Murder Most Foul, Book I, Chapter 5

HAMLET

He found himself wrapped in a cloud of fog so thick that he could barely see the stones at his feet. Before him the ghost shone with a strange inner light. Recalling Horatio's warning that the ghost might lure him to some perilous spot, he called out, "Whither wilt thou lead me?" The ghost gave no answer but continued its steady pace into the darkness. "Speak!" Hamlet commanded, then stood his ground defiantly. "I'll go no further." 

The ghost turned, and in a voice Hamlet recognized as his father's said, "Mark me." 

"I will." 

"My hour is almost come when I to sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself," it said, a look of pain crossing its face. 

"Alas, poor ghost," said Hamlet, touched by its keen evocation of suffering, but still unwilling to address it as his father. 

"Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold," his father's voice said sternly. 

Hamlet recognized the tone of paternal command and found himself a child again, receiving instruction. "Speak," he said. "I am bound to hear." 

"So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear." 

The reply astonished him, and he gasped, "What?" 

"I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to fast in fires till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away." Hamlet felt faint at the revelation, but took a deep breath as the ghost continued, "But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison-house I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, thy knotted and combined locks to part and each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fearful porpentine -- but this eternal blazon must not be to ears of flesh and blood." 

Hamlet felt grateful to be spared more description of his father's tortures, but tears came to his eyes. 

"List, list, O list," the ghost commanded. "If thou didst ever thy dear father love --" 

"O God!" Hamlet gasped. 

"-- revenge his foul and most unnatural murder!" 

"Murder!" Hamlet echoed, though he had only a shred of voice available. 

"Murder most foul -- as in the best it is -- but this most foul, strange and unnatural." 

Hamlet's mind reeled with questions and suspicions, but the ghost seemed to fall silent, as if assessing Hamlet's readiness to proceed. "Haste me to know't that I with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love may sweep to my revenge," Hamlet urged. 

The ghost slowly nodded. "I find thee apt. And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed that roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear." Suddenly Hamlet felt that the voice was speaking to him inside his own head, not to be overheard: "'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, a serpent stung me." Hamlet nodded; he had heard the story. "So the whole ear of Denmark is by a forged process of my death rankly abused. But know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father's life now wears his crown."

Claudius! Hamlet thought, as a blaze of revelation surged through him. "O my prophetic soul! My uncle!" 

"Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, with witchcraft of his wits, with traitorous gifts -- O wicked wit and gifts that have the power so to seduce -- won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous Queen." A look of terrible sorrow came across the ghost's face. "O Hamlet, what falling off was there, from me whose love was of that dignity that it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage, and to decline upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine." 

Hamlet fought off the waves of nausea that rose within him as the ghost continued, "But Virtue, as it never will be moved though Lewdness court it in a shape of heaven, so Lust, though to a radiant angel linked, will sate itself in a celestial bed and prey upon garbage." 

The ghost fell silent for a moment, pain visible on its features. Then it recovered: "But soft, methinks I scent the morning air. Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard -- my custom always of the afternoon -- upon my secure hour thy uncle stole with juice of cursed hebona in a vial and in the porches of my ears did pour the  leperous distillment whose effect holds such an enmity with the blood of man that swift as quicksilver it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body and with a sudden vigour it doth possess and curd like eager droppings into milk the thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine and a most instant tetter barked about most lazar-like with vile and loathsome crust all my smooth body."

Hamlet shuddered, wanting to wrap his arms around his father and console him, but realizing that it was impossible to embrace the insubstantial figure that stood before him. 

"Thus was I sleeping by a brother's hand of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched, cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled, no reckoning made but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head." 

"O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!" Hamlet cried. 

"If thou has nature in thee bear it not," the ghost spoke sternly. "Let not the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest. But howsomever thou pursues this act taint not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her." 

The admonition caught Hamlet by surprise. It was if the ghost had entered his mind and seen the disgust and rage he was feeling toward his mother. Did he feel her complicity more strongly than he did the manifest villainy of his uncle? She was, after all, his flesh and blood. But before he could respond to the challenge to spare her, he saw that the ghost was withdrawing. 

"Fare thee well at once," it said. "The glow-worm shows the matin to be near and 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire." The figure began to fade, and Hamlet saw that the sky was noticeably lighter. The fog was almost gone. "Adieu, adieu, adieu," the ghost said, its voice growing fainter with each word, "remember me." And it was gone. 

"O all you host of heaven, O earth -- what else? -- and shall I couple hell?" He felt faint, and admonished himself: "O fie! Hold, hold, my heart, and you, my sinews, grow not instant old but bear me swiftly up." He drew a deep breath. "Remember thee?" he said, addressing the vacancy where the ghost had once appeared. "Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat in this distracted globe. Remember thee? Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past that youth and observation copied there and thy commandment all along shall live within the book and volume of my brain unmixed with baser matter." 

He realized that he was speaking to empty air, but it felt good to give voice to what he was feeling. "Yes, by heaven," he muttered. "O most pernicious woman, O villain, villain, smiling damned villain." He became aware that he was still clutching his sword, so he sheathed it. My tables! he thought suddenly, feeling in the pockets of his tunic for the notebook he always carried. Meet it is I set it down, and through gritted teeth he spoke as he wrote: "That one may smile and smile and be a villain -- at least I am sure that it may be so in Denmark." So, uncle, there you are, he thought as he reread what he had written. Now to my word. It is "Adieu, adieu, remember me." He bowed his head and crossed himself. I have sworn it. 

Suddenly he felt exhilarated. He laughed aloud as a giddiness seized him. He had a most precious, priceless secret and a task to pursue. He felt as if he were floating, as if he had been freed from prison darkness. Suddenly, oddly, he remembered a figure from his childhood, the jester in his father's court, old Yorick, long dead. He was a licensed fool, permitted to say anything, no matter how much it might shock or embarrass the courtiers. People thought him mad, but this only made it possible for Yorick to go anywhere in the castle, to pry into its secrets and scandals and to turn them into hilarious mockery of the guilty or the truly foolish. One of his targets had been the pompous courtier Polonius, now the king's right-hand man. What would it be like, Hamlet thought, to play the fool and speak his mind. What true freedom! 

