Act I, Scene 4
Starting from Line 43 of Folger Library edition.
HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damnéd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts form hell
Be thy intents wicket 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”. O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearséd in death,
Have burst their cerements. Why the sepulcher,
Wherein we saw thee quietly interred,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again. What may this mean
That thou, dead corse, 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?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?
[Ghost beckons.]
HORATIO
It beckons you to go away with it
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.
MARCELLUS
Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removéd ground.
But do not go with it!
HORATIO
No, by no means.
HAMLET
It will not speak. Then I will follow it.
HORATIO
Do not, my lord.
HAMLET
Why, what should be the fear?
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?
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.
HORATIO
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? Think of 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.
HAMLET
It waves me still. [To the Ghost] Go on, I’ll follow thee.
[MARCELLUS and HORATIO hold back HAMLET.]
MARCELLUS
You shall not go, my lord.
HAMLET
Hold off your hands!
HORATIO
Be ruled! You shall not go!
HAMLET
My fate cries out!
And makes each petty arture in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen!
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away!! [To the Ghost] Go on, I’ll follow thee.
[GHOST and HAMLET exeunt.]
HORATIO
He waxes desperate with imagination!
MARCELLUS
Let’s follow. ‘Tis not fit thus to obey him.
HORATIO
Have after. To what issue will this come?
MARCELLUS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
HORATIO
Heaven will direct it.
MARCELLUS
Nay, let’s follow him.
[HORATIO and MARCELLUS exeunt.]
End of Act I, Scene 4