Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

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HAMLET

SEVERAL references from 1589 onwards witness the existence of a play about Hamlet, but Francis Meres did not attribute a play with this title to Shakespeare in 1598. The first clear reference to Shakespeare’s play is its entry in the Stationers’ Register on 26 July 1602 as The Revenge of Hamlet Prince [of] Denmark, when it was said to have been ‘lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain his servants’. It survives in three versions; their relationship is a matter of dispute on which views about when Shakespeare wrote his play, and in what form, depend. In 1603 appeared an inferior text apparently assembled from actors’ memories; it has only about 2,200 lines. In the following year, as if to put the record straight, James Roberts (to whom the play had been entered in 1602) published it as ‘newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy’. At about 3,800 lines, this is the longest version. The 1623 Folio offers a still different text, some 230 lines shorter than the 1604 version, differing verbally from that at many points, and including about 70 additional lines. It is our belief that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet about 1600, and revised it later; that the 1604 edition was printed from his original papers; that the Folio represents the revised version; and that the 1603 edition represents a very imperfect report of an abridged version of the revision. So our text is based on the Folio; passages present in the 1604 quarto but absent from the Folio are printed as Additional Passages because we believe that, however fine they may be in themselves, Shakespeare decided that the play as a whole would be better without them.

The plot of Hamlet originates in a Scandinavian folk-tale told in the twelfth-century Danish History written in Latin by the Danish Saxo Grammaticus. François de Belleforest retold it in the fifth volume (1570) of his Histoires Tragiques, not translated into English until 1608. Saxo, through Belleforest, provided the basic story of a Prince of Denmark committed to revenge his father’s murder by his own brother (Claudius) who has married the dead man’s widow (Gertrude). As in Shakespeare, Hamlet pretends to be mad, kills his uncle’s counsellor (Polonius) while he is eavesdropping, rebukes his mother, is sent to England under the escort of two retainers (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) who bear orders that he be put to death on arrival, finds the letter containing the orders and alters it so that it is the retainers who are executed, returns to Denmark, and kills the King.

Belleforest’s story differs at some points from Shakespeare’s, and Shakespeare elaborates it, adding, for example, the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, the coming of the actors to Elsinore, the performance of the play through which Hamlet tests his uncle’s guilt, Ophelia’s madness and death, Laertes’ plot to revenge his father’s death, the grave-digger, Ophelia’s funeral, and the characters of Osric and Fortinbras. How much he owed to the lost Hamlet play we cannot tell; what is certain is that Shakespeare used his mastery of a wide range of diverse styles in both verse and prose, and his genius for dramatic effect, to create from these and other sources the most complex, varied, and exciting drama that had ever been seen on the English stage. Its popularity was instant and enduring. The play has had a profound influence on Western culture, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet has himself entered the world of myth.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

1.1 Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels, at several doors

BARNARDO Who’s there?

FRANCISCO

Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDO

Long live the King!

FRANCISCO

Barnardo?

BARNARDO

He.

FRANCISCO

You come most carefully upon your hour.

BARNARDO

’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO

For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

BARNARDO

Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO

Not a mouse stirring.

BARNARDO Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus

FRANCISCO

I think I hear them.—Stand! Who’s there?

HORATIO

Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS

And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO

Give you good night.

MARCELLUS

O farewell, honest soldier. Who hath relieved you?

FRANCISCO

Barnardo has my place. Give you good night. Exit

MARCELLUS Holla, Barnardo!

BARNARDO Say—what, is Horatio there?

HORATIO A piece of him.

BARNARDO

Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

MARCELLUS

What, has this thing appeared again tonight?

BARNARDO I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS

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.

HORATIO

Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.

BARNARDO Sit down a while,

And let us once again assail your ears,

That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

HORATIO Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

BARNARDO Last night of all,

When yon 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–

Enter the Ghost in complete armour, holding a truncheon, with his beaver up

MARCELLUS

Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again.

BARNARDO

In the same figure like the King that’s dead.

MARCELLUS (to Horatio)

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 (to the Ghost)

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 (to the Ghost)

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 frowned he once when in an angry parley

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

’Tis strange.

MARCELLUS

Thus twice before, and just 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 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 those his lands

Which he stood seized on to the conqueror;

Against the which a moiety competent

Was gaged by our King, which had returned

To the inheritance of Fortinbras

Had he been vanquisher, as by the same cov‘nant

And carriage of the article designed

His fell to Hamlet. Now sir, young Fortinbras,

Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there

Sharked up a list of landless resolutes

For food and diet to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in’t, which is no other—

And it doth well appear unto our state—

But to recover of us by strong hand

And terms compulsative 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 rummage in the land.

Enter the Ghost, as before

But soft, behold—lo where it comes again!

I’ll cross it though it blast me.—Stay, illusion.

The Ghost spreads his arms

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—

The cock crows

Speak of it, stay and speak.—Stop it, Marcellus.

MARCELLUS

Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

HORATIO

Do, if it will not stand.

BARNARDO

’Tis here.

HORATIO

’Tis here.

Exit Ghost

MARCELLUS ’Tis gone.

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.

BARNARDO

It was about to speak when the cock crew.

HORATIO

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,

Th’extravagant and erring spirit hies

To his confine; and of the truth herein

This present object made probation.

MARCELLUS

It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes

Wherein our saviour’s birth is celebrated

The bird of dawning singeth all night long;

And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad,

The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

HORATIO

So have I heard, and do in part believe it.

But look, the morn in russet mantle clad

Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern 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?