In the distance he heard voices: Horatio calling out "My lord, my lord!" and Marcellus, "Lord Hamlet!" He heard Horatio, drawing nearer, say, "Heavens secure him!" to which Hamlet said "So be it." Marcellus gave out a falconer's cry, "Illo, ho, ho, my lord!" and Hamlet, who had gone hawking with Marcellus, replied, "Hillo, ho, ho, boy, come and come!" 

The two appeared running, and, both out of breath, Marcellus asked, "How is't my noble lord?" and Horatio, "What news, my lord!" 

"O, wonderful," he replied, with an odd laugh. 

Horatio looked puzzled, not expecting hilarity from Hamlet. "Good my lord, tell it." 

Hamlet wagged his finger, smiling. "No, you will reveal it." 

"Not I, my lord, by heaven," Horatio said, and Marcellus vowed, "Nor I, my lord." 

"How say you then --" Hamlet began teasingly, "--would heart of man once think it?" He broke off again and feigned a coy suspiciousness, "But you'll be secret?" 

"Ay, by heaven," they both swore. 

Hamlet put his arms around their shoulders and drew them close. "There's never a villain dwelling in all Denmark but he's an arrant knave," he whispered. 

Horatio pulled free and said, with some irritation, "There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave to tell us this." 

"Why right, you are in the right!" he replied, stepping away from them. "And so without more circumstance at all I hold it fit that we shake hands and part --" He took each man's hand and shook it with mock formality. "You and your business and desire shall point you (for every man hath business and desire such as it is) and for my own poor part I will go pray." He started to walk away. 

"These are but wild and whirling words, my lord," Horatio said indignantly. 

Hamlet realized that he had carried his antic performance too far. He had offended Horatio, whose support he needed. But he was still uncertain how much he could trust Marcellus, who had been at court all along. Claudius might have enlisted his support secretly. "I am sorry they offend you," he said, "heartily, yes, faith, heartily." 

"There's no offence, my lord," Horatio said, somewhat mollified. 

"Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio, and much offence too. Touching this vision here, it is an honest ghost -- that let me tell you. For your desire to know what is between us o'ermaster it as you may. And now, good friends, as you are friends, scholars and soldiers, give me one poor request." 

"What is't, my lord? We will," Horatio said, and Marcellus gave an assenting nod. 

"Never make known what you have seen tonight." 

"My lord, we will not," both men replied. 

"Nay, but swear't." 

"In faith, my lord, not I," Horatio said. 

"Nor I, my lord, in faith," Marcellus echoed. 

Hamlet drew his sword and presented it, hilt first. "Upon my sword." 

"We have sworn, my lord, already," Marcellus said. 

"Indeed," Hamlet said, giving Marcellus a piercing look, "upon my sword, indeed," he insisted. 

Suddenly the ghost's voice was heard from below where they were standing: "Swear." 

Hamlet laughed in surprise. "Ha, ha, boy, says thou so? Art thou there, truepenny? Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage? Consent to swear." 

"Propose the oath, my lord," Horatio said, confused by Hamlet's insistence. 

"Never to speak of this that you have seen, swear by my sword." He presented the hilt of the sword again, and Horatio and Marcellus laid their hands on it. 

"Swear," came the ghost's voice again, a bit farther off from before. 

"Hic et ubique?" Hamlet said, moving toward the ghost's new spot. "Then we'll shift our ground. Come hither, gentlemen, and lay your hands again upon my sword never to speak of this that you have heard." 

"Swear by his sword," the ghost said once more, in a different spot. 

"Well said, old mole, canst work i'th' earth so fast? A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends." 

Horatio muttered, "O day and night, but this is wondrous strange." 

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome, " Hamlet said, overhearing him. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come, here as before," as they moved to the new spot, "never -- so help you mercy, how strange or odd some'er I bear myself (as I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on) -- that you at such times seeing me never shall, with arms encumbered thus," he began to act out various eccentric gestures, "or this headshake, or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase as 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could an if we would,' or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be an if they might,' or such ambiguous giving out to note that you know aught to me. This do swear, so grace and mercy at your most need help you." 

"Swear," said the ghost as Horatio and Marcellus again laid their hands on the sword. 

"Rest, rest, perturbed spirit," Hamlet said to it. They had fulfilled the request to his satisfaction. "So, gentlemen, with all my love I do commend me to you, and what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do t'express his love and friending to you God willing shall not lack. Let us go in together and still your fingers on your lips, I pray."

The time is out of joint; O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right, he thought. 

Horatio and Marcellus stood back to let the prince precede them. "Nay, come, let's go together," he said, putting his arms around them. 

Murder Most Foul, Book I, Chapter 4

HORATIO

"The air bites shrewdly," said Hamlet, following Horatio and Marcellus up the stone steps to the battlement.

"It is nipping," Horatio agreed, "and an eager air." He sensed the prince's nervousness.

"What hour now?" Hamlet asked as they stepped out onto the open space.

"I think it lacks of twelve," Horatio said, but Marcellus, who had led the way, said, "No, it is struck."

"Indeed, I heard it not." All he could hear was the wind and the sound of the waves far below. "It then draws near the season wherein the spirit held his wont to walk." Suddenly, from the castle below came the sound of trumpets and a rumble that Horatio took to be the firing of small cannons. "What does this mean, my lord?" he asked Hamlet.

The prince gave a grimace of disapproval. "The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, keeps wassail and the swaggering upspring reels, and as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down the kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out the triumph of his pledge."

"Is it a custom?"

"Ay, marry is't, but to my mind, though I am native here and to the manner born, it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance. This heavy-headed revel east and west makes us traduced and taxed of other nations: They clepe us drunkards and with swinish phrase soil our addition, and indeed it takes from our achievements, though performed at height, the pith and marrow of our attribute."

Horatio sensed that Hamlet was relieving his nervousness in talk, and let him chatter on, though his own attention was centered on watching for the ghost.

"So oft it chances in particular men," the prince went on, "that, for some vicious mole of nature in them, as in their birth wherein they are not guilty (since nature cannot choose his origin), by their o'ergrowth of some complexion oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, or by some habit that too much o'erleavens the form of plausive manners -- that these men, carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect (being Nature's livery or Fortune's star)...." (Marcellus gave Horatio a questioning look, to which he responded with a smile of amused indulgence for the prince's garrulousness.) "... her virtues else, be they as pure as grace, as infinite as man may undergo, shall in the general censure take corruption from that particular fault: the dram of eale doth all the noble substance of a doubt to his own scandal...."

