| |
The Platform. | |
| |
Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS. | |
| Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. | |
| Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air. | |
| Ham. What hour now? | 5 |
| Hor. I think it lacks of twelve. | |
| Mar. No, it is struck. | |
| Hor. 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? | 10 |
| Ham. The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, | |
| 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. | 15 |
| Hor. Is it a custom? | |
| Ham. 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. | 20 |
| This heavy-headed revel east and west | |
| Makes us traduc’d 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, | 25 |
| The pith and marrow of our attribute. | |
| 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,— | 30 |
| By the o’ergrowth of some complexion, | |
| 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, | 35 |
| Being nature’s livery, or fortune’s star, | |
| 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 | 40 |
| Doth all the noble substance of a doubt, | |
| To his own scandal. | |
| |
Enter GHOST. | |
| Hor. Look, my lord, it comes. | |
| Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! | 45 |
| Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d, | |
| Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, | |
| Be thy intents wicked or charitable, | |
| Thou com’st in such a questionable shape | |
| That I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet, | 50 |
| King, father; royal Dane, O! answer me: | |
| Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell | |
| Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death, | |
| Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, | |
| Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d, | 55 |
| Hath op’d his ponderous and marble jaws, | |
| To cast thee up again. What may this mean, | |
| That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel | |
| Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon, | |
| Making night hideous; and we fools of nature | 60 |
| So horridly to shake our disposition | |
| With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? | |
| Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do? [The Ghost beckons HAMLET. | |
| Hor. It beckons you to go away with it, | |
| As if it some impartment did desire | 65 |
| To you alone. | |
| Mar. Look, with what courteous action | |
| It waves you to a more removed ground: | |
| But do not go with it. | |
| Hor. No, by no means. | 70 |
| Ham. It will not speak; then, will I follow it. | |
| Hor. Do not, my lord. | |
| Ham. Why, what should be the fear? | |
| I do not set my life at a pin’s fee; | |
| And for my soul, what can it do to that, | 75 |
| Being a thing immortal as itself? | |
| It waves me forth again; I’ll follow it. | |
| Hor. 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, | 80 |
| And there assume some other horrible form, | |
| Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason | |
| And draw you into madness? think of it; | |
| The very place puts toys of desperation, | |
| Without more motive, into every brain | 85 |
| That looks so many fathoms to the sea | |
| And hears it roar beneath. | |
| Ham. It waves me still. Go on, I’ll follow thee. | |
| Mar. You shall not go, my lord. | |
| Ham. Hold off your hands! | 90 |
| Hor. Be rul’d; you shall not go. | |
| Ham. My fate cries out, | |
| And makes each petty artery in this body | |
| As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve. [Ghost beckons. | |
| Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen, [Breaking from them. | 95 |
| By heaven! I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me: | |
| I say, away! Go on, I’ll follow thee. [Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET. | |
| Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination. | |
| Mar. Let’s follow; ’tis not fit thus to obey him. | |
| Hor. Have after. To what issue will this come? | 100 |
| Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. | |
| Hor. Heaven will direct it. | |
| Mar. Nay, let’s follow him. [Exeunt. | |
| |
