Hamlet is a play by William Shakespeare, best known for Hamlet's Aside.
The play is anent the atheling of Denmark, who works to atone for the murder of his father.
The following is an overbringing of the play:
DON I
STEAD I. Elsinore. A flat floor before the stonghold.
FRANCISCO at his stead. Ingoes 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 stund.
BERNARDO
'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.
FRANCISCO
For this help much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart.
BERNARDO
Have you had still watch?
FRANCISCO
Not a mouse stirring.
BERNARDO
Well, good night. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The neighbors of my watch, bid them make speed.
FRANCISCO
I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?
Ingo HORATIO and MARCELLUS
HORATIO
Friends to this ground.
MARCELLUS
And eldermen to the Dane.
FRANCISCO
Give you good night.
MARCELLUS
O, farewell, upright fighter: Who hath called you back?
FRANCISCO
Bernardo has my stead. Give you good night.
Outgo
MARCELLUS
Holla! Bernardo!
BERNARDO
Say, What, is Horatio there?
HORATIO
A bit of him.
BERNARDO
Welcome, Horatio:welcome, good Marcellus.
MARCELLUS
What, has this thing came forth again to-night?
BERNARDO
I have seen nothing.
MARCELLUS
Horatio says 'tis but our whimsy, And will not let belief take hold of him Knocking this dreaded sight, twice seen of us: Therefore I have besought him along With us to watch the short tides of this night; That if again this sighting come, He may befind our eyes and speak to it.
HORATIO
Tush, tush, 'twill not show.
BERNARDO
Sit down awhile; And let us once again strike your ears, That are so strengthened against our tale 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 andaxle Had made his way to light that share of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, The bell then beating one,--
Ingo Ghost
MARCELLUS
Frith, break thee off; look, where it comes again!
BERNARDO
In the same shape, like the king that's dead.
MARCELLUS
Thou art a loreman; 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
Ask it, Horatio.
HORATIO
What art thou that sought after this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike shape In which the greatness of buried Denmark Did sometimes walk? by heaven I burden thee, speak!
MARCELLUS
It is harmed.
BERNARDO
See, it stalks away!
HORATIO
Stay! speak, speak! I burden thee, speak!
Outgo Ghost
MARCELLUS
'Tis gone, and will not answer.
BERNARDO
How now, Horatio! you shake and look white: Is not this something more than whimsy? What think you on't?
HORATIO
Before my God, I might not this believe Without the feeling and true witness Of mine own eyes.
MARCELLUS
Is it not like the king?
HORATIO
As thou art to thyself: Such was the very weaponwear he had on When he the yearning Norway fought; So wried he once, when, in an angry speech, He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice. 'Tis outlandish.
MARCELLUS
Thus twice before, and leap at this dead stund, With warlike stalk hath he gone by our watch.
HORATIO
In what share of thought to work I know not; But in the thick and sight of my doom, This bodes some outlandish outbreak to our rike.
MARCELLUS
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same tight and most heeded watch So nightly works the underthrow of the land, And why such daily cast of brazen blunderbuss, And outstead hall for tools of war; Why such incrowd of shipwrights, whose sore task Does not sunder the Sunday from the week; What might be toward, that this sweaty speed Doth make the night yoke-worker with the day: Who is't that can tell me?
HORATIO
That can I; At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king, Whose likeness even but now came to us, Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, Thereto prick'd on by a most likesome pride, Dared to the fight; in which our bold Hamlet-- For so this side of our known world beworth’d him-- Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a stamp’d bond, Well deemed by law and wealth, Did thole, with his life, all those his lands Which he took loss for, to the downfaller: Against the which, a half fiter Was sworn by our king; which had backwrung To the bequeathing of Fortinbras, Had he been overcomer; as, by the same oath, And farry of the bookstaff marked, His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras, Of unbettered ore hot and full, Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there Shark'd up a list of lawless backlooseners, For food and health, to some undertaking That hath a maw in't; which is no other-- As it doth well show unto our rike-- But to come back of us, by strong hand And ends binding, those foresaid lands So by his father lost: and this, I take it, Is the main drive of our foremakings, The wellspring of this our watch and the foremost head Of this fast-speed and search in the land.
BERNARDO
I think it be no other but e'en so: Well may it set that this threatening shape Comes weaponed through our watch; so like the king That was and is the asking of these wars.
HORATIO
A mote it is to stir the mind's eye. In the most high and lofty rike of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood holderless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman roads: As stars with draws of fire and dews of blood, Illstars in the sun; and the wet star Upon whose inflow Neptune's kingdom stands Was sick almost to doomsday with waning: And even the like forerun of wild happenings, As shelters foregoing still the weirds And forespeech to the foreboding coming on, Have heaven and earth together shown Unto our slopes and landmen.-- But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
Again-ingo Ghost
I'll rood it, though it blast me. Stay, mindshade! If thou hast any din, or brook of stefen, Speak to me: If there be any good thing to be done, That may to thee do help and thanks to me, Speak to me:
Cock crows
If thou art friend to thy land's wierd, Which, happily, foreknowing may withdraw, O, speak! Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life Outwrenched hoard in the womb of earth, For which, they say, you ghosts oft walk in death, Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.
MARCELLUS
Shall I strike at it with my spear?
HORATIO
Do, if it will not stand.
BERNARDO
'Tis here!
HORATIO
'Tis here!
MARCELLUS
'Tis gone!
Outgo Ghost
We do it wrong, being so great, To give it the show of strength; For it is, as the loft, unwoundsome, And our worthless blows wicked sneering.
BERNARDO
It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
HORATIO
And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful calling. I have heard, The cock, that is the horn to the morning, Doth with his lofty and shrill-dining throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or loft, The outwandering and forlorn ghost hies To his narrow: and of the truth herein This forebeen thing made doom.
MARCELLUS
It withered on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever 'gainst that tide comes Wherein our Healer’s birth is crowded, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no ghost dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no stars strike, No elf takes, nor witch hath might to bewitch, So hallow'd and so friendly is the time.
HORATIO
So have I heard and do in share believe it. But, look, the morn, in reddish mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill: Break we our watch up; and by my deeming, Let us inshare what we have seen to-night Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life, This ghost, dumb to us, will speak to him. Do you feel that we shall make known him with it, As needful in our loves, fitting our oath?
MARCELLUS
Let's do't, I bede; and I this morning know Where we shall find him most commingly.
Outgoen