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    Hamlet
    Hamlet
    Hamlet
    Ebook248 pages2 hours

    Hamlet

    By William Shakespeare

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    About this ebook

    Hamlet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet's father, the King, and then taken the throne and married Hamlet's mother. The play vividly charts the course of real and feigned madness—from overwhelming grief to seething rage—and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBooklassic
    Release dateJun 17, 2015
    ISBN9789635235865
    Author

    William Shakespeare

    William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

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    Reviews for Hamlet

    4/5

    6,355 ratings92 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Classic Shakespeare tragedy.
    • 4/5
      Who am I to review Shakespeare?!
    • 4/5
      The only Shakespeare plays I had read before this were Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth, Macbeth being my favorite. Having now read Hamlet, I can honestly say that Macbeth is still my favorite.

      Let's discuss.

      So, Hamlet himself is an emo icon, and also a misogynist, who basically goes crazy, murders someone, and essentially ruins everything.

      The ending came a little too quickly for me, tbh. There wasn't enough time to really develop any other characters. It was pretty quotable, though. Really, it gave me more Romeo and Juliet feels than Macbeth feels.
    • 5/5
      Great classic
    • 5/5
      My favorite of Shakespeare's plays. It just gets better with every reading, and this time I started with Marjorie Garber's excellent chapter on the play (in her Shakespeare After All), which helped me appreciate the themes of “playing” – of dramas within dramas, “staged” events, audiences being observed, etc. – and of borders...”In suggesting that these three worlds – the world of Hamlet's mind and the imagination; the physical, political, and “historical” world of Denmark; and the world of dramatic fiction and play – are parallel to and superimposed upon one another, I am suggesting, also, that the play is about the whole question of boundaries, thresholds, and liminality or border crossing; boundary disputes between Norway and Denmark, boundaries between youth and age, boundaries between reality and imagination, between audience and actor. And these boundaries seem to be constantly shifting.”Also, of course, fathers and sons, words and meanings, just so much in this one, which, I suppose, is why I enjoy new things about it each time I read it. And I do love Hamlet. He treats Ophelia terribly, and Laertes at her grave, but his indecision, his anxiety, his sincerity, his hopefulness are all so... relatable! Really, I love it all. The relationships, the humor, the wordplay, the poetry. Happy sigh.
    • 4/5
      BBC Audiobook performed by Michael Sheen (Hamlet), Kenneth Cranham (Claudius), Juliet Stevenson (Gertrude) and Ellie Beaven (Ophelia), and a full castI’ll dispense with the summary for this classic tragedy by William Shakespeare, but as I’ve said before, I really dislike reading plays. I much prefer to see them performed live by talented actors, the medium for which they are written. The next best thing to a live performance, however, must be an audio such as this one, with talented actors taking on the roles and really bringing the play to life for the listener. There are hundreds of editions of this work, and I recommend that readers get one that is annotated. The text copy I had as an accompaniment to the audio was published by the Oxford University Press, and included several scholarly articles, appendices and footnotes to help the modern-day reader understand Shakespeare’s Elizabethan terms and use of language, as well as historical references. One appendix even includes the music to accompany the songs!
    • 5/5
      One of my favorites. Best film adaptation: surprisingly, Mel Gibson's. Branagh's was way too long (yeah, I know, but still) and had Robin Williams in it; we won't talk about Ethan Hawke's.
    • 4/5
      This continues to remain my second-least-favorite of the seven Tragedies I've read so far. This preference isn't based upon the quality of the play qua play; it boils down to the fact that I simply don't enjoy Mr. Prince Hamlet, Jr. Despite some arguments to the contrary, he still comes across to me as a bipolar obsessive with impulse control problems, a distinct lack of responsibility, a poor attitude toward girlfriends and who, if we read only what is written, appears to make monumental judgments about his mother on little or no evidence. In other words, I don't like him. Of course, I don't particularly like fellows such as Mr. Macbeth either, but it's a different lack of esteem: a dislike for the bad guy (which is a sneaking regard) rather than a disdain for the self-absorbed.I find the characters of Polonius, Ophelia and Gertrude much more intriguing in this play and I do enjoy it for them. So, while I love the language of this play, and the supporting cast, and acknowledge the structure and plot, I still don't enjoy it as much as a romp through Birnham Wood or, better yet, Lear's Britain.
