HAMLET,

PRINCE OF DENMARK.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Elsinore. A Platform before the Castle.

FRANCISCO on his Post. Enter to him BARNARDO.

BAR. Who's there?

FRAN. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold Yourself.

BAR. Long live the king!"

FRAN.

BAR.

Barnardo?

He.

FRAN. You come most carefully upon your hour. BAR. 'Tis now struck twelve;(1) get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRAN. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.

BAR. Have you had quiet guard?

FRAN.

Not a mouse stirring.

me] i. e. me who am already on the watch, and have a right

to demand the watch-word. STEEVENS.

bunfold] i. e. announce, make known.

e Long live, &c.] The watch-word.

* stand ho!

4tos.

BAR. Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch,(2) bid them make haste.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

FRAN. I think, I hear them.-Stand! Who is
there?

HOR. Friends to this ground.
MAR.

And liegemen (3) to the Dane.

+ HOR. 4tos. but

MAR. 4to. 1603.

Tut. 4to. 1603.

BAR. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Mar

cellus.

MAR. What, has this thing appear'd again tonight?

BAR. I have seen nothing.

MAR. Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy;
And will not let belief take hold of him,

Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us :
Therefore I have entreated him along

With us, to watch the minutes of this night;(5)
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes," and speak to it.
HOR. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
BAR.

Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,

a Approve our eyes] "To approove or confirme. Ratum

habere aliquid." Baret's Alvearie, Fo. 1580.

Approves the common liar." Ant. & Cl. I. 1. Dem.
See Two G. of V. V. 4. Prot.

That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.a

HOR.

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

BAR. Last night of all,

When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one,-

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

Enter Ghost.

BAR. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
MAR. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.(6)
BAR. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
HOR. Most like:-it harrows* me with fear, and horrows.
wonder.(7)

BAR. It would be spoke to.

MAR.

4tos. horrors. 4to. 1603.

Question+ it, Horatio. + speak to. HOR. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of 4tos.

night,b

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee,
speak.

MAR. It is offended.

against our story,

What we two nights have seen] In grammar the two words story and what are put in apposition; and mean that story, the account or relation which we gave or made of the spectacle seen, etc. etc. Otherwise, with must be understood before what, and the second line be thrown into a parenthesis: but, as above interpreted, it is the natural and familiar, old English, dialogue language.

b Usurp'st this time of night] i. e. abuses, uses against right, and the order of things. He but usurp'd his life;" i. e. has occupied it beyond, and out of its season. End of Lear. Kent.

BAR.

See! it stalks away.

HOR. Stay; speak: speak I charge thee, speak.

[Exit Ghost.

MAR. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

BAR. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look

pale:

Is not this something 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,

• Pollax. He smote the sledded Polacks* on the ice.(8)
'Tis strange.

O. C.

+ jump. 4tos.

✰ mine. 4tos.

MAR. Thus, twice before, and just at this dead hour,(9)

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 my opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

MAR. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that
knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land?

a I might not this believe, &c.] i. e. I could not it had not been permitted me, &c. without the full and perfect evidence, &c.

b In what particular thought to work] i. e. in what particular course to set my thoughts at work: in what particular train to direct the mind and exercise it in conjecture.

C

gross and scope] i. e. upon the whole, and in a general view.

d Good now] i. e. in good time: à la bonne heure. An interjection, a gentle exclamation of intreaty.-Johns. Dict. As an adverb he interprets it, well.

And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign marta for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights,(10) whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward," that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me?

HOR.

At least, the whisper goes so.

That can I;

Our last 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 side of our known world esteem'd him,)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law, and heraldry,(11)

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd on, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

⚫ of. 4tos.

+ comart.

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same cov❜nant 4to. 1604.
And carriage of the article design'd,(12)

His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved § mettle(13) hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes
For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in't :(14) which is no other
(And it doth well appear unto our state)
But to recover of us by strong hand

And terms compulsative, those 'foresaid lands,
So by his father lost: And this, I take it,

Is the main motive of our preparation;

The source of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this posthaste and romage (15) in the land.

[BAR. I think it be no other, but even so:

mart] i. e. marketing, exchange.

b toward] i. e. in preparation, going forward. See towards. Rom. & Jul. I. 5. Cap.

✰ deseigne. 4tos. designe. 1623.

§ inapproved. 4to.

1603.