Say.

Mar.

O, farewell, honest soldier: Who hath relieved you? Fran.

Bernardo hath my place. Give you good night.

[Exit Francisco. Mar.

Holla! Bernardo!
Ber.
What, is Horatio, there?
Hor.

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

-approve our eyes,] i. e. Add a new testimony to that of our eyes. To 'approve, in Sbakspeare's time, signified to make good, or establish.—Johnson and MALONE.

a Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.] Exorcisms were usually performed in Latin.Douce.

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.
Ber.

See! it stalks away.
Hor. Stay; speak: speak I charge thee, speak.

[Exit Ghost. Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

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

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,&
'Tis strange.

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

Hor. In what particular thought to work,' I know not; But, in the gross and scopek 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

- it harrows me, &c.] To harrow is to conquer, to subdue. The word is of Saxon origin.-STEEVENS. 1-sledded-] i.e. Borne on a sledge, or sled.

He smole the sledded Polack on the ice.] He speaks of a prince of Poland whom he slew in battle. Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland. Polaque, Fr.-Pope and Johnson.

- jump at this dead hour,] i. e. Just at this dead hour : jump and just were synonymous.

In what particular thought to work,] i.e. What particular train of thinking to follow.-STEEVENS.

- gross and scope—] General thoughts, and tendency at large.-Johnson.

So nightly toils the subject of the land?
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign marts 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?
Hor.

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,
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,"
And carriage of the article design'd,”
His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimprovede mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprize
That hath a stomach in't:s which is no other

law, and heraldry,] When the right of property was to be determined by combat, the rules of heraldry were to be attended to as well as those of law. M. Mason.

gaged— ] i. e. Laid as a wager.-NARES.

co-mart,) i. e. Joint barguin. The word does not occur in any other place.

carriage-) i. e. Import, tendency.

design'd,] i. e. Drawn up.

- unimproved-] i. e. Uncensured, unimpeached. See GIPFORD's Ben Jonson, vol. i. 88.

* Shark'd up a list, 8c.) i. e. Collected in a banditti-like manner, a set of rogues and vagabonds; to shark is nearly equivalent to the modern word to swindle.-NARES.

* That hath a stomach in't :) i. e. That hath a spirit, or excitement in it: an uzcommon use of the word.

m

(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.

[Ber. I think," it be no other, but even 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.

Hor. 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 shed dews of blood,
Disasters dimm'd the sun;a 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 démonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-]

-romage] —or rummage, i.e. Tumultuous movement.-Jonsson. *[I think, &c.] These, and all other lines, coufined within crotchets, throughout this play, and some others which we have not noticed, are omitted in the folio edition of 1623. The omissions leave the play sometimes better and sometimes worse, and seem made only for the sake of abbreviation.—Jounson.

* Well may it sort,] The cause and effect are proportionate and suitable.-JOHNSON. 1- the question—) i. e. The theme or subject.

palmy-] i.e. Victorious. * As, stars with trains of fire shed dews of blood, Disasters dimm'd the sun; &c.] The original reading of these lines is,

As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun; &c.] These corrupted lines the commentators have attempted to put right: the reading I have adopted is the one which departs least from the letter of the text; disasters are the blasts or strokes of unfavourable planets.

the moist star, &c.] i. e. The moon.

omen coming on,) i.e. Portentous event at hand. Omen was anciently used in the sense of fate.--FARMER,

b

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:
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,
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,

[Cock crows.
Speak of it :-stay, and speak.–Stop it, Marcellus.
Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partizan?
Hor. Do, if it will not stand.
Ber.

'Tis here! Hor.

'Tis here! Mar. 'Tis gone!

[Erit 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.

Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet of 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,

d Exit Ghost.] The moment of the evanescence of spirits was supposed to be limited to the crowing of the cock. This belief is mentioned as early as Prudentius, Cathem. Hymn. i. v. 40. But some of his commentators prove it to be of much higher antiquity.-T. Warton.

e Whether in sea, &c.] According to the pneumatology of that time, every element was inhabited by its peculiar order of spirits, who had dispositions different, according to their various places of abode. The meaning therefore is, that all spirits extravagant, wandering out of their element, whether aëria! spirits visiting earth, or earthly spirits ranging the air, return to their station, to their proper limits in which they are confined. --Johnson.