The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  MARCELLUS My good lord.

  HAMLET

  I am very glad to see you. –

  [to Barnardo] 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,

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  Nor shall you do my 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.

  175

  HORATIO My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

  HAMLET I prithee 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 bak’d meats

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  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.

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  HORATIO I saw him once; a was a goodly king.

  HAMLET ’A 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.

  190

  HAMLET The king my father?

  HORATIO Season your admiration for a while

  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!

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  HORATIO Two nights together had these gentlemen,

  Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch

  In the dead waste and middle of the night

  Been thus encounter’d: a figure like your father

  Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie,

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  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, distill’d

  Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

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  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,

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  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.

  HAMLET Did you not speak to it?

  HORATIO My lord, I did,

  But answer made it none. Yet once methought

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  It lifted up it 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.

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  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, sirs; but this troubles me.

  Hold you the watch tonight?

  ALL We do, my lord.

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  HAMLET Arm’d, say you?

  ALL Arm’d, my lord.

  HAMLET From top to toe?

  ALL 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?

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  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 amaz’d you.

  HAMLET Very like.

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  Stay’d it long?

  HORATIO

  While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

  MARCELLUS, BARNARDO Longer, longer.

  HORATIO Not when I saw’t.

  HAMLET His beard was grizzled, no?

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  HORATIO It was as I have seen it in his life,

  A sable silver’d.

  HAMLET I will watch tonight.

  Perchance ’twill walk again.

  HORATIO I war’nt it will.

  HAMLET If it assume my noble father’s person,

  I’ll speak to it though hell itself should gape

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  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 whatsomever else shall hap tonight,

  Give it an understanding but no tongue.

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  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 Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.

  My father’s spirit – in arms! All is not well.

  255

  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.

  1.3 Enter LAERTES AND OPHELIA, his sister.

  LAERTES My necessaries are embark’d. Farewell.

  And sister, as the winds give benefit

  And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,

  But let me hear from you.

  OPHELIA Do you doubt that?

  LAERTES For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,

  5

  Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,

  A violet in the youth of primy nature,

  Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,

  The perfume and suppliance of a minute,

  No more.

  OPHELIA No more but so?

  LAERTES Think it no more.

  10

  For nature crescent does not grow alone

  In thews and bulk, but as this temple waxes,

  The inward service of the mind and soul

  Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,

  And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch

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  The virtue of his will; but you must fear,

  His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own.

  For he himself is subject to his birth:

  He may not, as unvalu’d persons do,

  Carve for himself, for on his choice depends

  20

  The sanity and health of this whole state;

  And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d

  Unto the voice and yielding of that body

  Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,

  It fits your wisdom so far to believe it

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  As he in his particular act and place

  May give his saying deed; which is no further

  Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.

  Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain

  If with too credent ear you list his songs,

 
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  Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open

  To his unmaster’d importunity.

  Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,

  And keep you in the rear of your affection

  Out of the shot and danger of desire.

  35

  The chariest maid is prodigal enough

  If she unmask her beauty to the moon.

  Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.

  The canker galls the infants of the spring

  Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d,

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  And in the morn and liquid dew of youth

  Contagious blastments are most imminent.

  Be wary then: best safety lies in fear.

  Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

  OPHELIA I shall th’effect of this good lesson keep

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  As watchman to my heart. But good my brother,

  Do not as some ungracious pastors do,

  Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,

  Whiles like a puff’d and reckless libertine

  Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,

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  And recks not his own rede.

  LAERTES O fear me not.

  I stay too long.

  Enter POLONIUS.

  But here my father comes.

  A double blessing is a double grace:

  Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

  POLONIUS

  Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard for shame.

  55

  The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

  And you are stay’d for. There, my blessing with thee.

  And these few precepts in thy memory

  Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

  Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.

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  Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;

  Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

  Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,

  But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

  Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d courage. Beware

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  Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

  Bear’t that th’opposed may beware of thee.

  Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;

  Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

  Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

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  But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

  For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

  And they in France of the best rank and station

  Are of a most select and generous chief in that.

  Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

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  For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

  And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

  This above all: to thine own self be true,

  And it must follow as the night the day

  Thou canst not then be false to any man.

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  Farewell, my blessing season this in thee.

  LAERTES Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

  POLONIUS

  The time invests you; go, your servants tend.

  LAERTES Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well

  What I have said to you.

  OPHELIA’Tis in my memory lock’d,

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  And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

  LAERTES Farewell. Exit.

  POLONIUS What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

  OPHELIA

  So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

  POLONIUS Marry, well bethought.

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  ’Tis told me he hath very oft of late

  Given private time to you, and you yourself

  Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.

  If it be so – as so ’tis put on me,

  And that in way of caution – I must tell you

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  You do not understand yourself so clearly

  As it behoves my daughter and your honour.

  What is between you? Give me up the truth.

  OPHELIA He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders

  Of his affection to me.

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  POLONIUS Affection? Pooh, you speak like a green girl,

  Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

  Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

  OPHELIA I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

  POLONIUS

  Marry, I will teach you. Think yourself a baby

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  That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay