William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

ACT I. 1. Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle. (continued)

Ber.
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 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 and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; 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 demonstrated
Unto our climature and countrymen.--
But, soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

[Re-enter Ghost.]

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, race 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,
[The cock crows.]
Speak of it:--stay, and speak!--Stop it, Marcellus!

Mar.
Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

Hor.
Do, if it will not stand.

Ber.
'Tis here!

Hor.
'Tis here!

Mar.
'Tis gone!

[Exit 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 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,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.