Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus. Mar. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night? Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says, 't is but our fantasy;

And will not let belief take hold of him,

Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us :
Therefore I have entreated him along

With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That, if again this apparition come,

b

Sit down awhile;

He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.
Hor. Tush! tush! 't will not appear.
Ber.
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

Hor.

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Ber. Last night of all,

When yon 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,—

This form of expression is an abbreviation of " may God give you good night;" and our "good night" is an abbre viation abbreviated.

b Confirm what we have seen.

Mar. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

Enter GHOST.

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 wor-
der.

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. Mar. It is offended.

Ber.

See! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay; speak: speak I charge thee, speak.

Mar. "T is gone, and will not answer.

[Exit GHOST

Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look

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

Of mine own eyes.

Mar.

Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on,

When he the ambitious Norway combated;

So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

'Tis strange.

Exorcisms were usually performed in Latin-the language of the church-service.

Polacks-Poles.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and just at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Ilor. In what particular thought to work, I know not;

But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Mar. 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:
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?

Hor.

a

That can I;

At least, the whisper goes so.
Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd on, to the conqueror :
Against the which, a moiety competent

Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same cov'nant
And carriage of the article design'd,

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

a What might be in preparation. To-weard, to-ward, is the Anglo-Saxon participle, equivalent to coming, about to come.

Of unimproveda mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprize
That hath a stomach in 't: which is no other
(And it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,

And terms compulsative, 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 even so :
Well may it sort, that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch: so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.
Hor. A moth 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 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,c
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 omend coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.

Re-enter GHOST.

But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!

a Unimproved. Improve was originally used for reprove.

b Romage. The stowing of a ship is the roomage; the stower

is the romager.

c The moist star is the moon..

d Omen is here put for "portentous event."

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,

[Cock crows. Speak of it :-stay, and speak.--Stop it, Marcellus. Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partizan? Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Ber.

Hor.

Mar. T is gone!

"T is here!

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.

"T is here!

[Exit GHOST

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 :