"Look, my lord, it comes," Horatio interrupted him. For the familiar deep chill had come upon him and the ghost appeared from the fog.

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!" Hamlet cried out, crossing himself. Slowly he moved toward the figure. After a moment of silent wonderment -- Horatio noticed that even the wind and the waves seemed to have grown still -- Hamlet spoke to the ghost in a kind of incantation: "Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned, bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou com'st in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet, king, father, royal Dane."

The ghost gave no reply.

"O answer me," the prince pleaded, "let me not burst in ignorance but tell why thy canonized bones hearsed in death have burst their cerements, why the sepulchre wherein we saw thee quietly interred hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws to cast thee up again."

Still the ghost was silent.

With an increasing desperation in his voice, Hamlet demanded, "What may this mean that thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel, revisits thus the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous, and we fools of nature so horridly to shake our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?"

Silence.

"Say why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?"

Finally, with a slow and dreamlike grace, the figure raised a hand and motioned Hamlet forward. Stunned, Horatio said, "It beckons you to go away with it as if it some impartment did desire to you alone."

Marcellus echoed him: "Look with what courteous action it waves you to a more removed ground." But then, with alarm in his voice, Marcellus added, "But do not go with it."

Horatio, waking to the possible danger to the prince, stepped forward and took his arm. "No, by no means."

Hamlet tore his gaze from the ghost and looked at Horatio. "It will not speak: then I will follow it," he said, as if talking to a child.

"Do not, my lord," Horatio urged, as Marcellus took a step to block Hamlet's path toward the ghost.

"Why, what should be the fear?" Hamlet said, becoming increasingly agitated. "I do not set my life at a pin's fee, and for my soul -- what can it do to that, being a thing immortal as itself." He nodded toward the ghost. "It waves me forth again. I'll follow it." He twisted out of Horatio's grasp.

Desperately searching for an argument that would stay Hamlet's course, Horatio stepped in front of him and said, "What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, or to the dreadful summit of the cliff that beetles o'er his base into the sea, and there assume some other horrible form which might deprive your sovereignty of reason and draw you into madness?" Hamlet looked into his eyes, as if assessing this warning. "Think of it," Horatio continued. He remembered how once he had stood on the cliff with Hamlet, who had expressed a horror of falling from it. "The very place puts toys of desperation without more motive into every brain that looks so many fathoms to the sea and hears it roar beneath."

But Hamlet had turned his gaze again to the ghost, which was withdrawing and still beckoning. "It waves me still," he said, and then spoke directly to the spirit: "Go on, I'll follow thee."

Marcellus and Horatio stepped into Hamlet's path again. "You shall not go, my lord," said Marcellus as Horatio urged, "Be ruled, you shall not go," and Hamlet commanded, "Hold off your hands."

He struggled free of their grasp. "My fate cries out and makes each petty artery in this body as hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve." He turned toward the ghost. "Still am I called -- unhand me, gentlemen," he said as they tried again to restrain him. Suddenly, he drew his sword and turned to confront them. "By heaven I'll make a ghost of him that lets me! I say away!" Horatio and Marcellus backed off, as Hamlet called out to the ghost, "Go on! I'll follow thee," and was swallowed up in the night and fog.

"He waxes desperate with imagination," Horatio said, stunned at the violence his friend had exhibited.

Marcellus was less shaken. "Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him."

Horatio nodded his agreement. "Have after," he said, as they plunged into the darkness. "To what issue will this come?" he asked Marcellus, still trying to come to terms with Hamlet's behavior and the ghost's actions.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," Marcellus said.

Horatio stopped. What good could come of their pursuit of Hamlet anyway? "Heaven will direct it," he called out to Marcellus, who had gone on ahead. But Marcellus persisted, "Nay, let's follow him." Horatio had no choice but to resume the pursuit.

Murder Most Foul, Book I, Chapter 3

OPHELIA

As she watched her brother's preparations, she wished she were the one leaving -- or at least that she were going with him. Laertes had been back since the old king's death, which had been when everything changed. The queen, who had been her closest friend in the court, had first been lost in mourning and then swept up in the new king's wooing. She now seemed oddly distant in manner, except to King Claudius, on whom she clung. And then Ophelia's father suddenly became drawn to the center of power in the new king's court. He had been but one of old King Hamlet's advisers, and certainly not the chiefest. But when the decision was made by them to name King Hamlet's brother -- and not his son -- his successor, the faction opposing the decision dwindled. Some had gone into exile. Others ... she had no idea what happened to them. Her father, who had supported Claudius, was now his closest adviser. Court affairs confused and frightened her.

As for the prince, young Hamlet, he had returned, distraught, from Wittenberg a few days after his father's death. For once, he brought her no gifts: Before, he had always brought her some trinket -- a cunningly carved wooden animal, a book of verse, once a fine gold necklace, which she had worn until her father noticed it recently and asked where it came from. Angrily, he told her to put it away -- out of sight.

This was the greatest change of all. Before King Hamlet's death, her father had always encouraged her friendship with the prince, hinting that the young man might be in love with her. Queen Gertrude had also stirred her interest in young Hamlet, saying that they would make a handsome couple. For her part, Ophelia enjoyed the fantasy, but was less fond of the reality: To marry the prince would put her at the center of the court and its affairs, precisely where she never wanted to be. He was handsome and kind, but he was also almost twice her age. She thought of him as more like a brother than a lover. And now she understood that his uncle, the king, would probably force Hamlet to marry into the royal house of some other country as a diplomatic move. She must not allow herself to be an obstacle to that, her father told her, sternly.

"My necessaries are embarked," said Laertes, who was dressed in his traveling clothes. He kissed her and said, "Farewell," then embraced her and added, "and sister, as the winds give benefit and convey is assistant, do not sleep but let me hear from you."

"Do not doubt that," she said reassuringly.

But then her brother frowned and said, "For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour, hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, a violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, the perfume and suppliance of a minute, no more."

These weren't her brother's words, she thought. They sounded almost like a speech someone had given him to recite. He sounded like ... her father. She nodded and said, in a small voice, a bit frightened, "No more but so."

Laertes continued, "Think it no more. For nature crescent does not grow alone in thews and bulks, but as this temple waxes," he grasped her shoulders and looked her in the eye, "the inward service of the mind and soul grows with withal."

She understood only a part of what he was saying, but he continued, "Perhaps he loves you now, and now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch the virtue of his will; but you must fear, his greatness weighed, his will is not his own." Yes, she understood, he must marry a princess, not her, but Laertes seemed determined to make the point clear: "He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself, for on his choice depends the safety and health of this whole state, and therefore must his choice be circumscribed unto the voice and yielding of that body whereof he is the head."

She nodded her head, hoping that this lecture was at an end. But he wasn't finished. "Then if he says he loves you it fits your wisdom so far to believe it as he in his particular act and place may give his saying deed, which is no further than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain if with too credent ear you list his songs or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open to his unmastered importunity."

She blushed deeply. Never, never had her brother talked to her in these terms. She knew now that her father had insisted on his delivering this speech. Perhaps he was even listening now, outside the door. "Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister, and keep you in the rear of your affection out of the shot and danger of desire. The chariest maid is prodigal enough if she unmask her beauty to the moon. Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes."

Her blush of embarrassment was now tinged with a growing anger at being lectured to at such length. But she didn't want to spoil her parting from a brother she might never see again, and she held her tongue as he continued: "The canker galls the infants of the spring too oft before their buttons be disclosed, and in the morn and liquid dew of youth contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary then: best safety lies in fear, youth to itself rebels, though none else near."

Ophelia finally found a chance to speak, and with some spirit in her voice she assured Laertes, "I shall the effect of this good lesson" -- she nodded in emphasis of these words -- "keep as watchman to my heart." Then she added, with a sly smile, "But, good my brother, do not as some ungracious pastors do: show me the steep and thorny way to heaven whiles, a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads and recks not his own rede."

Laertes reddened and muttered, "O fear me not." He turned to go. "I stay too long."

Ophelia smiled at his embarrassment, and then noticed that Polonius had appeared in the doorway. Yes, she thought, he was listening outside.

"But here my father comes," Laertes said, a little abashed. "A double blessing is a double grace: Occasion smiles upon a second leave."

"Yet here, Laertes?" boomed Polonius. "Aboard, aboard for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail and you are stayed for." But despite this scolding, it was clear that Polonius was not ready to let go of his son. He put his arm around Laertes and held him back: "There, my blessing with thee, and these few precepts look thou character: Give thy thoughts no tongue nor any unproportioned thought his act." Laertes nodded, but, catching his sister's amused glance, steeled himself for more. "Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar," Polonius continued. "Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel, but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched, unfledged courage." Laertes bit his lip to hold back his impatience. "Beware of entrance to a quarrel but, being in, bear't that th'opposed may beware of thee." Laertes managed to draw his father into a slow walk toward the door, as Ophelia stifled a giggle, seeing her brother subjected to the same kind of lecture he had inflicted on her. "Give every man thy ear but few thy voice; take each man's censure but reserve thy judgment."

Laertes had by now reached the doorway, but Polonius showed no sign of letting up. "Costly thy habit as thy purse may buy," he said, fingering Laertes's traveling cloak with a bit of a frown, "but not expressed in fancy -- rich, not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man and they in France of the best rank and station are of all most select and generous chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender, boy, for loan oft loses both itself and friend and borrowing dulleth th'edge of husbandry." At the door, Polonius grasped Laertes by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. "This above all, to thine own self be true," he said, emphasizing the last five words with a sharp thrust of the finger into Laertes's chest at each one. Ophelia saw Laertes wince. "And it must follow as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man." Releasing him, Polonius said, "Farewell, my blessing season this in thee."

"Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord."

"The time invests you. Go, your servants tend," Polonius said, making shooing motions with his hand.

"Farewell, Ophelia," Laertes called out to her, "and remember well what I have said to you."

"'Tis in my memory locked and you yourself shall keep the key of it," she said, wiping a tear that had sprung to her eye.

With a last "Farewell," her brother was gone.

Polonius rounded on her sharply. "What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?"

She knew that he had been listening, and was well aware that he was testing her on Laertes's lesson, but she tried to avoid examination. "So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet," she said, vaguely.

"Marry, well bethought," Polonius said. "'Tis told me he hath very oft of late given private time to you, and you yourself have of your audience been moth free and bounteous." This was far from true: Hamlet had kept his distance from her for some time now. She wondered who had told him this, and realized that it was partly a warning that he was having her watched. "If it be so -- as so 'tis put on me, and that in way of caution -- I must tell you that you do not understand yourself so clearly as it behooves my daughter and your honour. What is between you? Give me up the truth."

She had backed away but he pursued her. "He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me," she said, meekly. This was not true. Lately, Hamlet had been kind and polite to her at most. But since her father's discovery of the gold chain Hamlet had given her, it was hard to deny that the prince had once been attentive to her.

"Affection?" he scoffed. "Pooh, you speak like a green girl unsifted in such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his 'tenders,' as you call them?"

"I do not know, my lord, what I should think."

"Marry, I will teach you: Think yourself a baby that you have ta'en these tenders for true pay which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly or -- not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, wronging it thus -- you'll tender me a fool."

"My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honourable fashion."

She had put the stress on "honourable," but her father seized upon another word: "Ay, 'fashion' you may call it. Go to, go to," he said, shaking his head disapprovingly.

Having gotten herself into this trap, she tried to put the best possible face on it. "And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, with almost all the holy vows of heaven." Again, Hamlet's expressions of love for her had been more fraternal than romantic, but she knew she could never persuade her father of this.

"Ay, springes to catch woodcocks -- I do know when the blood burns how prodigal the soul lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter, giving more light than heat, extinct in both even in their promise as it is a-making, you must not take for fire. From this time be something scanter of your maiden presence at a higher rate than a command to parle." She knew he had lapsed into the language of diplomacy, his native jargon, but she understood his drift. "For Lord Hamlet, believe so much in him that he is young and with a larger tether may he walk than may be given you. In few, Ophelia, do not believe his vows, for they are brokers not of that dye which their investments show but mere implorators of unholy suits breathing like sanctified and pious bonds the better to beguile."

His manner grew yet more severe, and she tried not to tremble. "This is for all," he said, "I would not in plain terms from this time forth have you so slander any moment leisure as to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet." She nodded. "Look to't, I charge you," he said, pointing at her the finger that he had recently stabbed into his son's chest. "Come your ways."

