1    Who's there?

2    Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

3    Long live the king!

4    Bernardo?

5    He.

6    You come most carefully upon your hour.

7    'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

8    For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
9    And I am sick at heart.

10   Have you had quiet guard?

11   Not a mouse stirring.

12   Well, good night.
13   If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
14   The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

15   I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?

16   Friends to this ground.

17   And liegemen to the Dane.

18   Give you good night.

19   O, farewell, honest soldier:
20   Who hath relieved you?

21   Bernardo has my place.
22   Give you good night.

23   Holla! Bernardo!

24   Say,
25   What, is Horatio there?

26   A piece of him.

27   Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

28   What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

29   I have seen nothing.

30   Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
31   And will not let belief take hold of him
32   Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
33   Therefore I have entreated him along
34   With us to watch the minutes of this night;
35   That if again this apparition come,
36   He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

37   Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

38   Sit down awhile;
39   And let us once again assail your ears,
40   That are so fortified against our story
41   What we have two nights seen.

42   Well, sit we down,
43   And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

44   Last night of all,
45   When yond same star that's westward from the pole
46   Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
47   Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
48   The bell then beating one,--

49   Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

50   In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

51   Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

52   Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

53   Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

54   It would be spoke to.

55   Question it, Horatio.

56   What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
57   Together with that fair and warlike form
58   In which the majesty of buried Denmark
59   Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

60   It is offended.

61   See, it stalks away!

62   Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

63   'Tis gone, and will not answer.

64   How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
65   Is not this something more than fantasy?
66   What think you on't?

67   Before my God, I might not this believe
68   Without the sensible and true avouch
69   Of mine own eyes.

70   Is it not like the king?

71   As thou art to thyself:
72   Such was the very armour he had on
73   When he the ambitious Norway combated;
74   So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
75   He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
76   'Tis strange.

77   Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
78   With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

79   In what particular thought to work I know not;
80   But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
81   This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

82   Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
83   Why this same strict and most observant watch
84   So nightly toils the subject of the land,
85   And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
86   And foreign mart for implements of war;
87   Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
88   Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
89   What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
90   Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
91   Who is't that can inform me?

92   That can I;
93   At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
94   Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
95   Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
96   Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
97   Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet--
98   For so this side of our known world esteem'd him--
99   Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
100  Well ratified by law and heraldry,
101  Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
102  Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
103  Against the which, a moiety competent
104  Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
105  To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
106  Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
107  And carriage of the article design'd,
108  His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
109  Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
110  Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
111  Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
112  For food and diet, to some enterprise
113  That hath a stomach in't; which is no other--
114  As it doth well appear unto our state--
115  But to recover of us, by strong hand
116  And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
117  So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
118  Is the main motive of our preparations,
119  The source of this our watch and the chief head
120  Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

121  I think it be no other but e'en so:
122  Well may it sort that this portentous figure
123  Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
124  That was and is the question of these wars.

125  A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
126  In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
127  A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
128  The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
129  Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
130  As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
131  Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
132  Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
133  Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
134  And even the like precurse of fierce events,
135  As harbingers preceding still the fates
136  And prologue to the omen coming on,
137  Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
138  Unto our climatures and countrymen.--
139  But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
Re-enter Ghost
140  I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
141  If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
142  Speak to me:
143  If there be any good thing to be done,
144  That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
145  Speak to me:
Cock crows
146  If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
147  Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
148  Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
149  Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
150  For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
151  Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

152  Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

153  Do, if it will not stand.

154  'Tis here!

155  'Tis here!

156  'Tis gone!
Exit Ghost
157  We do it wrong, being so majestical,
158  To offer it the show of violence;
159  For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
160  And our vain blows malicious mockery.

161  It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

162  And then it started like a guilty thing
163  Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
164  The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
165  Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
166  Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
167  Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
168  The extravagant and erring spirit hies
169  To his confine: and of the truth herein
170  This present object made probation.

171  It faded on the crowing of the cock.
172  Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
173  Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
174  The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
175  And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
176  The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
177  No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
178  So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

179  So have I heard and do in part believe it.
180  But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
181  Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
182  Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
183  Let us impart what we have seen to-night
184  Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
185  This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
186  Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
187  As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

188  Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
189  Where we shall find him most conveniently.