Ber.
Who's there?

Fran.
Nay, answer me ^{3 note}: 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.

Ber.
Have you had quiet guard?

Fran.
Not a mouse stirring.

Ber.
Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

^{4 note}

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, farewel, honest soldier:
Who hath reliev'd you?

Fran.
Bernardo hath my place.
Give you good night. [Exit Francisco.

Mar.
Holla! Bernardo!

Ber.
Say,
What, is Horatio there?

^{5 note}

Ber.
Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.

Mar.
What^{6 note}, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

Ber.
I have seen nothing.

Mar.
Horatio says, 'tis but our phantasy;
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
Therefore I have intreated him along,
With us to watch ^{7 note}
the minutes of this night;
That, if again this apparition come,
He may ^{8 note}

Hor.
Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.

Ber.
Sit down a while;
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
^{9 note}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^{1 note}
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 bury'd Denmark
Did sometime march? by heaven I charge thee, speak.

Mar.
It is offended.

Ber.
See! it stalks away.

Hor.
Stay; speak; I charge thee, speak. [Exit Ghost.

Mar.
'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Ber.
How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale:
Is not this something more than phantasy?
What think you of it?

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^{2 note}
,
^{3 note}

Mar.
Thus, twice before, ^{5 note}

Hor.
^{6 note}In what particular thought to work, I know not;
But, in the ^{7 note}gross and scope of mine 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^{8 note} of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war?
Why such impress of ship-wrights, 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.
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; ^{9 note}

Well ratify'd 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; ^{1 note}

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
^{4 note}Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprize
^{5 note}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,
^{6 note}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^{7 note} in the land.

Ber.
[^{8 note}

Hor.
A mote it is^{1 note}, to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and ^{2 note}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;
Stars shone with trains of fire; dews of blood fell^{3 note}