Barnardo
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 —
Marcellus
Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again.
[Enter Ghost]
Barnardo
In the same figure, like the King that's dead.
Marcellus
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.
Barnardo
Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.
Horatio
Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.
Barnardo
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.
Barnardo
See, it stalks away.
Horatio
Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee speak!
[Exit Ghost]
Marcellus
'Tis gone, and will not answer.
Barnardo
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 th'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,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet,