beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone. 690
Marcellus. Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground.
But do not go with it!
Horatio. No, by no means!
Hamlet. It will not speak. Then will I follow it. 695
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? 700
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 705
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 fadoms to the sea 710
And hears it roar beneath.
Hamlet. It waves me still.
Go on. I'll follow thee.
Marcellus. You shall not go, my lord.
Hamlet. Hold off your hands! 715
Horatio. Be rul'd. You shall not go.
Hamlet. My fate cries out
And makes each petty artire in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
[Ghost beckons.] 720
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me! —
I say, away! — Go on. I'll follow thee.
Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.
Horatio. He waxes desperate with imagination. 725
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. 730
Exeunt.
Act I, Scene 5.
Elsinore. The Castle. Another part of the fortifications.
Enter Ghost and Hamlet.
Hamlet. Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak! I'll go no further.
Father's Ghost. Mark me.
Hamlet. I will. 735
Father's Ghost. My hour is almost come,
When I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
Hamlet. Alas, poor ghost!
Father's Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing 740
To what I shall unfold.
Hamlet. Speak. I am bound to hear.
Father's Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.
Hamlet. What?
Father's Ghost. I am thy father's spirit, 745
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house, 750
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 755
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love-
Hamlet. O God! 760
Father's Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murther.
Hamlet. Murther?
Father's Ghost. Murther most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Hamlet. Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift 765
As
