SCENE I.-Elsinore.

A Platform before the Castle. FRANCISCO on his post. Enter to him BERNARDO.

WHO's there?

Bernardo.

Fran. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold

Yourself.

Ber. Long live the king!'

Fran. Bernardo ?

Ber. He.

Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.

Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco Fran. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.

lf

Ber. Have you had quiet guard?

Fran. Not a mouse stirring.

Ber. Well, good night.

you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Fran. I think, I hear them.-Stand, ho! Who is there?

Hor. Friends to this ground.

Mar. And liegemen to the Dane.

Fran. Give you good-night.

Mar. O, farewell, honest soldier:

Who hath reliev'd you?

Fran. Bernardo hath my place.

Give you good night.

Mar. Holla! Bernardo!

Ber. Say,

What, is Horatio there?

Hor. A piece of him.

[Exite

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.
Hor. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

[1] This sentence appears to be the watch-word.

STEEVENS.

[2] Rivals for partners. WARBURTON.Rival is constantly used by Shakespeare for a partner or associate. MALONE.

Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. 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 :
Hor. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
Ber. Sit down awhile;

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,—

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 wonder.
Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar. Speak to 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. 'Tis 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 of it?

[3] Add a new testimony to that of our eyes.

JOHNSON.

[4] It has always been a vulgar notion that supernatural beings can only be spoken to with propriety or effect by persons of learning. Thus Toby, in the Nightwalker, by Beaumont and Fletcher, says:

"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks latin,
"And that will daunt the devil."

REED.

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 Polack on the ice."

'Tis strange.

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

8

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 we toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me ?

Hor. That can I ;

Our last king,

At least, the whisper goes so.
Whose image but even 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 of, 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 co-mart,

[5] He speaks of a prince of Poland whom he slew in battle. Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland. [6] Jump and just were synonymous in the time of Shakespeare. What particular train of thinking to follow. [8] Gross and scope,---general thoughts, and tendency at large.

POPE.

STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.

STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.