TPTT The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: ACT I
Introduction
ACT I
SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
SCENE II. A room of state in the castle.
SCENE III. A room in Polonius' house.
SCENE IV. The platform.
SCENE V. Another part of the platform.
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
Feedback
  Search:   
for:

SCENE IV. The platform.
Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS
HAMLET
      The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
HORATIO
      It is a nipping and an eager air.
HAMLET
      What hour now?
HORATIO
      I think it lacks of twelve.
HAMLET
5     No, it is struck.
HORATIO
      Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
      Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within

      What does this mean, my lord?
HAMLET
      The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
10    Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
      And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
      The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
      The triumph of his pledge.
HORATIO
      Is it a custom?
HAMLET
15    Ay, marry, is't:
      But to my mind, though I am native here
      And to the manner born, it is a custom
      More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
      This heavy-headed revel east and west
20    Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
      They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
      Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
      From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
      The pith and marrow of our attribute.
25    So, oft it chances in particular men,
      That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
      As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,
      Since nature cannot choose his origin--
      By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
30    Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
      Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
      The form of plausive manners, that these men,
      Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
      Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
35    Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace,
      As infinite as man may undergo--
      Shall in the general censure take corruption
      From that particular fault: the dram of eale
      Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
40    To his own scandal.
HORATIO
      Look, my lord, it comes!
Enter Ghost
HAMLET
      Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
      Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
      Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
45    Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
      Thou comest in such a questionable shape
      That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,
      King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
      Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
50    Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
      Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
      Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
      Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
      To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
55    That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
      Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
      Making night hideous; and we fools of nature
      So horridly to shake our disposition
      With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
60    Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Ghost beckons HAMLET
HORATIO
      It beckons you to go away with it,
      As if it some impartment did desire
      To you alone.
MARCELLUS
      Look, with what courteous action
65    It waves you to a more removed ground:
      But do not go with it.
HORATIO
      No, by no means.
HAMLET
      It will not speak; then I will follow it.
HORATIO
      Do not, my lord.
HAMLET
70    Why, what should be the fear?
      I do not set my life in a pin's fee;
      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.
HORATIO
75    What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
      Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
      That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
      And there assume some other horrible form,
      Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
80    And draw you into madness? think of it:
      The very place puts toys of desperation,
      Without more motive, into every brain
      That looks so many fathoms to the sea
      And hears it roar beneath.
HAMLET
85    It waves me still.
      Go on; I'll follow thee.
MARCELLUS
      You shall not go, my lord.
HAMLET
      Hold off your hands.
HORATIO
      Be ruled; you shall not go.
HAMLET
90    My fate cries out,
      And makes each petty artery in this body
      As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
      Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
      By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
95    I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.
Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET
HORATIO
      He waxes desperate with imagination.
MARCELLUS
      Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
HORATIO
      Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS
      Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO
100   Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS
      Nay, let's follow him.
Exeunt
Return to top of page ... or ... Go to next scene