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Dramatis Personae
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/ Home / Library / Complete Shakespeare / Hamlet, Prince of Denmark / Act I Scene II
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Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: Act 1 Scene 2
Scene II A room of state in the castle.
- [Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET,
- POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords,
- and Attendants]
- KING CLAUDIUS
- Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
- The memory be green, and that it us befitted
- To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
- To be contracted in one brow of woe,
- Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
- That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
- Together with remembrance of ourselves.
- Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
- The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
- Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--
- With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
- With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
- In equal scale weighing delight and dole,--
- Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
- Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
- With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
- Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
- Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
- Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
- Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
- Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
- He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
- Importing the surrender of those lands
- Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
- To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
- Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
- Thus much the business is: we have here writ
- To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
- Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
- Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
- His further gait herein; in that the levies,
- The lists and full proportions, are all made
- Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
- You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
- For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
- Giving to you no further personal power
- To business with the king, more than the scope
- Of these delated articles allow.
- Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
- CORNELIUS / VOLTIMAND
- In that and all things will we show our duty.
- KING CLAUDIUS
- We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
- [Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
- And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
- You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes?
- You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
- And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
- That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
- The head is not more native to the heart,
- The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
- Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
- What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
- LAERTES
- My dread lord,
- Your leave and favour to return to France;
- From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
- To show my duty in your coronation,
- Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
- My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
- And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
- KING CLAUDIUS
- Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
- LORD POLONIUS
- He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
- By laboursome petition, and at last
- Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
- I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
- KING CLAUDIUS
- Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
- And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
- But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--
- HAMLET
- [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
- KING CLAUDIUS
- How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
- HAMLET
- Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.
- QUEEN GERTRUDE
- Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
- And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
- Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
- Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
- Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
- Passing through nature to eternity.
- HAMLET
- Ay, madam, it is common.
- QUEEN GERTRUDE
- If it be,
- Why seems it so particular with thee?
- HAMLET
- Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
- 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
- Nor customary suits of solemn black,
- Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
- No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
- Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
- Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
- That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
- For they are actions that a man might play:
- But I have that within which passeth show;
- These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
- KING CLAUDIUS
- 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
- To give these mourning duties to your father:
- But, you must know, your father lost a father;
- That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
- In filial obligation for some term
- To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
- In obstinate condolement is a course
- Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
- It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
- A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
- An understanding simple and unschool'd:
- For what we know must be and is as common
- As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
- Why should we in our peevish opposition
- Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
- A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
- To reason most absurd: whose common theme
- Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
- From the first corse till he that died to-day,
- 'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
- This unprevailing woe, and think of us
- As of a father: for let the world take note,
- You are the most immediate to our throne;
- And with no less nobility of love
- Than that which dearest father bears his son,
- Do I impart toward you. For your intent
- In going back to school in Wittenberg,
- It is most retrograde to our desire:
- And we beseech you, bend you to remain
- Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
- Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
- QUEEN GERTRUDE
- Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
- I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
- HAMLET
- I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
- KING CLAUDIUS
- Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
- Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
- This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
- Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
- No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
- But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
- And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again,
- Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
- [Exeunt all but HAMLET]
- HAMLET
- O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
- Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
- Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
- His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
- How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
- Seem to me all the uses of this world!
- Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
- That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
- Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
- But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
- So excellent a king; that was, to this,
- Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
- That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
- Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
- Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
- As if increase of appetite had grown
- By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
- Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
- A little month, or ere those shoes were old
- With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
- Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
- O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
- Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
- My father's brother, but no more like my father
- Than I to Hercules: within a month:
- Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
- Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
- She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
- With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
- It is not nor it cannot come to good:
- But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
- [Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO]
- HORATIO
- Hail to your lordship!
- HAMLET
- I am glad to see you well:
- Horatio,--or I do forget myself.
- HORATIO
- The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.
- HAMLET
- Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you:
- And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?
- MARCELLUS
- My good lord--
- HAMLET
- I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.
- But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
- HORATIO
- A truant disposition, good my lord.
- HAMLET
- I would not hear your enemy say so,
- Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
- To make it truster of your own report
- Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
- But what is your affair in Elsinore?
- We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
- HORATIO
- My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
- HAMLET
- I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
- I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
- HORATIO
- Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.
- HAMLET
- Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
- Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
- Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
- Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
- My father!--methinks I see my father.
- HORATIO
- Where, my lord?
- HAMLET
- In my mind's eye, Horatio.
- HORATIO
- I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
- HAMLET
- He was a man, take him for all in all,
- I shall not look upon his like again.
- HORATIO
- My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
- HAMLET
- Saw? who?
- HORATIO
- My lord, the king your father.
- HAMLET
- The king my father!
- HORATIO
- Season your admiration for awhile
- With an attent ear, till I may deliver,
- Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
- This marvel to you.
- HAMLET
- For God's love, let me hear.
- HORATIO
- Two nights together had these gentlemen,
- Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
- In the dead vast and middle of the night,
- Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
- Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
- Appears before them, and with solemn march
- Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd
- By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
- Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distilled
- Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
- Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
- In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
- And I with them the third night kept the watch;
- Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
- Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
- The apparition comes: I knew your father;
- These hands are not more like.
- HAMLET
- But where was this?
- MARCELLUS
- My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.
- HAMLET
- Did you not speak to it?
- HORATIO
- My lord, I did;
- But answer made it none: yet once methought
- It lifted up its head and did address
- Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
- But even then the morning cock crew loud,
- And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
- And vanish'd from our sight.
- HAMLET
- 'Tis very strange.
- HORATIO
- As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
- And we did think it writ down in our duty
- To let you know of it.
- HAMLET
- Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
- Hold you the watch to-night?
- MARCELLUS / BERNARDO
- We do, my lord.
- HAMLET
- Arm'd, say you?
- MARCELLUS / BERNARDO
- Arm'd, my lord.
- HAMLET
- From top to toe?
- MARCELLUS / BERNARDO
- My lord, from head to foot.
- HAMLET
- Then saw you not his face?
- HORATIO
- O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
- HAMLET
- What, look'd he frowningly?
- HORATIO
- A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
- HAMLET
- Pale or red?
- HORATIO
- Nay, very pale.
- HAMLET
- And fix'd his eyes upon you?
- HORATIO
- Most constantly.
- HAMLET
- I would I had been there.
- HORATIO
- It would have much amazed you.
- HAMLET
- Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?
- HORATIO
- While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
- MARCELLUS / BERNADO
- Longer, longer.
- HORATIO
- Not when I saw't.
- HAMLET
- His beard was grizzled--no?
- HORATIO
- It was, as I have seen it in his life,
- A sable silver'd.
- HAMLET
- I will watch to-night;
- Perchance 'twill walk again.
- HORATIO
- I warrant it will.
- HAMLET
- If it assume my noble father's person,
- I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
- And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
- If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
- Let it be tenable in your silence still;
- And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
- Give it an understanding, but no tongue:
- I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:
- Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
- I'll visit you.
- ALL
- Our duty to your honour.
- HAMLET
- Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
- [Exeunt all but HAMLET]
- My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;
- I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
- Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
- Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.
- [Exit]
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