2.5.1: Hamlet- Act 1, Scenes 1 and 2

Hamlet

By William Shakespeare

Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine

with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles

Folger Shakespeare Library

https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/

Created on Apr 23, 2016, from FDT version 0.9.2.

Characters in the Play

THE GHOST

HAMLET, Prince of Denmark, son of the late King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude

QUEEN GERTRUDE, widow of King Hamlet, now married to Claudius

KING CLAUDIUS, brother to the late King Hamlet

OPHELIA

LAERTES, her brother

POLONIUS, father of Ophelia and Laertes, councillor to King Claudius

REYNALDO, servant to Polonius

HORATIO, Hamlet’s friend and confidant

Courtiers at the Danish court:

VOLTEMAND

CORNELIUS

ROSENCRANTZ

GUILDENSTERN

OSRIC

Gentlemen

A Lord

Danish soldiers:

FRANCISCO

BARNARDO

MARCELLUS

FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway

A Captain in Fortinbras’s army

Ambassadors to Denmark from England

Players who take the roles of Prologue, Player King, Player Queen, and Lucianus in The Murder of Gonzago

Two Messengers

Sailors

Gravedigger

Gravedigger’s companion

Doctor of Divinity

Attendants, Lords, Guards, Musicians, Laertes’s Followers, Soldiers, Officers

ACT 1

Scene 1

Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels.

BARNARDO Who’s there?

FRANCISCO

Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDO Long live the King!

FRANCISCO Barnardo?

BARNARDO He. 5

FRANCISCO

You come most carefully upon your hour.

BARNARDO

’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO

For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

BARNARDO Have you had quiet guard? 10

FRANCISCO Not a mouse stirring.

BARNARDO Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

FRANCISCO

I think I hear them.—Stand ho! Who is there? 15

HORATIO Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO Give you good night.

MARCELLUS

O farewell, honest soldier. Who hath relieved

you? 20

FRANCISCO

Barnardo hath my place. Give you good night.

Francisco exits.

MARCELLUS Holla, Barnardo.

BARNARDO Say, what, is Horatio there?

HORATIO A piece of him.

BARNARDO

Welcome, Horatio.—Welcome, good Marcellus. 25

HORATIO

What, has this thing appeared again tonight?

BARNARDO I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS

Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy

And will not let belief take hold of him

Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us. 30

Therefore I have entreated him along

With us to watch the minutes of this night,

That, if again this apparition come,

He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

HORATIO

Tush, tush, ’twill not appear. 35

BARNARDO Sit down awhile,

And let us once again assail your ears,

That are so fortified against our story,

What we have two nights seen.

HORATIO Well, sit we down, 40

And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

BARNARDO Last night of all,

When yond same star that’s westward from the pole

Had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven

Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, 45

The bell then beating one—

Enter Ghost.

MARCELLUS

Peace, break thee off! Look where it comes again.

BARNARDO

In the same figure like the King that’s dead.

MARCELLUS, to Horatio

Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio.

BARNARDO

Looks he not like the King? Mark it, Horatio. 50

HORATIO

Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

BARNARDO

It would be spoke to.

MARCELLUS Speak to it, Horatio.

HORATIO

What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike form 55

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? By heaven, I charge thee,

speak.

MARCELLUS

It is offended.

BARNARDO See, it stalks away. 60

HORATIO

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

Ghost exits.

MARCELLUS ’Tis gone and will not answer.

BARNARDO

How now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you on ’t? 65

HORATIO

Before my God, I might not this believe

Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

MARCELLUS Is it not like the King?

HORATIO As thou art to thyself. 70

Such was the very armor he had on

When he the ambitious Norway combated.

So frowned he once when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

’Tis strange. 75

MARCELLUS

Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

HORATIO

In what particular thought to work I know not,

But in the gross and scope of mine opinion

This bodes some strange eruption to our state. 80

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, 85

Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week.

What might be toward that this sweaty haste

Doth make the night joint laborer with the day?

Who is ’t that can inform me? 90

HORATIO That can I.

At least the whisper goes so: our last king,

Whose image even but now appeared to us,

Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride, 95

Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet

(For so this side of our known world esteemed him)

Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compact,

Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands 100

Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror.

Against the which a moiety competent

Was gagèd by our king, which had returned

To the inheritance of Fortinbras

Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart 105

And carriage of the article designed,

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

Of unimprovèd mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there

Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes 110

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 compulsatory, those foresaid lands 115

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 posthaste and rummage in the land.

BARNARDO

I think it be no other but e’en so. 120

Well may it sort that this portentous figure

Comes armèd through our watch so like the king

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, 125

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, 130

Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

And even the like precurse of feared events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates

And prologue to the omen coming on, 135

Have heaven and Earth together demonstrated

Unto our climatures and countrymen.

Enter Ghost.

But soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!

I’ll cross it though it blast me.—Stay, illusion!

It spreads his arms.

If thou hast any sound or use of voice, 140

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, 145

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, 150

Speak of it. The cock crows.

Stay and speak!—Stop it, Marcellus.

