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

I'll cross it, though it blast2 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,

[The cock crows.]

Speak of it; stay, and speak! - Stop it, Marcellus. Marcellus. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?3 Horatio. Do, if it will not stand.

Bernardo.

Horatio.

[Exit Ghost R.]

Marcellus. 'Tis gone!

'Tis here!

'Tis here!

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.

Bernardo. 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,
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,

The wandering and erring spirit hies
To his confine.

Marcellus. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever when that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;

1 cross it: cross its path.

2 blast: blight, wither.

3 partisan (pärʼti-zăn): halberd, a long-handled weapon, part spear, part ax.

And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,1
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious2 is the time.
Horatio. So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern 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,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
[Exeunt L.]

Scene 2. A hall in the castle

[Prolog.] Polonius, the Lord Chamberlain, and his son, Laertes, who is leaving Denmark for France to attend the University.

[Enter Polonius and Laertes L.]

Polonius. Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

[Exit L.]

And you are stayed for. There; my blessing with you!
And these few precepts3 in thy memory

See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unfitting thought its act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy taste with entertainment

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,

1 strike: exert an evil influence.

2 gracious: blessed, kind.

3

precepts. Many of them should be inclosed in quotation marks and were current in Shakespeare's time as part of the elegant trifling prose called "Euphuism."

4 character: write down.

Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure,1 but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.2
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.3
Farewell; my blessing follow thee!.

Laertes. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Polonius. The time invites you; go, your servants wait.

[Exit Laertes R.]

[Exit Polonius L.]

Scene 3. The platform

[Prolog.] The next night; the guard and Hamlet. [Exit.] [Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus waiting L.] [Enter Ghost R.]

Horatio. Look, my lord, it comes!

Hamlet. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! -
King, father; royal Dane; O, answer me!

Horatio. It beckons you to go away with it.

Hamlet.

Then I will follow it.

Horatio. Do not, my lord.

Hamlet.

Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin's fee,

1 censure: expressed opinion.

2 husbandry: thrift.

3 Thou canst not then be false to any man. Dr. Hudson calls Polonius an old Mr. Worldly-wiseman. Indeed, Polonius's philosophy seems to smack of policy and self-advancement rather than of service and of love for other men.

4 at a pin's fee: a pin would be too high a payment.

And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.
It waves me still.

Go on, I'll follow thee.

Marcellus. You shall not go, my lord.
Hamlet.

Horatio. Be ruled; you shall not go.
Hamlet.

[Breaking from them.]

Hold off your hands.

My fate cries out.

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that stops me!

Hamlet. Where wilt thou lead me? Speak; I'll go no

Ghost. I am thy father's spirit,

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature3
Are burnt and purged away.

List, O, list!

If thou didst ever thy dear father love,

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. Hamlet. Murder!

It's given out that, sleeping in mine orchard,
A serpent stung me;

But know, thou noble youth,

1 [Hamlet follows the ghost.] As Hamlet follows the ghost to the extreme right edge of the platform, the lights on the stage should be so shifted that the dim light [L.] in which Horatio, Francisco and Marcellus have been standing turns to a deep shadow, under cover of which they withdraw, unnoticed.

2 Doomed: sentenced.

3 nature: flesh.

The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown.

Hamlet.

Mine uncle!

Ghost. Ay, that beast,

O my prophetic soul!

Who with witchcraft of his wit,

Has won to his shameful love

The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air.
Brief let me be. Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always in the afternoon,
Upon my unsuspecting hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of curséd hebenon1 in a vial,2
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The poisonous distilment.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once deprived;
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
But, howsoever thou pursuest revenge,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.

R.]

[The Ghost disappears R.]

[Hamlet, as it becomes lighter on the stage, also takes his way to the

1 hebenon (hĕb'ë-non): a poison.

2 vial (vī'ǎl): a small bottle.

3 without the rite of extreme unction (of the Catholic Church).