Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels. BARNARDO Who’s there? FRANCISCO
Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself. BARNARDO Long live the King! FRANCISCO Barnardo. BARNARDO He. 5 FRANCISCO
You come most carefully upon your hour. BARNARDO
’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco. FRANCISCO
For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart. BARNARDO Have you had quiet guard? 10 FRANCISCO Not a mouse stirring. BARNARDO Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. | Long ago in a kingdom far away—specifically, in Elsinore, Denmark—some guys named Bernardo and Francisco are hanging out on the castle battlements. Francisco is done with his shift and gets ready to head out. |
Enter Horatio and Marcellus. FRANCISCO
I think I hear them.—Stand ho! Who is there? 15 HORATIO Friends to this ground. MARCELLUS And liegemen to the Dane. FRANCISCO Give you good night. MARCELLUS
O farewell, honest soldier. Who hath relieved
you? 20 FRANCISCO
Barnardo hath my place. Give you good night. Francisco exits. MARCELLUS Holla, Barnardo. BARNARDO Say, what, is Horatio there? HORATIO A piece of him. BARNARDO
Welcome, Horatio.—Welcome, good Marcellus. 25 | Marcellus, yet another watchman, shows up with a man named Horatio. Because it's dark outside, no one can see anything, much less each other, so there's a lot of "who's there?" and "what?" and, in one very interesting case, "Holla." |
HORATIO
What, has this thing appeared again tonight? BARNARDO I have seen nothing. MARCELLUS
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us. 30
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night,
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes and speak to it. HORATIO
Tush, tush, ’twill not appear. 35 BARNARDO Sit down awhile,
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we have two nights seen. HORATIO Well, sit we down, 40
And let us hear Barnardo speak of this. | Everyone starts talking about a mysterious "thing" that's been appearing lately, and by lately, we mean the last two nights. |
BARNARDO Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole
Had made his course t’ illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, 45
The bell then beating one— Enter Ghost. MARCELLUS
Peace, break thee off! Look where it comes again. | Bernardo starts to explain what he saw. It was a... Right on cue, a ghost shows up. |
BARNARDO
In the same figure like the King that’s dead. MARCELLUS, to Horatio
Thou art a scholar. Speak to it, Horatio. BARNARDO
Looks he not like the King? Mark it, Horatio. 50 HORATIO
Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder. BARNARDO
It would be spoke to. MARCELLUS Speak to it, Horatio. | The guards all think the ghost looks suspiciously like the recently deceased King of Denmark, especially around the eyes. Everyone tells Horatio to talk to the ghost, since he's the scholar in the group (turns out, he's not a guard). |
HORATIO
What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form 55
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven, I charge thee,
speak. MARCELLUS
It is offended. BARNARDO See, it stalks away. 60 HORATIO
Stay! speak! speak! I charge thee, speak! Ghost exits. MARCELLUS ’Tis gone and will not answer. BARNARDO
How now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on ’t? 65 | Horatio asks the ghost a few questions which are apparently offensive, as the ghost walks off without answering. (But not without seriously freaking everyone out.) |
HORATIO
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes. MARCELLUS Is it not like the King? HORATIO As thou art to thyself. 70
Such was the very armor he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated.
So frowned he once when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
’Tis strange. 75 MARCELLUS
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch. HORATIO
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. 80 MARCELLUS
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that 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, 85
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 laborer with the day?
Who is ’t that can inform me? 90 | To further confirm that the ghost is the image of the dead King, Horatio remarks that it was wearing the same armor the King wore when fighting Norway. Everyone's got a bad feeling about this, and to try to make sense of it, Marcellus asks Horatio for a little history lesson. |
HORATIO That can I.
At least the whisper goes so: our last king,
Whose image even but now appeared to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride, 95
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 100
Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror.
Against the which a moiety competent
Was gagèd by our king, which had returned
To the inheritance of Fortinbras
Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart 105
And carriage of the article designed,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimprovèd mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes 110
For food and diet to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in ’t; which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state)
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands 115
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 posthaste and rummage in the land. | We learn that, a while back, Old King Hamlet made a little wager with the King of Norway about who could kill the other person first in combat. Gee, that sounds safe. Old King Hamlet won so he got to take a bunch of Norway's land. The king of Norway's son, young Fortinbras, has raised an army to get his family's land back. He also wants revenge for his dad's death, naturally. (Hm, we're already sensing a theme.) |
BARNARDO
I think it be no other but e’en so. 120
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armèd through our watch so like the king
That was and is the question of these wars. HORATIO
A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome, 125
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, 130
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of feared events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on, 135
Have heaven and Earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen. Enter Ghost. But soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!
I’ll cross it though it blast me.—Stay, illusion! It spreads his arms. If thou hast any sound or use of voice, 140
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, 145
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, 150
Speak of it. The cock crows.
Stay and speak!—Stop it, Marcellus. | Because the kingdom of Denmark is preparing for war with Norway, Horatio's number one concern is that a dead man walking about in ghost form might be a sign that Denmark is going to lose. Horatio is busy detailing just how bad an omen this is, with many references to Julius Caesar's death and all the nasty things that came before it, when the ghost comes back. |
MARCELLUS
Shall I strike it with my partisan? HORATIO Do, if it will not stand. BARNARDO ’Tis here. 155 HORATIO ’Tis here. Ghost exits. | The guards want the ghost to stay and speak, so they try to hit it to make it stand still. Unfortunately, they can't really keep it in their sights long enough to land any blows. |
MARCELLUS ’Tis gone.
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence,
For it is as the air, invulnerable, 160
And our vain blows malicious mockery. BARNARDO
It was about to speak when the cock crew. HORATIO
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, 165
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,
Th’ extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine, and of the truth herein 170
This present object made probation. MARCELLUS
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long; 175
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 hallowed and so gracious is that time. | Then they rehash events: (1) they were silly for trying to strike at the ghost, and (2) the ghost was probably going to say something, except the cock crowed and scared it off. |
HORATIO
So have I heard and do in part believe it. 180
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 tonight
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life, 185
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? MARCELLUS
Let’s do ’t, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most convenient. 190 They exit. | Horatio suggests they tell Prince Hamlet about the ghost that looks an awful lot like his father. Maybe Hamlet will know what to do, because these guys sure don't. |