play text, sidenotes towards the left of the page are those marginal cross-references described earlier, and sidenotes toward the right of the page are the differences noted a few paragraphs later.]

[Page 1]

THE TRAGEDIE

OF

HAMLET

PRINCE OF DENMARKE.

[Page 2]

ACTUS PRIMUS.

Enter Barnardo and Francisco two Centinels[1].

Barnardo. Who's there?

Fran.[2] Nay answer me: Stand and vnfold yourselfe.

Bar. Long liue the King.[3]

Fran. Barnardo?

Bar. He.

Fran. You come most carefully vpon your houre.

Bar. 'Tis now strook twelue, get thee to bed Francisco.

Fran. For this releefe much thankes: 'Tis [Sidenote: 42] bitter cold, And I am sicke at heart.[4]

Barn. Haue you had quiet Guard?[5]

Fran. Not a Mouse stirring.

Barn. Well, goodnight. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the Riuals[6] of my Watch, bid them make hast.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

Fran. I thinke I heare them. Stand: who's there?
                                     [Sidenote: Stand ho, who is there?]

Hor. Friends to this ground.

Mar. And Leige-men to the Dane.

Fran. Giue you good night.

Mar. O farwel honest Soldier, who hath [Sidenote: souldiers] relieu'd you?

[Footnote 1: —meeting. Almost dark.]

[Footnote 2: —on the post, and with the right of challenge.]

[Footnote 3: The watchword.]

[Footnote 4: The key-note to the play—as in Macbeth: 'Fair is foul and foul is fair.' The whole nation is troubled by late events at court.]

[Footnote 5: —thinking of the apparition.]

[Footnote 6: Companions.]

[Page 4]

Fra. Barnardo ha's my place: giue you good-night. [Sidenote: hath] Exit Fran.

Mar. Holla Barnardo.

Bar. Say, what is Horatio there?

Hor. A peece of him.

Bar. Welcome Horatio, welcome good Marcellus.

Mar. What, ha's this thing appear'd againe to [Sidenote: Hor.[1]] night.

Bar. I haue seene nothing.

Mar. Horatio saies, 'tis but our Fantasie,
And will not let beleefe take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seene of vs,
Therefore I haue intreated him along
With vs, to watch the minutes of this Night,
That if againe this Apparition come,
[Sidenote: 6] He may approue our eyes, and speake to it.[2]

Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appeare.

Bar. Sit downe a-while,
And let vs once againe assaile your eares,
That are so fortified against our Story,
What we two Nights haue seene. [Sidenote: have two nights seen]

Hor. Well, sit we downe, And let vs heare Barnardo speake of this.

Barn. Last night of all,
When yond same Starre that's Westward from the Pole
Had made his course t'illume that part of Heauen
Where now it burnes, Marcellus and my selfe,
The Bell then beating one.[3]

Mar. Peace, breake thee of: Enter the Ghost. [Sidenote: Enter Ghost] Looke where it comes againe.

Barn. In the same figure, like the King that's dead.

[Footnote 1: Better, I think; for the tone is scoffing, and Horatio is the incredulous one who has not seen it.]

[Footnote 2: —being a scholar, and able to address it as an apparition ought to be addressed—Marcellus thinking, perhaps, with others, that a ghost required Latin.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'towling one.]

[Page 6]

[Sidenote: 4] Mar. Thou art a Scholler; speake to it Horatio.

Barn. Lookes it not like the King? Marke it Horatio.
                                                 [Sidenote: Looks a not]
Hora. Most like: It harrowes me with fear and wonder.
                                                 [Sidenote: horrowes[1]]

Barn. It would be spoke too.[2]

Mar. Question it Horatio. [Sidenote: Speak to it Horatio]

Hor. What art thou that vsurp'st this time of night,[3]
Together with that Faire and Warlike forme[4]
In which the Maiesty of buried Denmarke
Did sometimes[5] march: By Heauen I charge thee speake.

Mar. It is offended.[6]

Barn. See, it stalkes away.

Hor. Stay: speake; speake: I Charge thee, speake. Exit the Ghost. [Sidenote: Exit Ghost.]

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Barn. How now Horatio? You tremble and look pale: Is not this something more then Fantasie? What thinke you on't?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this beleeue Without the sensible and true auouch Of mine owne eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the King?

Hor. As thou art to thy selfe,
Such was the very Armour he had on,
When th' Ambitious Norwey combatted: [Sidenote: when he the ambitious]
So frown'd he once, when in an angry parle
He smot the sledded Pollax on the Ice.[8] [Sidenote: sleaded[7]]
'Tis strange.

[Sidenote: 274] Mar. Thus twice before, and iust at this dead houre,
                                            [Sidenote: and jump at this]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q. 'horrors mee'.]

[Footnote 2: A ghost could not speak, it was believed, until it was spoken to.]

[Footnote 3: It was intruding upon the realm of the embodied.]

[Footnote 4: None of them took it as certainly the late king: it was only clear to them that it was like him. Hence they say, 'usurp'st the forme.']

[Footnote 5: formerly.]

[Footnote 6: —at the word usurp'st.]

[Footnote 7: Also 1st Q.]

[Footnote 8: The usual interpretation is 'the sledged Poles'; but not to mention that in a parley such action would have been treacherous, there is another far more picturesque, and more befitting the angry parle, at the same time more characteristic and forcible: the king in his anger smote his loaded pole-axe on the ice. There is some uncertainty about the word sledded or sleaded (which latter suggests lead), but we have the word sledge and sledge-hammer, the smith's heaviest, and the phrase, 'a sledging blow.' The quarrel on the occasion referred to rather seems with the Norwegians (See Schmidt's Shakespeare-Lexicon: