Complete Plays, The (53 page)

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

S
CENE
II. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
ISLAND
.

Enter Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo

Stephano

Tell not me; when the butt is out, we will drink water; not a drop before: therefore bear up, and board ’em. Servant-monster, drink to me.

Trinculo

Servant-monster! the folly of this island! They say there’s but five upon this isle: we are three of them; if th’ other two be brained like us, the state totters.

Stephano

Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee: thy eyes are almost set in thy head.

Trinculo

Where should they be set else? he were a brave monster indeed, if they were set in his tail.

Stephano

My man-monster hath drown’d his tongue in sack: for my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere I could recover the shore, five and thirty leagues off and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, or my standard.

Trinculo

Your lieutenant, if you list; he’s no standard.

Stephano

We’ll not run, Monsieur Monster.

Trinculo

Nor go neither; but you’ll lie like dogs and yet say nothing neither.

Stephano

Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest a good moon-calf.

Caliban

How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe.
I’ll not serve him; he’s not valiant.

Trinculo

Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case to justle a constable. Why, thou deboshed fish thou, was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish and half a monster?

Caliban

Lo, how he mocks me! wilt thou let him, my lord?

Trinculo

‘Lord’ quoth he! That a monster should be such a natural!

Caliban

Lo, lo, again! bite him to death, I prithee.

Stephano

Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head: if you prove a mutineer,— the next tree! The poor monster’s my subject and he shall not suffer indignity.

Caliban

I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleased to hearken once again to the suit I made to thee?

Stephano

Marry, will I kneel and repeat it; I will stand, and so shall Trinculo.

Enter Ariel, invisible

Caliban

As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island.

Ariel

Thou liest.

Caliban

Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou: I would my valiant master would destroy thee! I do not lie.

Stephano

Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in’s tale, by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth.

Trinculo

Why, I said nothing.

Stephano

Mum, then, and no more. Proceed.

Caliban

I say, by sorcery he got this isle;
From me he got it. if thy greatness will
Revenge it on him,— for I know thou darest,
But this thing dare not,—

Stephano

That’s most certain.

Caliban

Thou shalt be lord of it and I’ll serve thee.

Stephano

How now shall this be compassed?
Canst thou bring me to the party?

Caliban

Yea, yea, my lord: I’ll yield him thee asleep,
Where thou mayst knock a nail into his bead.

Ariel

Thou liest; thou canst not.

Caliban

What a pied ninny’s this! Thou scurvy patch!
I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows
And take his bottle from him: when that’s gone
He shall drink nought but brine; for I’ll not show him
Where the quick freshes are.

Stephano

Trinculo, run into no further danger: interrupt the monster one word further, and, by this hand, I’ll turn my mercy out o’ doors and make a stock-fish of thee.

Trinculo

Why, what did I? I did nothing. I’ll go farther off.

Stephano

Didst thou not say he lied?

Ariel

Thou liest.

Stephano

Do I so? take thou that.

Beats Trinculo

As you like this, give me the lie another time.

Trinculo

I did not give the lie. Out o’ your wits and bearing too? A pox o’ your bottle! this can sack and drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the devil take your fingers!

Caliban

Ha, ha, ha!

Stephano