Hamlet: Act 1, Scene 2 Translation

Flourish. Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the
Queen, the Council, as Polonius, and his son Laertes,
Hamlet, with others, among them Voltemand and
Cornelius.

KING
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 5
That we with wisest sorrow think on him
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we (as ’twere with a defeated joy, 10
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. Nor have we herein barred
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone 15
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, 20
Colleaguèd 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 bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother—so much for him. 25
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 30
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, Voltemand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway, 35
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the King more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.

Giving them a paper.

Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.

CORNELIUS/VOLTEMAND
In that and all things will we show our duty. 40

KING
We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.

Voltemand and Cornelius exit.

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, 45
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. 50
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

LAERTES My dread lord,
Your leave and favor to return to France,
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
To show my duty in your coronation, 55
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.

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

POLONIUS
Hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave 60
By laborsome petition, and at last
Upon his will I sealed my hard consent.
I do beseech you give him leave to go.

KING
Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will.— 65
But now, my cousin Hamlet and my son—

HAMLET, aside
A little more than kin and less than kind.

KING
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET
Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun.

QUEEN
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, 70
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever 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. 75

HAMLET
Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN 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, 80
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, 85
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.

KING
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, 90
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 95
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, 100
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, 105
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 corse till he that died today,
“This must be so.” We pray you, throw to earth 110
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 115
Do I impart toward 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, 120
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN
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
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply. 125
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, 130
And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.

Flourish. All but Hamlet exit.

HAMLET
O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed 135
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! 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 140
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 145
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!), 150
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 my 155
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 in her gallèd eyes, 160
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. 165

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?— 170
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? 175

HORATIO
A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAMLET
I would not hear your enemy say so,
Nor shall you do my ear that violence
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant. 180
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. 185

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
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio! 190
My father—methinks I see my father.

HORATIO
Where, my lord?

HAMLET In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

HORATIO
I saw him once. He was a goodly king.

HAMLET
He was a man. Take him for all in all, 195
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? 200

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! 205

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 point exactly, cap-à-pie, 210
Appears before them and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked
By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes
Within his truncheon’s length, whilst they, distilled
Almost to jelly with the act of fear, 215
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), 220
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 watch.

HAMLET
Did you not speak to it? 225

HORATIO My lord, I did,
But answer made it none. Yet once methought
It lifted up its head and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
But even then the morning cock crew loud, 230
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away
And vanished from our sight.

HAMLET ’Tis very strange.

HORATIO
As I do live, my honored lord, ’tis true.
And we did think it writ down in our duty 235
To let you know of it.

HAMLET Indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch tonight?

ALL We do, my lord.

HAMLET
Armed, say you? 240

ALL Armed, my lord.

HAMLET From top to toe?

ALL My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET Then saw you not his face?

HORATIO
O, yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up. 245

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? 250

HORATIO
Most constantly.

HAMLET I would I had been there.

HORATIO It would have much amazed you.

HAMLET Very like. Stayed it long?

HORATIO
While one with moderate haste might tell a 255
hundred.

BARNARDO/MARCELLUS Longer, longer.

HORATIO
Not when I saw ’t.

HAMLET His beard was grizzled, no?

HORATIO
It was as I have seen it in his life, 260
A sable silvered.

HAMLET I will watch tonight.
Perchance ’twill walk again.

HORATIO I warrant it will.

HAMLET
If it assume my noble father’s person, 265
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, 270
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.

ALL Our duty to your Honor. 275

HAMLET
Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.

All but Hamlet exit.

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 280
eyes.

He exits.