The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  ⌈They dance; then⌉ exeunt all but Rosalind

  Epilogue

  ROSALIND (to the audience) It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes, and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me. My way is to conjure you; and I’ll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you. And I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women—as I perceive by your simpering none of you hates them—that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not. And I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths will for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

  Exit

  HAMLET

  SEVERAL references from 1589 onwards witness the existence of a play about Hamlet, but Francis Meres did not attribute a play with this title to Shakespeare in 1598. The first clear reference to Shakespeare’s play is its entry in the Stationers’ Register on 26 July 1602 as The Revenge of Hamlet Prince [of] Denmark, when it was said to have been ‘lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain his servants’. It survives in three versions; their relationship is a matter of dispute on which views about when Shakespeare wrote his play, and in what form, depend. In 1603 appeared an inferior text apparently assembled from actors’ memories; it has only about 2,200 lines. In the following year, as if to put the record straight, James Roberts (to whom the play had been entered in 1602) published it as ‘newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy’. At about 3,800 lines, this is the longest version. The 1623 Folio offers a still different text, some 230 lines shorter than the 1604 version, differing verbally from that at many points, and including about 70 additional lines. It is our belief that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet about 1600, and revised it later; that the 1604 edition was printed from his original papers; that the Folio represents the revised version; and that the 1603 edition represents a very imperfect report of an abridged version of the revision. So our text is based on the Folio; passages present in the 1604 quarto but absent from the Folio are printed as Additional Passages because we believe that, however fine they may be in themselves, Shakespeare decided that the play as a whole would be better without them.

  The plot of Hamlet originates in a Scandinavian folk-tale told in the twelfth-century Danish History written in Latin by the Danish Saxo Grammaticus. François de Belleforest retold it in the fifth volume (1570) of his Histoires Tragiques, not translated into English until 1608. Saxo, through Belleforest, provided the basic story of a Prince of Denmark committed to revenge his father’s murder by his own brother (Claudius) who has married the dead man’s widow (Gertrude). As in Shakespeare, Hamlet pretends to be mad, kills his uncle’s counsellor (Polonius) while he is eavesdropping, rebukes his mother, is sent to England under the escort of two retainers (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) who bear orders that he be put to death on arrival, finds the letter containing the orders and alters it so that it is the retainers who are executed, returns to Denmark, and kills the King.

  Belleforest’s story differs at some points from Shakespeare’s, and Shakespeare elaborates it, adding, for example, the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, the coming of the actors to Elsinore, the performance of the play through which Hamlet tests his uncle’s guilt, Ophelia’s madness and death, Laertes’ plot to revenge his father’s death, the grave-digger, Ophelia’s funeral, and the characters of Osric and Fortinbras. How much he owed to the lost Hamlet play we cannot tell; what is certain is that Shakespeare used his mastery of a wide range of diverse styles in both verse and prose, and his genius for dramatic effect, to create from these and other sources the most complex, varied, and exciting drama that had ever been seen on the English stage. Its popularity was instant and enduring. The play has had a profound influence on Western culture, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet has himself entered the world of myth.

  THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

  The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

  1.1 Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels, at several doors

  BARNARDO Who’s there?

  FRANCISCO

  Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

  BARNARDO

  Long live the King!

  FRANCISCO

  Barnardo?

  BARNARDO

  He.

  FRANCISCO

  You come most carefully upon your hour.

  BARNARDO

  ’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

  FRANCISCO

  For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,

  And I am sick at heart.

  BARNARDO

  Have you had quiet guard?

  FRANCISCO

  Not a mouse stirring.

  BARNARDO Well, good night.

  If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

  The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.Enter Horatio and Marcellus

  FRANCISCO

  I think I hear them.—Stand! Who’s there?

  HORATIO

  Friends to this ground.

  MARCELLUS

  And liegemen to the Dane.

  FRANCISCO

  Give you good night.

  MARCELLUS

  O farewell, honest soldier. Who hath relieved you?

  FRANCISCO

  Barnardo has my place. Give you good night. Exit

  MARCELLUS Holla, Barnardo!

  BARNARDO Say—what, is Horatio there?

  HORATIO A piece of him.

  BARNARDO

  Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

  MARCELLUS

  What, has this thing appeared again tonight?

  BARNARDO I have seen nothing.

  MARCELLUS

  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.

  HORATIO

  Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.

  BARNARDO Sit down a while,

  And let us once again assail your ears,

  That are so fortified against our story,

  What we two nights have seen.

  HORATIO Well, sit we down,

  And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

  BARNARDO Last night of all,

  When yon same star that’s westward from the pole

  Had made his course t’illume that part of heaven

  Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

  The bell then beating one––Enter the Ghost in complete armour, holding a truncheon, with his beaver up

  MARCELLUS

  Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again.

  BARNARDO

  In the same figure like the King that’s dead.