He turned on his heel, and she said, "I shall obey, my lord."

Murder Most Foul, Book I, Chapter 2

PRINCE HAMLET

As the trumpets sounded, he followed them, dutifully, into the great hall, where a richly dressed crowd awaited them. To one side of the thrones stood Polonius and his son, Laertes, to the other the emissaries, Cornelius and Voltimand. Ophelia, he noticed, wasn't there. Crowds terrified her, she had told him, and she often feigned illness when she had to accompany her father to state occasions. He was a bit relieved: At least Polonius won't be forcing her on me as he usually did, he thought. It was the old courtier's fondest desire: to see his daughter married to the prince of the realm. His mother, too, had encouraged him to see more of Ophelia, though his uncle -- now his stepfather -- seemed indifferent. It would be like Claudius, he thought, to want to marry me off to some sour foreign princess as part of a diplomatic arrangement. 

He noticed, too, that he was the only person in the hall still in mourning. The black blot on all this array of gold and crimson. He took his place behind and slightly to the left of his mother, now seated on her throne. When his father had been alive, his place was always to King Hamlet's right. But things had changed. 

Claudius remained standing, then acknowledged the bows of the assemblage with a nod. Did he keep them bowing a little longer than was necessary? The prince was sure of this.  

"Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death the memory be green," Claudius began, "and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe, yet so far hath discretion fought with nature that we with wisest sorrow think on him together with remembrance of ourselves." The royal "we" grated on the prince's nerves, but he held his composure until Claudius began to speak about the wedding that had come so soon after the elder Hamlet's death:  "Therefore our sometime sister, now our Queen, th'imperial jointress to this warlike state, have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy, with an auspicious and a dropping eye, with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, in equal scale weighing delight and dole, taken to wife." 

Claudius turned and acknowledged the queen, but also glimpsed a red-faced Hamlet, struggling to keep his emotions in check. He gave a warning frown at the prince, whose fists were clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms. Then he turned to acknowledge Polonius: "Nor have we herein barred your better wisdoms, which have freely gone with this affair along. For all," he said, turning to the assembled court, "our thanks." 

And then to the business at hand: "Now follows that you know: young Fortinbras, holding a weak supposal of our worth or thinking by our late dear brother's death our state to be disjoint or out of frame -- co-leagued with this dream of his advantage -- he hath not failed to pester us with message importing the surrender of those lands lost by his father with all bands of law to our most valiant brother. So much for him. Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting, thus much the business is: We have here writ to Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras -- who impotent and bedrid scarcely hears of this his nephew's purpose -- to suppress his further gait herein, in that the levies, the lists and full proportions are all made out of his subject." He turned to the emissaries: "And we here dispatch you, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand, for bearers of this greeting to old Norway, giving to you no further personal power to business with the king more than the scope of these delated articles allow." An attendant handed Claudius two scrolls, which he passed along to Voltemand and Cornelius. "Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty." 

With low bows, the emissaries promised, "In that and all things we will show our duty." 

"We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell," he said, as the emissaries left. Then he turned to Laertes, whose nervousness was apparent. "And now, Laertes, what's the news with you? You told us of some suit -- what is't, Laertes?" Polonius had given his son a little shove, urging him forward. "You cannot speak of reason to the Dane and lose your voice," Claudius said, encouragingly. "What wouldst thou beg, Laertes, that shall not be my offer, not thy asking? The head is not more native to the heart, the hand more instrumental to the mouth, than is the throne of Denmark to thy father. What wouldst thou have, Laertes?" 

"My dread lord," Laertes began, his voice shaking a little, "your leave and favour to return to France, from whence willingly I came to Denmark to show my duty in your coronation, yet now I must confess, that duty done, my thoughts and wishes bend again toward France and bow them to your gracious leave and pardon." 

Hamlet suddenly realized why Laertes was so nervous: Claudius had repeatedly stymied his own attempts to return to his studies at Wittenberg. Was Claudius afraid that if he loosened his grip on the younger members of the court, they'd slip from him and join forces with Fortinbras? But Laertes, who had always been held on a tight rein by Polonius, was the last person anyone would suspect of doing that. Claudius had something of the tyrant about him, Hamlet thought. 

"Have you your father's leave?" Claudius asked. "What says Polonius?" 

"He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave by laboursome petition, and at last upon his will I sealed my hard consent. I do beseech you give him leave to go." 

"Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine and thy best graces spend it at thy will." Laertes backed away gratefully as Claudius turned his attention elsewhere: "But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son --" 

"A little more than kin, and less than kind," Hamlet muttered, just out of earshot of Claudius, but loud enough for his mother to hear. She frowned disapprovingly.  

"How is it that the clouds still hang upon you?" Claudius asked, his gaze surveying Hamlet's black clothing.

"Not so much, my lord," Hamlet replied. "I am too much in the 'son.'"

The queen rose, putting her hand on Claudius's arm. The king was visibly angered by Hamlet's reply. "Good Hamlet," she said, "cast thy nighted color off and let thine eye look like friend on Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailed lids seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou knowst 'tis common all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity."

"Ay, madam, it is ... common." He almost spat the word at her, but the queen took no notice.

"If it be why seems it so particular with thee?" She clung to Claudius, whose anger had shifted into a cold disdain for Hamlet.

"'Seems,' madam -- nay it is, I know not 'seems.' 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, cold mother, nor customary suits of solemn black, nor windy suspiration of forced breath, no, nor the fruitful river in the eye, nor the dejected haviour of the visage, together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, that can denote me truly. These indeed 'seem,' for they are actions that a man might play, but I have that within which passes show, these but the trappings and the suits of woe."

Claudius gently took the queen's hand from his arm and gave her a reassuring smile. Then he stepped forward, placing himself between mother and son. He assumed a "reasonable" manner, like someone trying to calm a temperamental child -- or a madman. "'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, to give these mourning duties to your father, but you must know your father lost a father, that father lost his, and the survivor bound in filial obligation for some term to do obsequious sorrow." His voice grew sterner: "But to persever in obstinate condolement is a course of impious stubbornness, 'tis unmanly grief, it shows a will most incorrect to heaven, a heart unfortified, or mind impatient, an understanding simple and unschooled."

