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The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

by William Shakespeare

ACT I

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 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,

Th’imperial 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 barr’d

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 brother’s death

Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,

Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,

He hath not fail’d 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 nephew’s 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, what’s the news with you?

You told us of some suit. What is’t, 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 father’s 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 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—

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 know’st ’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 forc’d 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 unschool’d;

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 unforc’d 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 King’s 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,

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 woman!

A little month, or ere those shoes were old

With which she followed my poor father’s body

Like Niobe, all tears.—Why she, even she—

O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason

Would have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle,

My father’s brother; but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules. Within a month?

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married. O most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

[Enter Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.]

HORATIO.

Hail to your lordship!

HAMLET.

I am glad to see you well:

Horatio, or I do forget myself.

HORATIO.

The same, my lord,

And your poor servant ever.

HAMLET.

Sir, my good friend;

I’ll change that name with you:

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?—

Marcellus?

MARCELLUS.

My good lord.

HAMLET.

I am very glad to see you.—Good even, sir.—

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

HORATIO.

A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAMLET.

I would not hear your enemy say so;

Nor shall you do my ear that violence,

To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself. I know you are no truant.

But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

HORATIO.

My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

HAMLET.

I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student.

I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

HORATIO.

Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.

HAMLET.

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.

My father,—methinks I see my father.

HORATIO.

Where, my lord?

HAMLET.

In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

HORATIO.

I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

HAMLET.

He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO.

My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET.

Saw? Who?

HORATIO.

My lord, the King your father.

HAMLET.

The King my father!

HORATIO.

Season your admiration for a while

With an attent ear, till I may deliver

Upon the witness of these gentlemen

This marvel to you.

HAMLET.

For God’s love let me hear.

HORATIO.

Two nights together had these gentlemen,

Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch

In the dead waste and middle of the night,

Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,

Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie,

Appears before them, and with solemn march

Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d

By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,

Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distill’d

Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me

In dreadful secrecy impart they did,

And I with them the third night kept the watch,

Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,

Form of the thing, each word made true and good,

The apparition comes. I knew your father;

These hands are not more like.

HAMLET.

But where was this?

MARCELLUS.

My lord, upon the platform where we watch.

HAMLET.

Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO.

My lord, I did;

But answer made it none: yet once methought

It lifted up it head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak.

But even then the morning cock crew loud,

And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,

And vanish’d from our sight.

HAMLET.

’Tis very strange.

HORATIO.

As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true;

And we did think it writ down in our duty

To let you know of it.

HAMLET.

Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.

Hold you the watch tonight?

MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.

We do, my lord.

HAMLET.

Arm’d, say you?

BOTH.

Arm’d, my lord.

HAMLET.

From top to toe?

BOTH.

My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET.

Then saw you not his face?

HORATIO.

O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up.

HAMLET.

What, look’d he frowningly?

HORATIO.

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET.

Pale, or red?

HORATIO.

Nay, very pale.

HAMLET.

And fix’d his eyes upon you?

HORATIO.

Most constantly.

HAMLET.

I would I had been there.

HORATIO.

It would have much amaz’d you.

HAMLET.

Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?

HORATIO.

While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.

Longer, longer.

HORATIO.

Not when I saw’t.

HAMLET.

His beard was grizzled, no?

HORATIO.

It was, as I have seen it in his life,

A sable silver’d.

HAMLET.

I will watch tonight;

Perchance ’twill walk again.

HORATIO.

I warrant you it will.

HAMLET.

If it assume my noble father’s person,

I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape

And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,

If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,

Let it be tenable in your silence still;

And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,

Give it an understanding, but no tongue.

I will requite your loves. So, fare ye well.

Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve,

I’ll visit you.

ALL.

Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET.

Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

[Exeunt Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.]

My father’s spirit in arms! All is not well;

I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!

Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,

Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

[Exit.]

→ Scene III