Hamlet | Page 2

is to trouble the mind's eye.?In the most high and palmy state of Rome,?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,?Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,?Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:?And even the like precurse of fierce events,--?As harbingers preceding still the fates,?And prologue to the omen coming on,--?Have heaven and earth together demonstrated?Unto our climature and countrymen.--?But, soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
[Re-enter Ghost.]
I'll cross it, though it blast 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, race to me,?Speak to me:?If thou art privy to thy country's fate,?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,?[The cock crows.]?Speak of it:--stay, and speak!--Stop it, Marcellus!
Mar.?Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
Hor.?Do, if it will not stand.
Ber.?'Tis here!
Hor.?'Tis here!
Mar.?'Tis gone!
[Exit Ghost.]
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.
Ber.?It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
Hor.?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 extravagant and erring spirit hies?To his confine: and of the truth herein?This present object made probation.
Mar.?It faded on the crowing of the cock.?Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes?Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,?The bird of dawning singeth all night long;?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 hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
Hor.?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 eastward hill:?Break we our watch up: and by my advice,?Let us impart what we have seen to-night?Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,?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?
Mar.?Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know?Where we shall find him most conveniently.
[Exeunt.]
Scene II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.
[Enter the King, Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltimand, Cornelius, Lords, and Attendant.]
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?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,--?With an auspicious and one 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 barr'd?Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone?With this affair along:--or 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 bonds 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 dispatch?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. and Volt.?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?
Laer.?Dread my lord,?Your leave and favour to return to France;?From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,?To show my duty in your coronation;?Yet now,