    • 4/5
      Vertaling van Komrij. Uiteraard een tijdloos stuk met een ongelofelijke diepgang, maar geen gemakkelijke lectuur. Ligt me minder dan de iets eenduidiger stukken King Lear of Macbeth.
    • 5/5
      Hamlet is a phenomenal play. Just spectacular.
    • 5/5
      This is it. The big kahuna. The Shakespeare play to end all Shakespeare plays. And I confess, I have fallen in love with it completely.When I was a child reading about Shakespeare plays in my Tales from Shakespeare (and seeing occasional live performances of the comedies), and later when I was a teenager watching them on videotape, I couldn’t quite see what the big deal was with Hamlet. It sounded to me like it lacked the romance of Romeo and Juliet, the fun of the comedies, the magic of the romances, and the bloodiness of some of the other tragedies like Macbeth.How wrong I was.While I wouldn’t necessarily advocate using a complete performance text—that would make for a long evening—and there are actually a large number of contradictions in the play as it has come down to us, what a joy it is to read all of Shakespeare’s words! Hamlet is a long play, but in general it flows beautifully, with long, elaborate scenes that fold into each other. I haven’t made a count, but I’d wager that in addition to being Shakespeare’s lengthiest play, Hamlet has, on average, the longest scenes. To me, this makes it read easier, but I might be in the minority in that respect.Hamlet as a character is a vehicle for some of Shakespeare’s most beautiful poetry and most searching philosophy. The play has gained its worldwide renown almost solely because of his soliloquies, which are many and lengthy. With all due respect to the famous “To be or not to be,” my favorite of the lot is “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” I’m not an actor by profession, and haven’t been on the stage since junior high, but this speech stirred the actor in me. It’s a virtuosic piece, which opens with Hamlet’s typical melancholy and self-deprecation and ends with a moment of true resolve and excitement. Of course, the next time we see him, he’s depressed again and contemplating suicide.Going in, of course, I already knew about the wonderful poetry and philosophy in Hamlet. What I didn’t expect was how powerfully I would relate to the main character. Perhaps this is because I was approaching the play for the first time with the understanding that Hamlet is a very young man. He has traditionally been thought to be about 30 due to a remark of the gravedigger’s, but all other internal evidence points to him being in his late teens or so, and it’s very much possible that the gravedigger’s remark was a later addition to accommodate an older actor. When I instead read him as a teenager or young adult, all the pieces came together and the play made sense to me for the first time.Not that one has to be young in order to relate to Hamlet—he is a universal character, and it’s really remarkable how many different ways he can be interpreted. A friend and I were discussing how we might each play the role were we ever given the chance: he would probably emphasize his intellectualism, his shrewdness, his struggle with madness, and his quest for revenge, whereas I would stress his youth, depression, and emotional variance.There’s so much in this play that it is utterly impossible to touch on everything in a single review, so I suppose I’ll stop while I’m ahead. I’m sure that when I reread, I will notice new things that I never saw before. And I do plan on rereading Hamlet. Like all truly great works of literature, it’s an inexhaustible gold mine, a fountain of insight one can’t help returning to.
    • 5/5
      Imagine my surprise when browsing through Kernaghan Books in the Wayfarers Shopping Arcade in Southport for these editions when I stumbled across Hamlet somewhat working against the purpose of me utilising these Oxfords to discover literature. Edition editor G.R. Hibbard chooses the First Folio as the basis for his text on the assumption that it was produced from a clean, revised manuscript of the play by Shakespeare himself, a final revision of the material that increases the pace but also clarifies the story in other places. His argument is sound, but I do much prefer the much later Arden 3’s approach of suggesting that all the close textual analysis in the world won’t definitively confirm which of the versions is definitive, so it’s best just to present all three (unless like the RSC edition, the mission is to reproduce an edition of the folio in particular). More inevitably posted here.
    • 5/5
      I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Shakespearean work more than this play. Its riddled with ghost, revenge, crazy people, deaths, politics and psychological drama. Reading it along with the BBC's 2009's Hamlet does help in understanding the text, but its quite obvious how Hamlet's popularity survived half a millenia.

