The Tragedie of Hamlet

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PRINCE OF DENMARKE.

[Page 2]

ACTUS PRIMUS.

_Enter Barnardo and Francisco two Centinels_[1].

Barnardo. Who's there?

_Fran._[2] Nay answer me: Stand and vnfold yourselfe.

Bar. Long liue the King.[3]

Fran. Barnardo?

Bar. He.

Fran. You come most carefully vpon your houre.

Bar. 'Tis now strook twelue, get thee to bed Francisco.

Fran. For this releefe much thankes: 'Tis [Sidenote: 42] bitter cold,
And I am sicke at heart.[4]

Barn. Haue you had quiet Guard?[5]

Fran. Not a Mouse stirring.

Barn. Well, goodnight. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the Riuals[6] of my Watch, bid them make hast.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

Fran. I thinke I heare them. Stand: who's there?

Hor. Friends to this ground.

Mar. And Leige-men to the Dane.

Fran. Giue you good night.

[Footnote 1: --meeting. Almost dark.]

[Footnote 2: --on the post, and with the right of challenge.]

[Footnote 3: The watchword.]

[Footnote 4: The key-note to the play--as in Macbeth: 'Fair is foul and foul is fair.' The whole nation is troubled by late events at court.]

[Footnote 5: --thinking of the apparition.]

[Footnote 6: Companions.]

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Fra. Barnardo ha's my place: giue you good-night. [Sidenote: hath] Exit Fran.

Mar. Holla Barnardo.

Bar. Say, what is Horatio there?

Hor. A peece of him.

Bar. Welcome Horatio, welcome good Marcellus.

Mar. What, ha's this thing appear'd againe to [Sidenote: Hor.[1]] night.

Bar. I haue seene nothing.

Mar. Horatio saies, 'tis but our Fantasie, And will not let beleefe take hold of him Touching this dreaded sight, twice seene of vs, Therefore I haue intreated him along With vs, to watch the minutes of this Night, That if againe this Apparition come, [Sidenote: 6] He may approue our eyes, and speake to it.[2]

Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appeare.

Bar. Sit downe a-while,
And let vs once againe assaile your eares,

That are so fortified against our Story,
What we two Nights haue seene. [Sidenote: have two nights seen]

Hor. Well, sit we downe,
And let vs heare Barnardo speake of this.

Barn. Last night of all,
When yond same Starre that's Westward from the Pole Had made his course t'illume that part of Heauen Where now it burnes, Marcellus and my selfe, The Bell then beating one.[3]

Mar. Peace, breake thee of: Enter the Ghost. [Sidenote: Enter Ghost] Looke where it comes againe.

Barn. In the same figure, like the King that's dead.

[Footnote 1: Better, I think; for the tone is scoffing, and Horatio is the incredulous one who has not seen it.]

[Footnote 2: --being a scholar, and able to address it as an apparition ought to be addressed--Marcellus thinking, perhaps, with others, that a ghost required Latin.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'towling one.]

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[Sidenote: 4] Mar. Thou art a Scholler; speake to it Horatio.

Barn. Lookes it not like the King? Marke it Horatio.

Barn. It would be spoke too.[2]

Mar. Question it Horatio. [Sidenote: Speak to it Horatio]

Hor. What art thou that vsurp'st this time of night,[3] Together with that Faire and Warlike forme[4] In which the Maiesty of buried Denmarke Did sometimes[5] march: By Heauen I charge thee speake.

Mar. It is offended.[6]

Barn. See, it stalkes away.

Hor. Stay: speake; speake: I Charge thee, speake.
Exit the Ghost. [Sidenote: Exit Ghost.]

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Barn. How now Horatio? You tremble and look pale: Is not this something more then Fantasie? What thinke you on't?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this beleeue Without the sensible and true auouch Of mine owne eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the King?

Hor. As thou art to thy selfe,
Such was the very Armour he had on,
When th' Ambitious Norwey combatted: [Sidenote: when he the ambitious]

So frown'd he once, when in an angry parle
He smot the sledded Pollax on the Ice.[8] [Sidenote: sleaded[7]]
'Tis strange.

[Sidenote: 274] Mar. Thus twice before, and iust at this dead houre,

[Footnote 1: 1st Q. 'horrors mee'.]

[Footnote 2: A ghost could not speak, it was believed, until it was spoken to.]

[Footnote 3: It was intruding upon the realm of the embodied.]

[Footnote 4: None of them took it as certainly the late king: it was only clear to them that it was like him. Hence they say, 'usurp'st the forme.']

[Footnote 5: formerly.]

