Her nurse is privy: And, if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigor of severest law.

Prince. We still have known thee for a holy

man.

Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?
Bal. I brought my master pews of Juliet's death;
And then in post he came from Mantua,
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father;
And threaten'd me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.

Prince. Give me the letter, I will look on it.Where is the county's page that rais'd the watch? Sirrah, what made your master in this place? Page. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;

And bid me stand aloof, and so I did:
Anon, comes one with light to ope the tomb;
And, by and by, my master drew on him;
And then I ran away to call the watch.

Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words,

Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
And here he writes--that he did buy a poison

Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.-
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with lovel
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen:-All are punish'd
Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

Mon.

But I can give thee more:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
That, while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set,
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!

Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings:

The sun for sorrow will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: For never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. •Mercutio and Jaris.

[Exeund

Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy, And will not let belief take hold of him, Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us Therefore I have entreated him, along

Sit down awhile

That, if again this apparition come.
He may approve' our eyes, and speak to it.
Hor. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
Ber.
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

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

Ber. Last night of all,

When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one,—

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

Enter Ghost.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead Mar. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio. Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Ho. ratio.

Hor. Most like:-it harrows me with fear, and wonder.

Ber. It would be spoke to.
Mar.

Speak to it, Horatio. Hor. 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.
Mar. It is offended.

SCENE II.—A Room of State in the same. Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants.

Ktng. 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,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,—
With one auspicious, and one drooping 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 bands 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 despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
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.
Cor. Vol. In that, and all things, will we show
our duty.

King. We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell.
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND 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?

My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France, And bow them to your gracious leave and pardor. King. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?

Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave, By laborsome 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, Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind.

[Aside.

King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Ham. Not so, my lord, I am too much i' the sun.
Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color 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 live, must die
Passing through nature to eternity.

Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen.

Why seems it so particular with thee?

If it be,

Ham. 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 forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grier,
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 na

ture, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term
To do obsequious sorrow: But to perséver
In obstinate condolement, is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, or 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? Fye! '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 to-day,
This must be so. We pray you, throw to eart!.
This unprevailing woe; and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our thr ne;
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.
•Contrary

Lowering eyes

Hamlet,

I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.
Ham. 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 unforced accord of Hamlet
Bits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health, that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;
And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit' again,
Ke-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, Lords, &e POLONIUS,
and LAERTES.

Ham. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fye on't! O fye! '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 follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,—
O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,-married with my
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, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS.
Hor. Hail to your lordship!
Ham.
I am glad to see you well:
Horatio, or I do forget myself.
Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant

Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio.
Hor. I saw him once, he was a goodly king.
Ham. He was a man, take him for ali in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Ham. Saw! who?

Hor. My lord, the king your father.
Ham.

The king my father!
Hor. Season your admiration for a while
With an attent' ear; till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

Ham. For God's love, let me hear. Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, In the dead waist and middle of the night, Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father, Armed at point, exactly cap-à-pé,

This to me

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.
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.

Ham.
But where was this?
Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we
watch'd.

Ham. Did you not speak to it?
Hor.

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;
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish'd from our sight.

Ham.

"Tis very strange. Hor. As I do live, my honor'd lord, 'tis true; And we did think it writ down in our duty, To let you know of it.

Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. Hold you the watch to-night? All. Ham. Arm'd, say you? All.

Ham.

We Jo, my lord

Arm❜d, my lord. From top to toe'