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!
[The cock crows.]
Stop it, Marcellus!
MARCELLUS.
Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
HORATIO.
Do, if it will not stand.
BARNARDO.
Tis here!
HORATIO.
Tis here!
[Exit Ghost.]
MARCELLUS.
Tis gone!
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.
BARNARDO.
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
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,
Thextravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine. And of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
MARCELLUS.
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviours birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm;
So hallowd and so gracious is the time.
HORATIO.
So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But look, the morn in russet mantle clad,
Walks oer the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Break we our watch up, and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
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?
MARCELLUS.
Lets dot, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.
[Exeunt.]
Scene II
Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.
Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltemand, Cornelius, Lords and Attendant.
KING.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brothers 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,
Thimperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as twere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious 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 barrd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brothers death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not faild to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephews purpose, to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions are all made
Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the King, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.
Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.
CORNELIUS and VOLTEMAND.
In that, and all things, will we show our duty.
KING.
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
[Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.]
And now, Laertes, whats the news with you?
You told us of some suit. What ist, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
LAERTES.
Dread my 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 fathers leave? What says Polonius?
POLONIUS.
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition; and at last
Upon his will I seald 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-
HAMLET.
[Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
KING.
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
HAMLET.
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 vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou knowst tis common, all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
HAMLET.
Ay, madam, it is common.
QUEEN.
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAMLET.
Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.
Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forcd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, 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,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschoold;
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie, tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
This must be so. 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,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
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.
HAMLET.
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 unforcd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the Kings rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
[Exeunt all but Hamlet.]
HAMLET.
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,