      Full review to come.
    • 5/5
      While it can be quite long and tedious in parts, it's still Hamlet.I mean, it's hard to beat Hamlet.
    • 4/5
      One of the bard's all time classics, so frequently performed that it occasionally needs to be re-read to experience it the way he wrote it, without all the directorial impulses to pretty it up or modernize it. It had been a long time since my last read, and I was somewhat surprised to realize that this play comes with very few stage directions outside of entrances and exits; there are so many things that directors do exactly the same, you forget they weren't mentioned in the stage directions, and have simply become habit. Anyway, this play, about ambition and revenge, still holds up well through the centuries, though many of the actions seem outdated to us now. The poetry of the language and the rich texturing of the characters, even the most minor of characters, creates a complex story that successfully holds many balls in the air at once. Shakespeare's frequent use of ghosts is noteworthy, since that is something that modern day playwrights are told to be very careful about, and avoid if at all possible. A satisfying story, and a satisfying re-read.
    • 4/5
      This was the first time that I've read Hamlet, I've heard it quoted so many times and I thought it was about time I read it.Hamlet's mother is married to her dead husband's brother. And after seeing his father's ghost Hamlet decides to take revenge on his uncle/step-dad who apparently murdered his father. It's a kind of crazy story with lots of death, and there were some places where I didn't really understand what was going on, but I still got the overall jist of the story.I enjoyed reading this but when reading a play as a book I find it a bit hard to keep track of the characters and the settings, I think I would like to see it performed so that I can really get a feel for the story.
    • 4/5
      Ghosts, murder, madness, revenge, suicide, incest, spiced with a little bit of black humor – Hamlet has it all. Once again I was struck by the number of “cliches” that originated with Hamlet: “too solid flesh”, “reserve thy judgment”, “the apparel oft proclaims the man”, “to thine own self be true”, “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, “the time is out of joint”, and “not a mouse was stirring” (which, sad to say, does not apply to my house since I've been trying unsuccessfully to catch one for the last week). I'm in that generation that can't hear Polonius's monologue without thinking of the song from the Gilligan's Island episode where the castaways staged a musical version of Hamlet. (Sorry if I've given anyone an earworm by mentioning it!)I was a little disappointed with the LA. Theatre Works audio version. Most of the performers were OK, but the audio effects were a bit odd and seemed too modern to suit the setting. I had trouble buying Stephen Collins as Claudius after his decade spent playing a minister on Seventh Heaven. Josh Stamberg played Hamlet, and his voice quality is similar enough to Stephen Collins that I sometimes had trouble telling which one of them was speaking. On the other hand, I thought Alan Mandell's Polonius was outstanding.This is one of Shakespeare's works that should be on everyone's reading list. Listening to an audio version can enhance modern readers' understanding of archaic language without interrupting the narrative flow like an annotated reading copy would do. There are probably better audio versions than this one to be found, though.
    • 4/5
      Good solid Shakespeare read. A bit too much of a "he did, she did" plot at times.
    • 4/5
      Last time I read Hamlet, I was in school and I remember having some difficulty with the language... This time I found the language easier (although still hard to follow in places -- "The canker galls the infants of the spring
      Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd,
      And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
      Contagious blastments are most imminent." Laertes to Ophelia; I have read this over & over and still don't understand it).
    • 5/5
      This is a mature play of Shakespeare's, blending all the elements of drama, psychology, gutter humor, passion, ambition, doubt. The Playbook version is unique, but valuable. I haven't seen anything approaching it.
    • 5/5
      What didn't I learn from this book? ;-)
    • 3/5
      Story:
      Everyone knows Hamlet. Okay, maybe not everyone, but most people do. Now, if you were to ask me if I liked Hamlet, my short answer would probably be 'no.' Really, though, it's not fair for me to encapsulate my feelings on Hamlet into such a simple answer. If Hamlet and I were in a relationship on facebook (assuming he it could ever decide whether to be in one...punned!), it would most definitely be complicated.

