Marcellus. Thou art a scholar; 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.

45

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 march? By heaven I charge thee,

speak!

Marcellus. It is offended.

Bernardo.

See, it stalks away!

50

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

Of mine own eyes.

55

Marcellus.

Is it not like the king?

Horatio. 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,°
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

"Tis strange.

60

Marcellus. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

65

Horatio. 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.

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 mart for implements of war;

70

Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task 75
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?

Horatio.

That can I,

80

Our last king,

At least, the whisper goes so.
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,° 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 covenant,
And carriage of the article design'd,

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle 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; which is no other
As it doth well appear unto our state-
But to recover of us, by strong hand

And terms compulsative, those foresaid lands

100

So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

105

115

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 110 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, 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!

120

125

Reënter GHOST

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!

130

[Cock crows.

135

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,
[The cock crows.
Speak of it. Stay, and speak! - Stop it, Marcellus.
Marcellus. Shall I strike at it with my partisan? 140
Horatio. Do, if it will not stand.

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.

145