Hamlet listened to all of this, well aware of what Claudius was trying to do: accuse him of being irrational, childish, effeminate, unwilling to accept the inevitable. And the words did sting -- at some level he felt himself to be all of those things.

Perhaps if the king had cut short his accusations, they might have had some effect on Hamlet. But he persisted, growing visibly more angry: "For what we know must be, and is as common" -- the king laid stress on the word Hamlet had earlier thrown back at the queen -- "as any the most vulgar thing to sense -- why should we in our peevish opposition take it to heart? Fie, 'tis a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead, a fault to nature, to reason most absurd, whose common theme is the death of fathers, and who still hath cried from the first corpse till he that died today 'This must be so.'"

He paused and took his wife's hand, and with that gesture Hamlet realized how she clung to her new husband, how much under his spell he was. She was gazing at Claudius as if hypnotized.

Claudius turned and spoke to him again, more kindly. "We pray you throw to earth this unprevailing woe, and think of us as of a father, for you are the most immediate to our throne, and with no less nobility of love than that which dearest father bears his son do I impart toward you."

If Claudius had extended a hand at this moment, he might have taken it. But neither of them made a move. Perhaps Claudius had expected him to acknowledge this declaration and to make some sign of acquiescence, because his kindly manner disappeared and he said, coldly, "For your intent in going back to school in Wittenberg it is most retrograde to our desire."

Hamlet was thunderstruck. He had been on the verge of requesting the return to his studies, taking advantage of the king's earlier agreement to Laertes's request.

Claudius continued, "And we beseech you bend to remain here in the cheer and comfort of our eye, our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son." Each word felt like a lash across his face.

And then his mother stepped forward and took his hand. "Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet. I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg."

"I shall in all my best obey you, madam," Hamlet replied, coldly and stiffly. This was the deepest betrayal of all.

Then Claudius moved in and took the queen's hand away from him. "Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply," he said with a forced joviality. "Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come -- this gentle and unforced accord of  Hamlet sits smiling to my heart, in grace whereof no jocund health that Denmark drinks today but the great cannon to the clouds shall tell and the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again, re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away."

And suddenly the great hall was empty.

He stood there alone, fighting the waves of anger and nausea that swept over him. Then he looked down at his hand, the one that his mother had recently grasped. There were red marks on the palm where his own fingernails had recently dug in. O that this too too sallied flesh would melt, thaw and resolve  itself into a dew, he thought. Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter. He had never thought of suicide before -- the insult of his uncle's oily arrogance, his deliberate thwarting of Hamlet's desire to escape from Denmark, and most of all his mother's infatuation with the king, her craven compliance with his wishes, these had brought it to mind. What would he do here other than wait attendance on Claudius as his "chiefest courtier"? O God, God, how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't, ah, fie, 'tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.

His mother -- his mother! Resentment swirled around her. She had been so young when he was born, barely fifteen, that sometimes it was as if they had grown up together, both of them idolizing his father. That it should come thus: but two months dead -- nay not so much, not two -- so excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother that he might not beteem the winds of heaven visit her face too roughly.

He struck his forehead with the heel of his hand, as if to drive the thoughts away. Heaven and earth, must I remember? Why, she should hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on. And yet within a month.... He shook his head. (Let me not think on't -- Frailty, thy name is Woman), a little month, or e'er those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father's  body, like Niobe, all tears. And tears came to his own eyes. Why, she -- O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer -- married with my uncle, my father's brother (but no more like my father than I to Hercules).  He tried to pull himself together, but another sob racked his body. Within a month, ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing of her galled eyes, she married. O most wicked speed! To post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets, it is not, nor it cannot come to good.

He saw three men enter the hall, and turned away from them, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and pulling himself together. But break, my heart, he told himself, for I must hold my tongue.

"Hail to your worship," he heard a voice behind him say. He turned, warily, thinking that Claudius might have sent some of his henchmen.

"I am glad to see you well --" he began, formally, but broke off in surprise. "Horatio, or I do forget myself!" he exclaimed.

"The same, my lord," Horatio said, bowing, "and your poor servant ever."

"Sir, my good friend," Hamlet said, embracing Horatio, "I'll change that name with you. And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?" Before Horatio could answer, however, he recognized another of the trio: "Marcellus!"

"My good lord," Marcellus said.

"I am very glad to see you," Hamlet said. He was unacquainted with Barnardo, but gave him a courteous "Good even, sir," which Barnardo acknowledged with a bow. Hamlet turned to Horatio again: "But what in faith make you from Wittenberg?"

"A truant disposition, good my lord," Horatio said, stalling until he could find the right moment to make his revelation.

A suspicion began to grow in Hamlet's mind. Horatio would not have taken an unsanctioned leave from the university without good cause. Or perhaps it was a bad one: Had Claudius somehow enlisted his friend to lure Hamlet to his side? "I would not hear your enemy say so," Hamlet said, referring to Horatio's truancy. "Nor shall you do my ear that violence to make it truster of your own report against yourself." He fixed Horatio with a sterner, more questioning gaze: "I know you are no truant; but what is your affair in Elsinore?" In the distance a cannon sounded, and Hamlet realized that Claudius was at his drinking games. "We'll teach you for to drink ere you depart," he said, gesturing toward the noise.

"My lord, I came to see your father's funeral," Horatio began, referring to his earlier visit as preparation for his account of the ghost's appearance.

Hamlet interrupted him. "I prithee do not mock me, fellow student, I think it was to see my mother's wedding." He hoped to shock Horatio into revealing his true allegiance.

Horatio, who had been briefed by Marcellus on Hamlet's anger at his mother's remarriage, said, "Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon."

Hamlet gave him a keen look. "Thrift," he said, "thrift, Horatio: The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables." He gave a grim smile at the bitter joke, but then bowed his head: "Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven or ever I had seen that day, Horatio." He lifted his head and gazed off into the distance. "My father, methinks I see my father," he said, sorrowfully.

Surprised, Horatio followed Hamlet's gaze and blurted out, "Where, my lord?" half expecting to see the ghost materialize in the hall.

Hamlet looked at him, puzzled. "In my mind's eye, Horatio," he said.

"I saw him once -- 'a was a goodly king," Horatio said.

"'A was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again."

