With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That if again this apparition come,
He may approve1 our eyes, and speak to it.
Horatio. Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.
Bernardo.

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we have two nights seen.

Horatio.

Sit down a while;

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Bernardo. Last night of all,

When yond 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,

Enter GHOST.

Marcellus. Peace, break thee off: look, where it comes again!

Bernardo. In the same figure, like the King that's dead.
Marcellus. Thou art a scholar;2 speak to it, Horatio.
Bernardo. Looks it not like the King? mark it, Horatio.
Horatio. Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.
Bernardo. It would be spoke to.

Marcellus.

Question it, Horatio. Horatio. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the Majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes 3 march? by Heaven I charge thee, speak!
Marcellus. It is offended.

1 Corroborate.

2 Exorcisms (ceremonies for the expulsion of evil spirits) were performed in Latin, therefore only by scholars: hence the popular belief that they alone could converse with supernatural apparitions.

3 Some time; formerly.

See, it stalks away!

Bernardo.
Horatio. Stay! speak, speak!

I charge thee, speak!

[Exit Ghost.

Marcellus. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Bernardo. How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you on't?

Horatio. Before my God, I might not this believe

Without the sensible and true avouch 1

Of mine own eyes.

Marcellus.

Is it not like the King?

Horatio. As thou art to thyself.

Such was the very armor he had on

When he the ambitious Norway 2 combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,3
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

'Tis strange.

Marcellus. Thus twice before, and jump 5 at this dead hour, With martial stalkh 6 hath he gone by our watch.

Horatio. In what particular thought to work I know not; But in the gross and scope of my opinion,7

This bodes some strange eruption to our State.

Marcellus. 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;
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart9 for implements of war;

Why such impress 10 of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week;

1 Evidence.

4 Inhabitants of Poland; Polanders.

5 Just.

6 Step.

7 "In what particular thought," etc., i.e., I do not know what particular train of thought to follow; but the general tendency of my opinion is that, etc.

8 Subjects.

9 Market.

10 Impressment.

What might be toward,1 that this sweaty haste mension Doth make the night joint laborer with the day: line 77 Who is't that can inform me ?

Horatio.

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,

Did forfeit with his life all those his lands

Which he stood seiz'd of,3 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 same cov❜nant,
And carriage of the article design'd,

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle 5 hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,

For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in't;7 which is no other—

As it doth well appear unto our State

1 Coming on.

2 Emulous.

me the

3 "Seiz'd of," i.e., possessed of; a legal phrase applying to land. It is still in use.

4 "Moiety competent,” i.e., an adequate portion.

5 Dr. Johnson notes, that "full of unimproved mettle' is full of spirit not regulated or guided by experience."

6 "Shark'd up," i.e., collected indiscriminately.

7" Some enterprise," etc., i.e., some undertaking requiring courage [stomach] in those that attempt it."

But to recover of us, by strong hand

And terms compulsative,1 those foresaid lands
So by his father lost.

And this, I take it,

Is the main motive of our preparations,

paraj

вле

ра

The source of this our watch, and the chief head
Of this posthaste and romage 2 in the land.
Bernardo. I think it be no other but e'en so:
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the King
That was and is the question of these wars.
Horatio. 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,

3

Disasters in the sun; and the moist star

Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
Was sick 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 demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.

But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

ت عليها

1 Compulsatory.

2 Tumultuous hurry.

3 A line has probably dropped out of the text preceding these words: As stars," etc. That there is a break in it here is evident.

4 The moon.

5 Referring to the ebb and flow of the tides.

6 "When Jupiter assigned to each of his brothers a separate portion of the universe, he decreed that Neptune . . . should be sole monarch of the

...

ocean. - GUERBER: Myths of Greece and Rome, p. 149.

7 Foreshadowing:

8 Land; country.

Reënter GHOST.

I'll cross it, though it blast me.1-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 earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it: stay, and speak !-Stop it, Marcellus.
Marcellus. Shall I strike it with my partisan ??
Horatio. Do, if it will not stand.

Bernardo.

Horatio.

Marcellus. 'Tis gone !

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

[Cock crows.

'Tis here!

'Tis here!

[Exit Ghost.

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

Bernardo. It was about to speak when the cock crew.
Horatio. And then it started like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons. (I have heard,

Learn

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,

It was an old superstition, that whoever crossed the spot on which a specter was seen became subject to its malignant influence.

2 A weapon resembling a long-handled ax; a halberd.

3 " Extravagant and erring," i.e., roving and wandering.