[Footnote 6: --at the word usurp'st.]

[Footnote 7: Also 1st Q.]

[Footnote 8: The usual interpretation is 'the sledged Poles'; but not to mention that in a parley such action would have been treacherous, there is another far more picturesque, and more befitting the angry parle, at the same time more characteristic and forcible: the king in his anger smote his loaded pole-axe on the ice. There is some uncertainty about the word sledded or sleaded (which latter suggests lead), but we have the word sledge and sledge-hammer, the smith's heaviest, and the phrase, 'a sledging blow.' The quarrel on the occasion referred to rather seems with the Norwegians (See Schmidt's Shakespeare-Lexicon: Sledded.) than with the Poles; and there would be no doubt as to the latter interpretation being the right one, were it not that the Polacke, for the Pole, or nation of the Poles, does occur in the play. That is, however, no reason why the Dane should not have carried a pole-axe, or caught one from the hand of an attendant. In both our authorities, and in the 1st Q. also, the word is pollax--as in Chaucer's Knights Tale: 'No maner schot, ne pollax, ne schort knyf,'--in the Folio alone with a capital; whereas not once in the play is the similar word that stands for the Poles used in the plural. In the 2nd Quarto there is Pollacke three times, Pollack once, Pole once; in the 1st Quarto, Polacke twice; in the Folio, Poleak twice, Polake once. The Poet seems to have avoided the plural form.]

[Page 8]

With Martiall stalke,[1] hath he gone by our Watch.

Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not:
But in the grosse and scope of my Opinion, [Sidenote: mine]
This boades some strange erruption to our State.

Mar. Good now sit downe, and tell me he that knowes [Sidenote: 16] Why this same strict and most obseruant Watch,[2] So nightly toyles the subiect of the Land, And why such dayly Cast of Brazon Cannon

And Forraigne Mart for Implements of warre: Why such impresse of Ship-wrights, whose sore Taske Do's not diuide the Sunday from the weeke, What might be toward, that this sweaty hast[3] Doth make the Night ioynt-Labourer with the day: Who is't that can informe me?

Hor. That can I,
At least the whisper goes so: Our last King, Whose Image euen but now appear'd to vs, Was (as you know) by Fortinbras of Norway, (Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate Pride)[4] Dar'd to the Combate. In which, our Valiant Hamlet, (For so this side of our knowne world esteem'd him)[5]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q. 'Marshall stalke'.]

[Footnote 2: Here is set up a frame of external relations, to inclose with fitting contrast, harmony, and suggestion, the coming show of things. 273]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'sweaty march'.]

[Footnote 4: Pride that leads to emulate: the ambition to excel--not oneself, but another.]

[Footnote 5: The whole western hemisphere.]

[Footnote 6: stood possessed of.]

[Footnote 7: Used by Shakspere for a part.]

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Had he bin Vanquisher, as by the same Cou'nant

[Sidenote: the same comart]
And carriage of the Article designe,[1] [Sidenote: desseigne,]
His fell to Hamlet. Now sir, young Fortinbras,
Of vnimproued[2] Mettle, hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, heere and there,
Shark'd[3] vp a List of Landlesse Resolutes, [Sidenote: of lawlesse]
For Foode and Diet, to some Enterprize
That hath a stomacke in't[4]: which is no other
(And it doth well appeare vnto our State) [Sidenote: As it]
But to recouer of vs by strong hand
And termes Compulsatiue, those foresaid Lands [Sidenote: compulsatory,]
So by his Father lost: and this (I take it)
Is the maine Motiue of our Preparations,

The Sourse of this our Watch, and the cheefe head Of this post-hast, and Romage[5] in the Land.

1. _Enter Ghost againe_.

But soft, behold: Loe, where it comes againe:

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:--

Bar. I thinke it be no other, but enso; Well may it sort[6] that this portentous figure Comes armed through our watch so like the King That was and is the question of these warres.

Hora. A moth it is to trouble the mindes eye: In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Iulius fell The graues stood tennatlesse, and the sheeted dead Did squeake and gibber in the Roman streets[7] As starres with traines of fier, and dewes of blood Disasters in the sunne; and the moist starre, Vpon whose influence Neptunes Empier stands Was sicke almost to doomesday with eclipse. And euen the like precurse of feare euents As harbindgers preceading still the fates And prologue to the Omen comming on Haue heauen and earth together demonstrated Vnto our Climatures and countrymen.[8]

Enter Ghost.]

[Footnote 1: French désigné.]

[Footnote 2: not proved or tried. Improvement, as we use the word, is the result of proof or trial: upon-proof-ment.]

