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Hor.

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

35 Ber. Last night of all,

When yond same star that's westward from the pole

Had made his course to illume that part of
heaven

Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one,-

Enter Ghost.

40 Mar. Peace, break thee off!

comes again!

Look, where it

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead. Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. Ber. Looks it not like the king? Mark it,

Horatio.

Hor. Most like; it harrows me with fear and

wonder.

45 Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar.

Question it, Horatio.

Hor. What art thou that usurp'st this time of

night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge
thee, speak!

50 Mar. It is offended.

Ber.

See, it stalks away!

Hor. Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

[Exit Ghost.

Horatio! You tremble and look

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Ber. How now,

pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on't?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch

Mar.

Of mine own eyes.

Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyself.

Such was the very armour he had on

When he th' ambitious Norway combated.
So frowned he once, when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

'Tis strange.

55

60

Mar. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead 65 hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Hor. In what particular thought to work I know

not;

But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion, This bodes some strange eruption to our state. Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that 70 knows,

Why this same strict and most observant
watch

So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;

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80

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95

Hor.

Why such impress of shipwrights, whose
sore task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week.
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the

day,

Who is't that can inform me?

That can I;
Our last king,

At least, the whisper goes so.
Whose image even but now appeared to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride,
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant
Hamlet-

For so this side of our known world esteemed
him-

Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a sealed compact,

Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror;
Against the which, a moiety competent

Was gaged by our king; which had returned
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same
covenant,

And carriage of the article designed,

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young
Fortinbras,

Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't; which is no other- 100
As it doth well appear unto our state-
But to recover of us, by strong hand

And terms compulsatory, those foresaid
lands

So by his father lost; and this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch and the chief

head

Of this post-haste and romage in the land. Ber. I think it be no other but e'en so.

105

Well may it sort that this portentous figure Comes armed through our watch, so like the 110 king

That was and is the question of these wars. Hor. A mote it 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 115
dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

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As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire 120
stands

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:

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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 climatures and countrymen.-

Re-enter Ghost.

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

Speak of it; stay, and speak! [Cock crows.]
Stop it, Marcellus.

Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

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We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;

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