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[The platform]
Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS
Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. | |
| Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air. | |
| Ham. What hour now? | |
| Hor. I think it lacks of twelve. | 4 |
| Mar. No, it is struck. | |
| Hor. Indeed? I heard it not. Then it draws near the season | |
| Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces go off [within]. | |
| What does this mean, my lord? | 8 |
| Ham. The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, | |
| Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring 1 reels; | |
| And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, | |
| The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out | 12 |
| The triumph of his pledge. | |
| Hor. Is it a custom? | |
| Ham. Ay, marry, is ’t, | |
| But to my mind, though I am native here | 16 |
| And to the manner born, it is a custom | |
| More honour’d in the breach than the observance. | |
| [This heavy-headed revel east and west | |
| Makes us traduc’d and tax’d 2 of other nations. | 20 |
| They clepe 3 us drunkards, and with swinish phrase | |
| Soil our addition; 4 and indeed it takes | |
| From our achievements, though perform’d at height, | |
| The pith and marrow of our attribute. | 24 |
| So, oft it chances in particular men, | |
| That for some vicious mole 5 of nature in them, | |
| As, in their birth—wherein they are not guilty, | |
| Since nature cannot choose his origin— | 28 |
| By their o’ergrowth of some complexion 6 | |
| Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, | |
| Or by some habit that too much o’er-leavens | |
| The form of plausive 7 manners, that these men, | 32 |
| Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, | |
| Being nature’s livery, or fortune’s star, 8— | |
| His virtues else—be they as pure as grace, | |
| As infinite as man may undergo— | 36 |
| Shall in the general censure 9 take corruption | |
| From that particular fault. The dram of eale 10 | |
| Doth all the noble substance often dout 11 | |
| To his own scandal.] | 40 |
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Enter Ghost
Hor. Look, my lord, it comes! | |
| Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! | |
| Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d, | |
| Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, | 44 |
| Be thy intents wicked or charitable, | |
| Thou com’st in such a questionable 12 shape | |
| That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee Hamlet, | |
| King, father; royal Dane, O, answer me! | 48 |
| Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell | |
| Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death, | |
| Have burst their cerements; 13 why the sepulchre, | |
| Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d, | 52 |
| Hath op’d his ponderous and marble jaws, | |
| To cast thee up again. What may this mean, | |
| That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel | |
| Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon, | 56 |
| Making night hideous, and we fools of nature | |
| So horridly to shake our disposition | |
| With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? | |
| Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do? Ghost beckons HAMLET. | 60 |
| Hor. It beckons you to go away with it, | |
| As if it some impartment did desire | |
| To you alone. | |
| Mar. Look, with what courteous action | 64 |
| It wafts you to a more removed ground. | |
| But do not go with it. | |
| Hor. No, by no means. | |
| Ham. It will not speak; then will I follow it. | 68 |
| Hor. Do not, my lord. | |
| Ham. Why, what should be the fear? | |
| I do not set my life at a pin’s fee, | |
| And for my soul, what can it do to that, | 72 |
| Being a thing immortal as itself? | |
| It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it. | |
| Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, | |
| Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff | 76 |
| That beetles o’er his base into the sea, | |
| And there assume some other horrible form, | |
| Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason | |
| And draw you into madness? Think of it. | 80 |
| [The very place puts toys of desperation, | |
| Without more motive, into every brain | |
| That looks so many fathoms to the sea | |
| And hears it roar beneath.] | 84 |
| Ham. It wafts me still. | |
| Go on, I’ll follow thee. | |
| Mar. You shall not go, my lord. | |
| Ham. Hold off your hand. | 88 |
| Hor. Be rul’d; you shall not go. | |
| Ham. My fate cries out, | |
| And makes each petty artery in this body | |
| As hardly as the Nemean lion’s nerve. | 92 |
| Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen. | |
| By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets 14 me! | |
| I say, away!—Go on, I’ll follow thee. Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET. | |
| Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination. | 96 |
| Mar. Let’s follow. ’Tis not fit thus to obey him. | |
| Hor. Have after. To what issue will this come? | |
| Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. | |
| Hor. Heaven will direct it. | 100 |
| Mar. Nay, let’s follow him. Exeunt. | |