[Footnote 3: Is shark'd related to the German scharren? Zusammen scharren--to scrape together. The Anglo-Saxon searwian is to prepare, entrap, take.]

[Footnote 4: Some enterprise of acquisition; one for the sake of getting something.]

[Footnote 5: In Scotch, remish--the noise of confused and varied movements; a row; a rampage.--Associated with French remuage?]

[Footnote 6: suit: so used in Scotland still, I think.]

[Footnote 7: Julius Caesar, act i. sc. 3, and act ii. sc. 2.]

[Footnote 8: The only suggestion I dare make for the rectifying of the confusion of this speech is, that, if the eleventh line were inserted between the fifth and sixth, there would be sense, and very nearly grammar.

Did squeake and gibber in the Roman streets, As harbindgers preceading still the fates; As starres with traines of fier, and dewes of blood

(Here understand precede)

Disasters in the sunne;

The tenth will close with the twelfth line well enough.

But no one, any more than myself, will be satisfied with the suggestion. The probability is, of course, that a line has dropped out between the fifth and sixth. Anything like this would restore the connection:

The labouring heavens themselves teemed dire portent As starres &c.]

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Ile crosse it, though it blast me.[1] Stay Illusion:[2]

If thou hast any sound, or vse of Voyce,[3] Speake 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 priuy to thy Countries Fate (Which happily foreknowing may auoyd) Oh speake. Or, if thou hast vp-hoorded in thy life Extorted Treasure in the wombe of Earth,

(For which, they say, you Spirits oft walke in death) [Sidenote: your]
[Sidenote: The cocke crowes]

Speake of it. Stay, and speake. Stop it Marcellus.

Mar. Shall I strike at it with my Partizan? [Sidenote: strike it with]

Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Barn. 'Tis heere.

Hor. 'Tis heere.

Mar. 'Tis gone. _Exit Ghost_[5]
We do it wrong, being so Maiesticall[6]
To offer it the shew of Violence,
For it is as the Ayre, invulnerable,
And our vaine blowes, malicious Mockery.

Barn. It was about to speake, when the Cocke crew.

Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing

Vpon a fearfull Summons. I haue heard,
The Cocke that is the Trumpet to the day, [Sidenote: to the morne,]
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding Throate[7]
Awake the God of Day: and at his warning,
Whether in Sea, or Fire, in Earth, or Ayre,
Th'extrauagant,[8] and erring[9] Spirit, hyes

To his Confine. And of the truth heerein, This present Obiect made probation.[10]

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the Cocke.[11]

[Footnote 1: There are various tales of the blasting power of evil ghosts.]

[Footnote 2: Plain doubt, and strong.]

[Footnote 3: 'sound of voice, or use of voice': physical or mental faculty of speech.]

[Footnote 4: I judge this It a mistake for H., standing for Horatio: he would stop it.]

[Footnote 5: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 6: 'As we cannot hurt it, our blows are a mockery; and it is wrong to mock anything so majestic': For belongs to shew; 'We do it wrong, being so majestical, to offer it what is but a show of violence, for it is, &c.']

[Footnote 7: 1st Q. 'his earely and shrill crowing throate.']

[Footnote 8: straying beyond bounds.]

[Footnote 9: wandering.]

[Footnote 10: 'gave proof.']

[Footnote 11: This line said thoughtfully--as the text of the observation following it. From the eerie discomfort of their position, Marcellus takes refuge in the thought of the Saviour's birth into the haunted world, bringing sweet law, restraint, and health.]

[Page 14]

Some sayes, that euer 'gainst that Season comes [Sidenote: say]
Wherein our Sauiours Birth is celebrated,
The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long: [Sidenote: This bird]
And then (they say) no Spirit can walke abroad,
[Sidenote: spirit dare sturre]
The nights are wholsome, then no Planets strike,
No Faiery talkes, nor Witch hath power to Charme:
[Sidenote: fairy takes,[1]]
So hallow'd, and so gracious is the time. [Sidenote: is that time.]

Hor. So haue I heard, and do in part beleeue it. But looke, the Morne in Russet mantle clad,

Walkes o're the dew of yon high Easterne Hill, [Sidenote: Eastward[2]]
Breake we our Watch vp, and by my aduice [Sidenote: advise]
Let vs impart what we haue scene to night
Vnto yong Hamlet. For vpon my life,
This Spirit dumbe to vs, will speake to him:
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needfull in our Loues, fitting our Duty?

[Sidenote: 30] Mar. Let do't I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall finde him most conueniently. [Sidenote: convenient.]
Exeunt.

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