  MARCELLUS (to Horatio)

  Thou art a scholar—speak to it, Horatio.

  BARNARDO

  Looks it not like the King?—Mark it, Horatio.

  HORATIO

  Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

  BARNARDO

  It would be spoke to.

  MARCELLUS Question it, Horatio.

  HORATIO (to the Ghost)

  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? B
y heaven, I charge thee speak.

  MARCELLUS

  It is offended.

  BARNARDO See, it stalks away.

  HORATIO (to the Ghost)

  Stay, speak, speak, I charge thee speak. Exit Ghost

  MARCELLUS ’Tis gone, and will not answer.

  BARNARDO

  How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.

  Is not this something more than fantasy?

  What think you on’t?

  HORATIO

  Before my God, I might not this believe

  Without the sensible and true avouch

  Of mine own eyes.

  MARCELLUS Is it not like the King?

  HORATIO As thou art to thyself.

  Such was the very armour he had on

  When he th‘ambitious Norway combated.

  So frowned he once when in an angry parley

  He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

  ’Tis strange.

  MARCELLUS

  Thus twice before, and just at this dead hour,

  With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

  HORATIO

  In what particular thought to work I know not,

  But in the gross and scope of my opinion

  This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

  MARCELLUS

  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 be toward that this sweaty haste

  Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day,

  Who is’t that can inform me?

  HORATIO

  That can I—

  At least the whisper goes so: our last king,

  Whose image even but now appeared to us,

  Was as you know by Fortinbras of Norway,

  Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride,

  Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet—

  For so this side of our known world esteemed him—

  Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compact

  Well ratified by law and heraldry

  Did forfeit with his life all those his lands

  Which he stood seized on to the conqueror;

  Against the which a moiety competent

  Was gaged by our King, which had returned

  To the inheritance of Fortinbras

  Had he been vanquisher, as by the same cov‘nant

  And carriage of the article designed

  His fell to Hamlet. Now sir, young Fortinbras,

  Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

  Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there

  Sharked up a list of landless resolutes

  For food and diet to some enterprise

  That hath a stomach in’t, which is no other—

  And it doth well appear unto our state—

  But to recover of us by strong hand

  And terms compulsative 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 rummage in the land.

  Enter the Ghost, as before

  But soft, behold—lo where it comes again!

  I’ll cross it though it blast me.—Stay, illusion.

  The Ghost spreads his arms

  If thou hast any sound or use of voice,

  Speak to me.

  If there be any good thing to be done

  That may to thee do ease and grace to me,

  Speak to me.

  If thou art privy to thy country’s fate

  Which happily foreknowing may avoid,

  O speak!

  Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

  Extorted treasure in the womb of earth—

  For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death—

  The cock crows

  Speak of it, stay and speak.—Stop it, Marcellus.

  MARCELLUS

  Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

  HORATIO

  Do, if it will not stand.

  BARNARDO

  ’Tis here.

  HORATIO

  ’Tis here.

  Exit Ghost

  MARCELLUS ’Tis gone.

  We do it wrong, being so majestical,

  To offer it the show of violence,

  For it is as the air invulnerable,

  And our vain blows malicious mockery.

  BARNARDO

  It was about to speak when the cock crew.

  HORATIO

  And then it started like a guilty thing

  Upon a fearful summons. I have heard

  The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

  Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

  Awake the god of day, and at his warning,

  Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

  Th’extravagant and erring spirit hies

  To his confine; and of the truth herein

  This present object made probation.

  MARCELLUS

  It faded on the crowing of the cock.

  Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes

  Wherein our saviour’s birth is celebrated

  The bird of dawning singeth all night long;

  And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad,

  The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

  No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

  So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

  HORATIO

  So have I heard, and do in part believe it.

  But look, the morn in russet mantle clad

  Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

  Break we our watch up, and by my advice

  Let us impart what we have seen tonight

  Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life,

  This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.

  Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,

  As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

  MARCELLUS

  Let’s do’t, I pray; and I this morning know

  Where we shall find him most conveniently. Exeunt

  1.2 Flourish. Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, members of the Council, such as Polonius, his son Laertes and daughter Ophelia, Prince Hamlet dressed in black, with others

  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,

  Th‘imperial jointress of this warlike state,

  Have we as ’twere with a defeated joy,

  With one auspicious and one 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 barred

  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,

  Co-leaguèd with the dream of his advantage,

  He hath not failed 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.

  Enter Valtemand and Cornelius

  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, Valtemand,

  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 dilated articles allow.

  Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.

  VALTEMAND

  In that and all things will we show our duty.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  We doubt it nothing, heartily farewell.

  Exeunt Valtemand 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 lose 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 Dread my 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 towards France

  And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

  POLONIUS

  He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave

  By laboursome petition, and at last

  Upon his will I sealed my hard consent.

  I do beseech you give him leave to go.

  KING CLAUDIUS

  Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,