"My lord, I think I saw him yesternight," Horatio said, urgency in his voice.

"Saw, who?"

"My lord, the King your father."

"The King my father?" Had Horatio gone mad?

Horatio pulled himself together. "Season your admiration for a while with an attent ear till I may deliver upon the witness of these gentlemen," he indicated his companions, "this marvel to you."

"For God's love let me hear!"

"Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch in the dead waste and middle of the night been thus encountered: A figure like your father armed at point, exactly cap-à-pie appears before them and with solemn march goes slow and stately by them; thrice he walked by their oppressed and fear-surprised eyes within his truncheon's length whilst they, distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear, stand dumb and speak not to him."

Hamlet stood there, holding his breath, as Horatio continued, "This to me in dreadful secrecy impart they did, and I with them the third night kept the watch where, as they had delivered, both in time, form of the thing, each word made true and good, the apparition comes. I knew your father," he assured Hamlet again, "these hands are not more like."

"But where was this?" Hamlet asked, turning to Marcellus for corroboration.

"My lord, upon the platform where we watch."

"Did you not speak to it?"

"My lord, I did," Horatio spoke up, "but answer made it none. Yet once methought it lifted up it head and did address itself to motion like as it would speak. But even then the morning cock crew loud and at the sound it shrunk in haste away and vanished from our sight."

This is impossible, Hamlet thought, trying to regain his bearings. "'Tis very strange," was the only thing he could say.

"As I do live, my honoured lord, 'tis true," Horatio insisted, "and we did think it writ down in our duty to let you know if it."

"Indeed, sirs, but this troubles me," he said to them. The ghost of my father, he thought. Or some sort of cruel trick? He had to pursue this. "Hold you the watch tonight?"

"We do, my lord," Horatio replied, indicating himself and Marcellus.

He had to think, to test their story. "Armed, say you?" he asked Marcellus, who replied, "Armed, my lord."

"From top to toe?"

All three men agreed, "My lord, from head to foot."

"Then saw you not his face." Surely it was some courtier playing a malicious joke.

"O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up," Horatio assured him.

"What looked he -- frowningly?"

"A countenance more in sorrow than anger," Horatio said, and Marcellus nodded in agreement.

"Pale, or red?"

"Nay, very pale."

"And fixed his eyes upon you?"

"Most constantly."

This can't have happened, but he was inclined against his better judgment to believe Horatio. If only it had appeared to him. "I would I had been there," he said.

"It would have much amazed you," Horatio said.

"Very like," Hamlet said, his tone slightly mocking the obviousness of Horatio's statement. "Stayed it long?"

Horatio thought for a moment and replied, "While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred."

"Longer," said Marcellus, and Barnardo echoed him, "Longer."

"Not when I saw't," Horatio protested.

"His beard was grizzled, no?" Hamlet asked.

"It was as I have seen it in his life," Horatio answered, "a sable silvered."

The reply seemed to persuade Hamlet to action. "I will watch tonight. Perchance 'twill walk again."

"I warrant it will," Horatio assured him.

"If it assume my noble father's person I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape and bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, if you have hitherto concealed this sight let it be tenable in your silence still and whatsomever else shall hap tonight give it an understanding but no tongue, I will requite your loves. So fare you well, upon the platform 'twixt eleven and twelve I'll visit you."

"Our duty to your honour," Marcellus said, and with a bow the three men took their leave.

My father's spirit -- in arms! he thought. All is not well; I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come. Till then sit still my soul -- foul deeds will rise though all the earth o'erwhelm them to men's eyes.

Murder Most Foul, Book I, Chapter 1

MARCELLUS

He could hear someone calling out "Who's there?" as a challenge to Francisco, whose watch was ending. Marcellus could see them dimly through the roiling fog.

"Nay, answer me," Francisco called back. "Stand and unfold yourself."

"Long live the King," the other replied.

"Barnardo?" Francisco asked, and Barnardo replied, "He."

"You come most carefully upon your hour," Francisco said. Marcellus sensed the reproof in his voice. No one wanted to stand watch on the Elsinore battlements any longer than necessary these nights.

For his part, Barnardo was unwilling to concede any lateness. "'Tis now struck twelve," he said. "Get thee to bed, Francisco."

"For this relief much thanks," Francisco said, as if apologizing for his brusqueness. "'Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart."

"Have you had quiet guard?"

"Not a mouse stirring," Francisco said, the relief apparent in his voice.

"Well, good night. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the rivals of my watch, bid them make haste."

"I think I hear them," Francisco said. "Stand ho, who is there?"

"Friends to this ground," Horatio called out the passwords Marcellus had given him, and Marcellus added, "And liegemen to the Dane."

As Marcellus and Horatio approached, two more guardsmen who had shared the watch with Francisco also appeared. "Give you goodnight," Francisco said to them.

"O farewell, honest soldiers," Marcellus said to them, then turned to Francisco and asked, "Who hath relieved you?"

"Barnardo hath my place," he replied, and with a "Give you goodnight," he swiftly disappeared into the fog.

"Holla, Barnardo!" Marcellus called out.

"Say, what, is Horatio there?" Barnardo asked.

"A piece of him," Horatio said, extending his hand.

Marcellus knew how Horatio must feel on this dark, cold height, with the sound of the waves far below adding to the loneliness and melancholy. For a moment he regretted summoning Horatio from his studies in Wittenberg. But it had been necessary: Horatio was Prince Hamlet's closest friend. He had told Horatio only that strange things were happening at Elsinore, and that he was worried about the prince. Horatio had come as soon as he could, arriving only that afternoon, and had followed Marcellus's instructions not to meet with anyone else. He had insisted that Horatio join him on the night watch, explaining that he and others had seen something that he wanted Horatio to witness. He gave only some more vague details: It was a figure, a shape of some sort, that appeared out of the fog. He wanted Horatio's experience to corroborate his own.

"Welcome Horatio, welcome good Marcellus," said Barnardo, and he embraced both of them.

"What, has this ... thing appeared again tonight?" Horatio said, a kind of nervous jocularity in his voice.

"I have seen nothing," Barnardo said, though on the other hand, he had just arrived.

"Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy," Marcellus said, a bit crossly, "and will not let belief take hold of him touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us." Barnardo nodded, reinforcing Marcellus's assertion. "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."

