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    Hamlet: A Tragedy
    Hamlet: A Tragedy
    Hamlet: A Tragedy
    Ebook205 pages1 hour

    Hamlet: A Tragedy

    By William Shakespeare

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    About this ebook

    When the king of Denmark suddenly dies, his brother, Claudius, ascends the throne and marries the king’s widow, Gertrude, to solidify his reign. Prince Hamlet, sullen after his father’s passing and mother’s sudden remarriage, soon learns the treacherous truth about his father’s death, and swears to take his revenge on the man responsible.

    Known as “The Bard of Avon,” William Shakespeare is arguably the greatest English-language writer known. Enormously popular during his life, Shakespeare’s works continue to resonate more than three centuries after his death, as has his influence on theatre and literature. Shakespeare’s innovative use of character, language, and experimentation with romance as tragedy served as a foundation for later playwrights and dramatists, and some of his most famous lines of dialogue have become part of everyday speech.

    HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateDec 16, 2014
    ISBN9781443443296
    Hamlet: A Tragedy
    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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      Book preview

      Hamlet - William Shakespeare

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      CLAUDIUS

      King of Denmark

      HAMLET

      son to the former and nephew to the present King

      POLONIUS

      Lord Chamberlain

      HORATIO

      friend to Hamlet

      LAERTES

      son to Polonius

      VOLTEMAND, CORNELIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, OSRIC, A Gentleman

      courtiers

      A Gentleman

      A Priest

      MARCELLUS, BERNARDO

      officers

      FRANCISCO

      a soldier

      REYNALDO

      servant to Polonius

      Players

      Two Clowns grave-diggers

      FORTINBRAS

      Prince of Norway

      A Norwegian Captain

      English Ambassadors

      GERTRUDE

      Queen of Denmark, and mother of Hamlet

      OPHELIA

      daughter to Polonius

      Ghost of Hamlet’s Father

      Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors,

      Messengers, and Auendants.

      THE SCENE: DENMARK.

      ACT ONE

      SCENE I. Elsinore. The guard-platform of 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?

      [5]

      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?

      [10]

      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.

      Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

      FRANCISCO I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?

      HORATIO Friends to this ground.

      MARCELLUS And liegemen to the Dane.

      FRANCISCO Give you good night.

      MARCELLUS O, farewell, honest soldier!

      Who hath reliev’d you?

      FRANCISCO Bernardo hath my place.

      Give you good night. [Exit.

      MARCELLUS Holla, Bernado!

      BERNARDO Say --

      What, is Horatio there?

      HORATIO A piece of him.

      [20]

      BERNARDO Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good

      Marcellus.

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

      BERNARDO I have seen nothing.

      MARCELLUS Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,

      [25]

      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.

      [30]

      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,

      [35]

      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 t’ illume that part of heaven

      Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

      The bell then beating one --

      Enter Ghost.

      [40]

      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 ’a not like the King? Mark it,

      Horatio.

      HORATIO Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

      BERNARDO It would be spoke to.

      [45]

      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.

      [50]

      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?

      [55]

      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:

      [60]

      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.

      [65]

      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 mine opinion,

      This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

      [70]

      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;

      [75]

      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;

      [80]

      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,

      Dar’d to the combat; in which our valiant

      Hamlet --

      [85]

      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;

      [90]

      Against the which a moiety competent

      Was gaged by our king; which had retum’d

      To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

      Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same comart

      And carriage of the article design’d,

      [95]

      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

      [100]

      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,

      [105]

      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

      [110]

      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,

      [115]

      The graves stood tenandess, 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

      [120]

      Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse;

      And even the like precurse of fear’d events,

      As harbingers preceding still the fates

      And prologue to the omen coming on,

      Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

      [125]

      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.

      [Ghost spreads its arms.

      If thou hast any sound or use of voice,

      Speak to me.

      [130]

      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,

      [135]

      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.

      [140]

      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;

      [145]

      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

      [150]

      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

      [155]

      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,

      [160]

      This bird of dawning singeth all night long;

      And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

      The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

      No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

      So hallowed and so gracious is that time.

      [165]

      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

      [170]

      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

      [175]

      Where we shall find him most convenient.

      [Exeunt.

      SCENE II. Elsinore. The Castle.

      Flourish. Enter CLAUDIUS KING OF DENMARK, GERTRUDE THE QUEEN, and Councillors, including POLONIUS, his son LAERTES, VOLTEMAND, CORNELIUS, and HAMLET.

      KING 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;

      [5]

      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 to this warlike state,

      [10]

      Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy,

      With an auspicious

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