Act 1, Scene 1

This first audio file previews the opening imagery of the play and the themes it establishes.

ACT I SCENE I	Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
[FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO]
BERNARDO	Who's there?
FRANCISCO	Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.
BERNARDO	Long live the king!
FRANCISCO	Bernardo?
BERNARDO	He.
FRANCISCO	You come most carefully upon your hour.
BERNARDO	'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO	For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
	And I am sick at heart.
BERNARDO	Have you had quiet guard?
FRANCISCO	Not a mouse stirring.	10
BERNARDO	Well, good night.
	If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
	The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
FRANCISCO	I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?
[Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS]
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?
FRANCISCO	Bernardo has my place.
	Give you good night.
[Exit]
MARCELLUS	Holla! Bernardo!
BERNARDO	Say,
	What, is Horatio there?
HORATIO	A piece of him.
BERNARDO	Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.	20
MARCELLUS	What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
BERNARDO	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:
	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.
BERNARDO	Sit down awhile;	30
	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,
	And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
BERNARDO	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]
MARCELLUS	Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!	40
BERNARDO	In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
MARCELLUS	Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
BERNARDO	Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
HORATIO	Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.
BERNARDO	It would be spoke to.
MARCELLUS	Question it, Horatio.
HORATIO	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!
MARCELLUS	It is offended.
BERNARDO	See, it stalks away!	50
HORATIO	Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!
[Exit Ghost]
MARCELLUS	'Tis gone, and will not answer.
BERNARDO	How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
	Is not this something more than fantasy?
	What think you on't?
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:
	Such was the very armour he had on	60
	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.
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 my opinion,
	This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
MARCELLUS	Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,	70
	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?
HORATIO	That can I;
	At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,	80
	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,
	Dared 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 seized of, to the conqueror:
	Against the which, a moiety competent	90
	Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
	To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
	Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
	And carriage of the article design'd,
	His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
	Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
	Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
	Shark'd 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.
BERNARDO	I think it be no other but e'en so:
	Well may it sort that this portentous figure
	Comes armed through our watch; so like the king	110
	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,
	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
	Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
	Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:	120
	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.--
	But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

[Re-enter Ghost]
	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,	130
	That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
	Speak to me:
[Cock crows]
	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! Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS	Shall I strike at it with my partisan?	140
HORATIO	Do, if it will not stand.
BERNARDO	'Tis here!
HORATIO	'Tis here!
MARCELLUS	'Tis gone!
[Exit Ghost]
	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.
BERNARDO	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,	150
	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.
MARCELLUS	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:	160
	And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
	The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
	No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
	So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
HORATIO	So have I heard and do in part believe it.
	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 to-night
	Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,	170
	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 conveniently.
[Exeunt]