      Here's the thing: Hamlet is a great play. There's no denying it. When I think about the play objectively, there's a lot of amazing stuff in there. Shakespeare's wit is fantastic; gotta love all of those dirty jokes he makes in here. And, of course, the language is completely gorgeous.

      The characters I have never been particularly tied to, which is one reason Hamlet does not rank among my favorite plays; the tragedies often lack the sassy heroines you can find in the comedies. Hamlet's indecisiveness frustrates me endlessly. Whine, whine, whine, think about doing something, wimp out, wine more. Cry moar, anon. Yoda judges you. Hamlet's uncle father and his aunt mother are not especially likable, even if you don't think they're guilty of what Hamlet's ghosty father accused them of (namely, turning him into a ghost). Ophelia isn't the brightest; plus, her end does not for admiration make. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are probably my favorites, and that's only because of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard.

      Truly though, the reason that I don't really like Hamlet is how prevalent it is. I just get so tired of always hearing this same play over and over. I mean, who didn't have to read this in high school, and again in college?

      Performance:
      This audiobook is the recording of a stage version of the play, performed by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival cast. They do a good job, and I imagine it was quite a fun performance that they did. It sounds like they did some interesting things with the characters, such as changing gender in some cases and some modernizing (thus the leather jacket Hamlet's wearing).

      Unfortunately, listening to a play and watching it just aren't the same. Had I not already been very familiar with Hamlet, I have little doubt that I would at time have been confused by some of the quick scene changes or by which voice belonged to which character. Some of the actors did have rather similar sounding voices.

      Between scenes, there is creepy dramatic music, which definitely set a mood, but I don't think I liked. Nor did I care for the fact that the players rapped everything. That was kind of weird. At least Ophelia didn't rap her crazyface songs. Speaking of Ophelia, she was my favorite part of the performance. Her voice and manner definitely reminded me of River Tam (Summer Glau's character in Firefly, who has a couple of screws loose). What an awesome way to portray Ophelia. Now I kind of want to try to write some fan fiction with the characters from Firefly performing Hamlet. Maybe not.
    • 5/5
      Critics have varied in their enthusiasm for this play over the centuries. In many ways Hamlet is a typical "modern" - a relativist, caught in perpetual indecision, uncertain of his place in the world, frozen by his anxieties. It also contains some of the best-known lines and soliloquies in all of Shakespeare. It can be, and has been, read and performed from a religious perspective, an existential perspective, a Freudian perspective, or a feminist perspective.
    • 5/5
      This is truly an amazing work, and is a very well-known story. Even if you haven't read the play, or seen any of the film versions, you probably have heard enough to know much of what happens, and are likely familiar with several very famous lines. This was my first time reading the play, and I truly loved it, because it does go far beyond just the famous lines and core story. There is true depth here, with layers of meaning that really strike at the soul of the audience. As to the edition itself, I found it to be greatly helpful in understanding the action in the play. It has a layout which places each page of the play opposite a page of notes, definitions, explanations, and other things needed to understand that page more thoroughly. While I didn't always need it, I was certainly glad to have it whenever I ran into a turn of language that was unfamiliar, and I definitely appreciated the scene-by-scene summaries. Really, if you want to or need to read Shakespeare, an edition such as this is really the way to go, especially until you get more accustomed to it.
    • 4/5
      It was a very interesting story. It wasn't boring as I thought it would be.
    • 4/5
      Hey its Hamlet. What else can I say. You either love it or hate it.
    • 5/5
      Hamlet's an amazingly dynamic and complex play about the lure of death and the struggle against inaction. Wonderful and dark and always a pleasure to read
    • 4/5
      I refuse to offer up a literary review on Shakespeare. I wouldn't presume. However, I will say that I enjoyed this dark story. Watching a man descend into madness, yet still retain enough sanity to accomplish his purpose is drama at its best. Half the fun for me is finding out where all the quotes one hears all the time come from.
    • 5/5
      There: you can all stop nagging me, I've finally read it. The plot was mostly as expected, though I think whatever version I read as a child was less kind to Ophelia, as I had a rather different image of her in mind. I had a whole book of Shakespeare retellings, now I think about it: I can't really remember many of them, but I suppose they haunt me a little in my vague ideas of what the plays are like before I read them...

