would 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 wo-

man!

B