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CLAUDIUS, king of Denmark.

HAMLET, son to the former, and nephew to the pre

sent king.

POLONIUS, lord chamberlain.

HORATIO, friend to Hamlet.

LAERTES, Son to Polonius,

VOLTIMAND,

CORNELIUS,

ROSENGRANTZ,

GUILDENSTERN,.

OSRICK, a courtier.

Another courtier.

A Priest.

MARCELLUS, officers
BERNARDO,

FRANCISCO, a soldier.

ers.

REYNALDO, servant to Polonius,
A Captain. An Embassador.
Ghost of Hamlet's father.

FORTINBRAS, prince of Norway.

GERTRUDE, queen of Denmark, and mother of Hamlet.

OPHELIA, daughter of Polonius.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Grave-Diggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, Elsinore.

The original story on which this play is built, may be found in Saxo Gram. maticus, the Danish historian. From thence Belleforest adopted it in his collection of novels, which he began in 1564, and continued to publish through succeeding years. From this work, The Hystorie of Hamblett, quarto, bl. 1. was translated. I have yet met with no earlier edition of the play than one in the year 1604, though it must have been performed before that time, as I have seen a copy of Speght's edition of Chaucer, which formerly be longed to Dr. Harvey (the antagonist of Nash) who, in his own hand-writing, has set down Hamlet as a performance with which he was well acquainted, in the year 1598. His words are these: "The younger sort take much de"light in Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis; but his Lucrece, and his trag, 'edy of Hamlet, prince of Denmarke, have it in them to please the wiser "sort, 1598." STEEVENS.

"

Shakspeare's Hamlet was written, if my conjecture be well grounded, in 1596. MALONE.

HAMLET.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Elsinore. A Platform before the Castle. FRANCISCO Enter to him BERNARDO:

on his post.

WHO's there?

Bernardo.

Fran. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold.

Yourself.

Ber.Long live the king!

Fran. Bernardo ?

Ber. He.

Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour. Ber.'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. Fran. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.

Ber. Have you had quiet guard?
Fran. Not a mouse stirring,

Ber. Well, good night..

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste..

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Fran. I think, I hear them.-Stand, ho! Who is there? Hor. Friends to this ground.

Mar. And liegemen to the Dane.

Fran. Give you good-night.

Mar. O, farewell, honest soldier :

Who hath reliev'd you?

Fran. Bernardo hath my place.

Give you good night.

Mar. Holla! Bernardo !

Ber. Say,

What, is Horatio there?

Hor. A piece of him.

[Exit.

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus Hor. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

This sentence appears to be the watch word. STEEVENS. Rivals for partners. WARB.Rival is constantly used by Shakspeare for a partner or associate. MALONE.

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Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. 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, 3 and speak to it!
Hor. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
Ber. Sit down awhile;

and let us once again assail your ears, That are so fortified against our story, What we two nights have seen.

Hor. Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Ber. Last night of all,

When yon 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,

Mar. Peace,break thee off; look, where it comes again!
Enter Ghost.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.
Mar. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.4
Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
Hor. Most like:-it harrows me with fear, and wonder.
Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar. Speak to it, Horatio.

Hor. 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. Mar. It is offended.

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Hor. Stay; speak : speak I charge thee, speak.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

[Exit Ghost.

Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale: Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you of it?

[3] Add a new testimony to that of our eyes.

JOHNSON.

[4] It has always been a vulgar notion that supernatural beings can only be spoken to with propriety or effect by persons of learning. Thus Toby, in the Night-walker by Beaumont and Fletcher, says:

"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks latin,
"And that will daunt the devil.”

REED.

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Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the king?

Hor. 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 Polack on the ice.5

'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour, With martial stalk, hath he gone by our watch.

8

Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not; But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion, & This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Mar. 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 we toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me ?

Hor. That can I ;

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image but even now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd 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 seiz'd 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 co-mart,

[5] He speaks of a prince of Poland whom he slew in battle. POPE. Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland. JOHNSON, [6] Jump and just were synonymous in the time of Shakspeare. STEEV. [7] What particular train of thinking to follow. STEEVENS. [8] Gross and scope,-general thoughts, and tendency at large. JOHNSON.

HAMLET.

9

And carriage of the article design'd, o

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 landless resolutes,2
For food and diet to some enterprize

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 ;

ACT I.

The source of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
Ber. I think, it be no other, but even so :
Well may it sort, 3 that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.
Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and paliny state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The grave 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, 4
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day 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 démonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-

Re-enter Ghost.

But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.—Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,"
Speak to me :

[9] Carriage is import: Design'd is formed, drawn up between them.

JOHNSON. [1] Full of spirit not regulated or guided by knowledge or experience.

JOHNSON.

[2] I believe to shark up means to pick up without distinction, as the shark-fish collects his prey. STEEVENS.

[3] The cause and the effect are proportionate and suitable. JOHNSON. [4] The moon. MALONE.[5] Fierce for terrible. WARBURTON. [7] The speech of Horatio to the spectre is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions of the causes of apparitions. JOHNS.

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