      Anyway, Hamlet: justly famous, and full of phrases and quotations that even people who've never read a Shakespeare play can quote. It's always interesting coming to those in situ at last.

      Still terribly glad I don't have to study Shakespeare now. If I end up somehow forced to read Shakespeare in my MA, I may scream. Much happier to come to his plays now, in my own good time.
    • 4/5
      It's difficult to critique a work that is widely considered to be the best piece produced by the greatest author who ever lived. To put it in simple terms, I did enjoy Hamlet for the most part. Once I got used to the language and re-familiarized myself with reading a script, the story flowed very well. My only real complaint was that the format took a bit out of the climactic finale for me. I feel that it would have read much better in a novel format.Shakespeare has written one of the most compelling tragedies ever in Hamlet, and his plot and character development are topnotch. Hamlet's downward spiral into madness is classically done. All said, a must read.

    Book preview

    Hamlet - William Shakespeare

    978-963-523-586-5

    Act I

    SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

    FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO

    BERNARDO

    Who's there?

    FRANCISCO

    Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

    BERNARDO

    Long live the king!

    FRANCISCO

    Bernardo?

    BERNARDO

    He.

    FRANCISCO

    You come most carefully upon your hour.

    BERNARDO

    'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

    FRANCISCO

    For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,

    And I am sick at heart.

    BERNARDO

    Have you had quiet guard?

    FRANCISCO

    Not a mouse stirring.

    BERNARDO

    Well, good night.

    If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

    The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

    FRANCISCO

    I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?

    Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

    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

    Bernardo has my place.

    Give you good night.

    Exit

    MARCELLUS

    Holla! Bernardo!

    BERNARDO

    Say,

    What, is Horatio there?

    HORATIO

    A piece of him.

    BERNARDO

    Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

    MARCELLUS

    What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

    BERNARDO

    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.

    BERNARDO

    Sit down awhile;

    And let us once again assail your ears,

    That are so fortified against our story

    What we have two nights seen.

    HORATIO

    Well, sit we down,

    And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

    BERNARDO

    Last night of all,

    When yond 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,—

    Enter Ghost

    MARCELLUS

    Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

    BERNARDO

    In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

    MARCELLUS

    Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

    BERNARDO

    Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

    HORATIO

    Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

    BERNARDO

    It would be spoke to.

    MARCELLUS

    Question it, Horatio.

    HORATIO

    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? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

    MARCELLUS

    It is offended.

    BERNARDO

    See, it stalks away!

    HORATIO

    Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

    Exit Ghost

    MARCELLUS

    'Tis gone, and will not answer.

    BERNARDO

    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 the ambitious Norway combated;

    So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

    He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

    'Tis strange.

    MARCELLUS

    Thus twice before, and jump 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 appear'd to us,

    Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

    Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,

    Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet—

    For so this side of our known world esteem'd him—

    Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,

    Well ratified by law and heraldry,

    Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

    Which he stood seized 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; as, by the same covenant,

    And carriage of the article design'd,

    His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

    Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

    Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there

    Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,

    For food and diet, to some enterprise

    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

    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 in the land.

    BERNARDO

    I think it be no other but e'en so:

    Well may it sort that this portentous figure

    Comes armed through our watch; so like the king

    That was and is the question of these wars.

    HORATIO

    A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.

    In the most high and 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:

    As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

    Disasters in the sun; and the moist star

    Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands

    Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:

    And even the like precurse of fierce events,

    As harbingers preceding still the fates

    And prologue to the omen coming on,

    Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

    Unto our climatures and countrymen.—

    But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

    Re-enter Ghost

    I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!

    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:

    Cock crows

    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,

    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.

    BERNARDO

    'Tis here!

    HORATIO

    'Tis here!

    MARCELLUS

    'Tis gone!

    Exit Ghost

    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.

    BERNARDO

    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,

    The 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 dares stir abroad;

    The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

    No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

    So hallow'd 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 eastward hill:

    Break we our watch up; and by my advice,

    Let us impart what we have seen to-night

    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

    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,

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