MARCELLUS

Shall I strike it with my partisan?

HORATIO Do, if it will not stand.

BARNARDO ’Tis here. 155

HORATIO ’Tis here.

Ghost exits.

MARCELLUS ’Tis gone.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence,

For it is as the air, invulnerable, 160

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, 165

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,

Th’ extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine, and of the truth herein 170

This present object made probation.

MARCELLUS

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes

Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated,

This bird of dawning singeth all night long; 175

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 hallowed and so gracious is that time.

HORATIO

So have I heard and do in part believe it. 180

But look, the morn in russet mantle clad

Walks o’er 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, 185

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

Let’s do ’t, I pray, and I this morning know

Where we shall find him most convenient. 190

They exit.

Scene 2

Flourish. Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the
Queen, the Council, as Polonius, and his son Laertes,
Hamlet, with others, among them Voltemand and
Cornelius.

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 5

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, 10

With an auspicious and a 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 barred

Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone 15

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, 20

Colleaguèd with this dream of his advantage,

He hath not failed 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. 25

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 bedrid, scarcely hears

Of this his nephew’s purpose, to suppress 30

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, 35

Giving to you no further personal power

To business with the King more than the scope

Of these dilated articles allow.

Giving them a paper.

Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.

CORNELIUS/VOLTEMAND

In that and all things will we show our duty. 40

KING

We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.

Voltemand and Cornelius exit.

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, 45

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. 50

What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

LAERTES My dread lord,

Your leave and favor to return to France,

From whence though willingly I came to Denmark

To show my duty in your coronation, 55

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

Hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave 60

By laborsome petition, and at last

Upon his will I sealed 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.— 65

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 in the sun.

QUEEN

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, 70

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not forever with thy vailèd lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust.

Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity. 75

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, 80

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Nor the dejected havior of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, 85

That can denote me truly. These indeed “seem,”

For they are actions that a man might play;

But I have that within which passes show,

These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING

’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, 90

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 95

To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever

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, 100

An understanding simple and unschooled.

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, 105

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 110

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 115

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, 120

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. 125

Be as ourself in Denmark.—Madam, come.

This gentle and unforced 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, 130

And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again,

Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.

Flourish. All but Hamlet exit.

HAMLET

O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed 135

His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God,

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on ’t, ah fie! ’Tis an unweeded garden

That grows to seed. Things rank and gross in nature 140

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 145

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!), 150

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 mourned longer!), married with my 155

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 gallèd eyes, 160

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. 165

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?— 170

Marcellus?

MARCELLUS My good lord.

HAMLET

I am very glad to see you. To Barnardo. Good

even, sir.—

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? 175

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. 180

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. 185

HORATIO

Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

HAMLET

Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked 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! 190

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, 195

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? 200

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! 205

HORATIO

Two nights together had these gentlemen,

Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,

In the dead waste and middle of the night,

Been thus encountered: a figure like your father,

Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie, 210

Appears before them and with solemn march

Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked

By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes

Within his truncheon’s length, whilst they, distilled

Almost to jelly with the act of fear, 215

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 delivered, both in time,

Form of the thing (each word made true and good), 220

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? 225

HORATIO My lord, I did,

But answer made it none. Yet once methought

It lifted up its head and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak;

But even then the morning cock crew loud, 230

And at the sound it shrunk in haste away

And vanished from our sight.

HAMLET ’Tis very strange.

HORATIO

As I do live, my honored lord, ’tis true.

And we did think it writ down in our duty 235

To let you know of it.

HAMLET Indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.

Hold you the watch tonight?

ALL We do, my lord.

HAMLET

Armed, say you? 240

ALL Armed, my lord.

HAMLET From top to toe?

ALL My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET Then saw you not his face?

HORATIO

O, yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up. 245

HAMLET What, looked he frowningly?

HORATIO

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET Pale or red?

HORATIO

Nay, very pale.

HAMLET And fixed his eyes upon you? 250

HORATIO

Most constantly.

HAMLET I would I had been there.

HORATIO It would have much amazed you.

HAMLET Very like. Stayed it long?

HORATIO

While one with moderate haste might tell a 255

hundred.

BARNARDO/MARCELLUS 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, 260

A sable silvered.

HAMLET I will watch tonight.

Perchance ’twill walk again.

HORATIO I warrant it will.

HAMLET

If it assume my noble father’s person, 265

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

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

If you have hitherto concealed this sight,

Let it be tenable in your silence still;

And whatsomever else shall hap tonight, 270

Give it an understanding but no tongue.

I will requite your loves. So fare you well.

Upon the platform, ’twixt eleven and twelve,

I’ll visit you.

ALL Our duty to your Honor. 275

HAMLET

Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.

All but Hamlet exit.

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 280

eyes.

He exits.

Get even more from the Folger

You can get your own copy of this text to keep. Download it to get the same great text as on this site, or purchase a full copy to get the text, plus explanatory notes, illustrations, ad more.

Download

• Copyright Statement. Unless noted in the Restrictions section below, the Folger licenses the content on Folger websites under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.