"Tush, tush, 'twill not appear," Horatio said, though there was a tremor in his voice that undermined his show of confidence.

Barnardo led Horatio aside. "Sit down awhile," he said, motioning Horatio to a low stone bench, "and let us once again assail your ears that are so fortified against our story what we have two nights seen."

"Well, sit we down," Horatio said, with a somewhat forced cheerfulness, "and let us hear Barnardo speak of this."

"Last night of all," Barnardo began, "when yond same star that's westward from the pole" -- he pointed at a clearing in the fog -- "had made his course t'illume that part of heaven where now it burns, Marcellus and myself, the bell then beating one --" He suddenly stopped, giving a gasp of surprise.

"Peace, break thee off," Marcellus said. "Look where it comes again." He felt a sudden chill that seemed to come from deep within himself, and he shuddered. Something was emerging from the fog, almost as if the fog had resolved itself into this figure of a man in armor.

"In the same figure like the King that's dead," Barnardo whispered in an awe-struck voice.

Perhaps Horatio knows some Latin incantation or some spell that would draw information from the apparition, Marcellus thought. "Thou art a scholar -- speak to it, Horatio," he urged.

"Looks 'a not like the King?" Barnardo insisted. "Mark it, Horatio."

"Most like," Horatio stammered. He held on to Barnardo for support. "It harrows me with fear and wonder."

The figure looked at them with an air of command.

"It would be spoke to," Barnardo said, and Marcellus urged, "Speak to it, Horatio."

"What art thou," Horatio began uncertainly, rising to his feet a bit unsteadily, "that usurp'st this time of night together with that fair and warlike form in which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes march?" And with more assurance in his voice, he said, loudly, "By heaven, I charge thee speak."

But that seemed to be the wrong tactic. "It is offended," Marcellus said. "See, it stalks away," Barnardo said as Horatio cried out, "Stay, speak, speak, I charge thee speak." But the figure dissolved into the night and fog.

"'Tis gone and will not answer," Marcellus said. He didn't know whether he was disappointed or relieved. At least Horatio had seen it and could now tell the prince that the ghost of his father had been appearing on the Elsinore battlements.

"How now, Horatio," said Barnard, a bit mockingly, "you tremble and look pale. Is this not something more than fantasy? What think you on't?"

Somewhat abashed, remembering his previous skepticism, Horatio admitted, "Before my God, I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes."

"Is it not like the King?" Marcellus urged.

"As thou art to thyself. Such was the very armour he had on when he the ambitious Norway combated. So frowned he once, when in an angry parle he smote the sledded Polacks on the ice." He shook his head. "'Tis strange."

"Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour, with martial stalk hath he gone by our watch," Marcellus said, feeling vindicated in his decision to summon Horatio's aid.

 "In what particular thought to work, I know not," Horatio said, "but in the gross and scope of mine opinion this bodes some strange eruption to our state."

Marcellus agreed. It must be some kind of portent -- but of what? Denmark had been busy with military preparations for some time now -- even the watch that he was standing now was staffed by new recruits, doubling its strength. "Good now, sit down," Marcellus urged Horatio, "and tell me he that knows why this same strict and most observant watch so nightly toils the subject of the land, and with such daily cost 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 nodded. "That can I," he said. "At least the whisper goes so. Our last King, whose image even but now appeared to us, was as you know by Fortinbras of Norway -- thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride -- dared to the combat, in which our valiant Hamlet (for so this side of our known world esteemed him) did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compact well ratified by law and heraldry did forfeit with his life all these his lands which he stood seized of to the conqueror; against the which a moiety competent was gaged by our King, which had return to the inheritance of Fortinbras had he been vanquisher, as by the same co-mart and carriage of the article design his fell to Hamlet."

This was somewhat more legalese and historical erudition than Marcellus had bargained for, but Horatio was, as he had said, a scholar.

Horatio continued, "Now, sir, young Fortinbras, of unimproved mettle, hot and full, hath in the skirts of Norway here and there sharked up a list of lawless resolutes for food and diet to some enterprise 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." Marcellus nodded in understanding, though he exchanged a glance of impatience with Barnardo. "And this, I take it," Horatio said, "is the main motive of our preparations, the source of this our watch, and the chief head of this post-haste and rummage in the land."

"I think it be no other but e'en so," Barnardo spoke up. "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."

"A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye," Horatio mused. Then a historical parallel occurred to him: "In the most high and palmy state of Rome a little before the mightiest Julius fell the graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets; at 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 feared events, as harbingers preceding still the fates and prologue to the omen coming on, have heaven and earth together demonstrated unto our climatures and countrymen."

Marcellus was pondering this historical parallel when he was seized again by the chill that had grasped him at the ghost's earlier appearance. And sure enough, it was emerging once again through the fog.

"But soft, behold, lo where it comes again," Horatio said. He stood and confronted the figure. "I'll cross it though it blast me. Stay, illusion," he commanded.

The apparition spread its arms as if to bar his way, but Horatio stood his ground. "Speak to me," he urged. "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." The ghost remained silent. "Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life extorted treasure in the womb of earth -- for which they say your spirits oft walk in death -- speak of it, stay and speak."

Somewhere within the castle a rooster had awakened and gave out a crow. The ghost began to retreat, to fade back into the mist.

"Stop it, Marcellus!" Horatio urged.

How do you stop a ghost? Marcellus wondered. "Shall I strike it with my partisan?"

"Do," Horatio said impatiently, "if it will not stand."

Suddenly the ghost seemed to be in several places at once. "'Tis here," Barnardo called out, and Horatio insisted, "'Tis here."

"'Tis gone," Marcellus said. And it had indeed vanished. "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."

"It was about to speak  when the cock crew," Barnardo observed.

"And then it started like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons," Horatio said, dejectedly. "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, th'extravagant and erring spirit hies to his confine -- and of the truth herein this present object made probation."

"It faded on the crowing of the cock," Marcellus said, surprised that the night had gone by so swiftly. Had time somehow sped up while the ghost was there? He recalled an old legend.  "Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated this bird of dawning singeth all night long, and then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, the nights are wholesome, then no planet strikes, nor fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, so hallowed and gracious is that time."

"So I have heard, and I do in part believe it," Horatio said. "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 tonight 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?"

"Let's do't, I pray," Marcellus replied. "And I this morning know where we shall find him most convenient."