Hamlet - High School Version (Revised Edition)

Author: (English) Shakespeare / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-05-01
Features: Francisco stands guard on the platform. Bernardo faces him.
Bernardo: Who's there?
Francisco: No, answer me first; stay, tell me what you are.
Bernardo: Long live the King!
Francisco: Bernardo?
Bernardo: It is I.
Francisco: You come very timely.
Bernardo: It is past twelve; you go to sleep, Francisco.
Francisco: Thank you for taking my place; it is very cold, and I am very ill at ease.
Bernardo: Do you keep here, is all quiet?
Francisco: Not a mouse stirs.
Bernardo: Well, good night! If you see Horatio and Marcellus, my watch companions, call them immediately.
Francisco: I think I hear their voices.
Hey, who's there?
Horatio and Marcellus enter.
Horatio: It is us.
Marcellus: A servant of the King of Denmark.
Francisco: Good night!
Marcellus: God be with you! Farewell, honest soldier! Who replaces you?
Francisco: Bernardo takes my place.
Good night! (Exit.)
Marcellus: Ho! Bernardo!
Bernardo: Ho—ah! Is Horatio here too?
Horatio: He has such a one.
Bernardo: Welcome, Horatio! Welcome, good Marcellus!
Marcellus: What! Has it appeared again tonight?
Bernardo: I have not seen anything yet.
Marcellus: Horatio says it is but our fancy. I told him we have seen this terrible apparition twice, and he will not believe it; so I asked him to come with us tonight to keep watch, in case it appears again, we may prove we did not see wrongly, and he may speak with it.
Horatio: Ha, ha, it will not appear.
Bernardo: Sit down first; though you will not believe our story, we will repeat to you what we have seen these two nights.
Horatio: Well, let us sit down and hear what Bernardo has to say.
Bernardo: Last night, the star west of the North Star had moved to the place where it now shines, just as the clock struck one. Marcellus and I—
Marcellus: Hold! Do not speak; see, it comes again!
The Ghost appears.
Bernardo: It is like the late King.
Marcellus: You are a scholar, go speak with it, Horatio.
Bernardo: Does it not resemble the late King? Look, Horatio.
Horatio: It does; it fills me with terror and amazement.
Bernardo: It desires us to speak to it.
Marcellus: Ask it, Horatio.
Horatio: What spirit are you, that darest to assume the majesty of the late King of Denmark in his wars, and appear at this hour in the dead of night? In the name of Heaven, I command you to speak!
Marcellus: It is angry.
Bernardo: See, it goes on, regardless!
Horatio: Do not go! Speak, speak! I command you, say something! (Ghost exits.)
Marcellus: It is gone, unwilling to answer us.
Bernardo: What, Horatio! You tremble, and your face is as pale as snow. Is this not all fancy? What do you think?
Horatio: By Heaven's grace, if my own eyes had not shown me, I would never have believed such a thing.
Marcellus: Does it not resemble our King?
Horatio: As you to yourself. The armor it wears is that which it wore when it fought against the ambitious King of Norway; the expression on its face is like that with which it once broke the Poles on the ice after a quarrel in council. Strange! Strange!
Marcellus: The first two times, it appeared at this very hour, with the step of a soldier, before our eyes.
Horatio: I know not what to make of it; but I conjecture it portends some extraordinary change in our country.
Marcellus: Well, sit down. Whoever knows the reason, tell me why we are in such strict watch that the soldiers and people of the nation cannot rest at night; why we daily cast cannons and buy arms abroad; why we gather shipwrights and work on them even on Sundays; why we toil day and night—what is the meaning of all this? Who can tell me? P3-5