MARCELLUS

Let’s do’t, I pray; and I this morning know

Where we shall find him most conveniently. Exeunt

1.2 Flourish. Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, members of the Council, such as Polonius, his son Laertes and daughter Ophelia, Prince Hamlet dressed in black, with others

KING CLAUDIUS

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death

The memory be green, 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.

Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,

Th‘imperial jointress of this warlike state,

Have we as ’twere with a defeated joy,

With one auspicious and one dropping eye,

With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,

Taken to wife. Nor have we herein barred

Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone

With this affair along. For all, our thanks.

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 and out of frame,

Co-leaguèd with the 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 bonds of law,

To our most valiant brother. So much for him.

Enter Valtemand and Cornelius

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 bed-rid, 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; and we here dispatch

You, good Cornelius, and you, Valtemand,

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 dilated articles allow.

Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.

VALTEMAND

In that and all things will we show our duty.

KING CLAUDIUS

We doubt it nothing, heartily farewell.

Exeunt Valtemand and Cornelius

And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?

You told us of some suit. What is’t, Laertes?

You cannot speak of reason to the Dane

And lose your voice. 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?

LAERTES Dread my lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France,

From whence though 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 towards France

And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

KING CLAUDIUS

Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

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.

KING CLAUDIUS

Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,

And thy best graces spend it at thy will.

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—

HAMLET

A little more than kin and less than kind.

KING CLAUDIUS

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET

Not so, my lord, I am too much i’th’ sun.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly colour off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not for ever with thy vailèd lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust.

Thou know‘st ’tis common—all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET

Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET

Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems’.

‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good-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, shows 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 passeth show—

These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING CLAUDIUS

‘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, lost his; and the survivor bound

In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious sorrow. 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, a mind impatient,

An understanding simple and unschooled;

For what we know must be, and is as common

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 death of fathers, and who still hath cried

From the first corpse till he that died today,

’This must be so’. We pray you throw to earth

This unprevailing woe, and think of us

As of a father; for let the world take note

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 towards you. For your intent

In going back to school in Wittenberg,

It is most retrograde to our desire,

And we beseech you bend you to remain

Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.

I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET

I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

KING CLAUDIUS

Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.

Be as ourself in Denmark. (To Gertrude) 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 heavens shall bruit again,

Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come, away.

⌈Flourish.^⌉ pmlmmmExeunt all but Hamlet

HAMLET

O that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God, O God,

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on’t, ah fie, fie! ’Tis an unweeded garden

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this—

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! Heaven and earth,

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on, and yet within a month—

Let me not think on’t; frailty, thy name is woman—

A little month, or ere those shoes were old

With which she followed my poor father’s body,

Like Niobe, all tears, why she, even she—

O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason

Would have mourned longer!—married with mine

uncle,

My father’s brother, but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules; within a month,

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing of her gallèd eyes,

She married. O most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Barnardo

HORATIO

Hail to your lordship.

HAMLET

I am glad to see you well.

Horatio—or I do forget myself.

HORATIO

The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

HAMLET

Sir, my good friend; I’ll change that name with you.

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?—

Marcellus.

MARCELLUS My good lord.

HAMLET

I am very glad to see you. (To Barnardo) Good even,

sir.—

But what in faith make you from Wittenberg?

HORATIO

A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAMLET

I would not have your enemy say so,

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence

To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself. I know you are no truant.

But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

HORATIO

My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

HAMLET

I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student;

I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

HORATIO

Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

HAMLET

Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

Ere I had ever seen that day, Horatio.

My father—methinks I see my father.

HORATIO

O where, my lord?

HAMLET

In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

HORATIO

I saw him once. A was a goodly king.

HAMLET

A was a man. Take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO

My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET Saw? Who?

HORATIO My lord, the King your father.

HAMLET The King my father?

HORATIO

Season your admiration for a while

With an attent ear till I may deliver,

Upon the witness of these gentlemen,

This marvel to you.

HAMLET

For God’s love let me hear!

HORATIO

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 all points 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. 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;

These hands are not more like.

HAMLET

But where was this?

MARCELLUS

My lord, upon the platform where we watched.

HAMLET

Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO

My lord, I did,

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.

HAMLET

’Tis very strange.

HORATIO

As I do live, my honoured lord, ’tis true,

And we did think it writ down in our duty

To let you know of it.

HAMLET

Indeed, indeed, sirs; but this troubles me.—

Hold you the watch tonight?

BARNARDO and MARCELLUS

We do, my lord.

HAMLET

Armed, say you?

BARNARDO and MARCELLUS Armed, my lord.

HAMLET

From top to toe?

BARNARDO and MARCELLUS

My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET

Then saw you not his face.

HORATIO

O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up.

HAMLET

What looked he? Frowningly?

HORATIO A countenance more

In sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET

Pale or red?

HORATIO

Nay, very pale.

HAMLET

And fixed his eyes upon you?

HORATIO Most constantly.

HAMLET I would I had been there.

HORATIO It would have much amazed you.

HAMLET

Very like, very like. Stayed it long?

HORATIO

While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

BARNARDO and MARCELLUS Longer, longer.

HORATIO Not when I saw’t.

HAMLET His beard was grizzly, no?

HORATIO

It was as I have seen it in his life,

A sable silvered.

HAMLET

I’ll watch tonight. Perchance

‘Twill walk again.

HORATIO

I warrant you it will.

HAMLET

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 treble in your silence still,

And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,

Give it an understanding but no tongue.

I will requite your loves. So fare ye well.

Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve

I’ll visit you.

ALL THREE

Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET

Your love, as mine to you. Farewell.

Exeunt all but Hamlet

My father’s spirit in arms! 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.

Exit