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  • Title: Hamlet (Quarto 2, 1604)
  • Textual editor: Eric Rasmussen

    • ISBN: 978-1-55058-434-9

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Hamlet (Quarto 2, 1604)

    [1.4]
    Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.
    Hamlet
    The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
    605Horatio
    It is nipping, and an eager air.
    Hamlet
    What hour now?
    Horatio
    I think it lacks of twelve.
    Marcellus
    No, it is struck.
    Horatio
    Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season
    610Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
    A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces goes off.
    What does this mean, my lord?
    Hamlet
    The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
    Keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring upspring reels;
    And as he drains his drafts of Rhenish down
    615The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
    The triumph of his pledge.
    Horatio
    Is it a custom?
    Hamlet
    Ay, marry, is't,
    But to my mind, though I am native here
    620And to the manner born, it is a custom
    More honored in the breach than the observance.
    621.1This heavy-headed revel east and west
    Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations.
    They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
    Soil our addition, and indeed it takes
    621.5From our achievements, though performed at height,
    The pith and marrow of our attribute.
    So, oft it chances in particular men,
    That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,
    As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty
    621.10(Since nature cannot choose his origin),
    By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
    Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
    Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens
    The form of plausive manners, that these men,
    621.15Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect
    (Being Nature's livery, or Fortune's star),
    His virtues else, be they as pure as grace,
    As infinite as man may undergo,
    Shall in the general censure take corruption
    621.20From that particular fault. The dram of eale
    Doth all the noble substance often dout
    To his own scandal.
    Enter Ghost.
    Horatio
    Look, my lord, it comes!
    Hamlet
    Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
    625Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
    Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
    Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
    Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
    That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,
    630King, father, royal Dane. Oh, answer me!
    Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
    Why thy canonized bones, hearsèd in death,
    Have burst their cerements? Why the sepulcher
    Wherein we saw thee quietly interred
    635Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws
    To cast thee up again? What may this mean
    That thou, dead corse, again in compleat steel
    Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
    Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
    640So horridly to shake our disposition
    With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
    Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
    [The Ghost] beckons [Hamlet].
    Horatio
    It beckons you to go away with it,
    645As if it some impartment did desire
    To you alone.
    Marcellus
    Look with what courteous action
    It waves you to a more removèd ground.
    But do not go with it.
    650Horatio
    No, by no means.
    Hamlet
    It will not speak. Then I will follow it.
    Horatio
    Do not, my lord.
    Hamlet
    Why, what should be the fear?
    I do not set my life at a pin's fee,
    655And for my soul, what can it do to that,
    Being a thing immortal as itself?
    [The Ghost beckons Hamlet.]
    It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.
    Horatio
    What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
    Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
    660That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
    And there assume some other horrible form
    Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
    And draw you into madness? Think of it:
    663.1The very place puts toys of desperation,
    Without more motive, into every brain
    That looks so many fathoms to the sea
    And hears it roar beneath.
    [The Ghost beckons Hamlet.]
    Hamlet
    It waves me still.--Go on, I'll follow thee.
    665Marcellus
    You shall not go, my lord.
    [They attempt to restrain him.]
    Hamlet
    Hold off your hands!
    Horatio
    Be ruled. You shall not go.
    Hamlet
    My fate cries out
    And makes each petty artery in this body
    670As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
    [The Ghost beckons Hamlet.]
    Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen!
    By heav'n, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me.
    I say, away!--Go on, I'll follow thee.
    Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.
    675Horatio
    He waxes desperate with imag[inat]ion.
    Marcellus
    Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.
    Horatio
    Have after. To what issue will this come?
    Marcellus
    Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
    Horatio
    Heaven will direct it.
    680Marcellus
    Nay, let's follow him.
    Exeunt.
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