REYNALDO, servant to Polonius.
Appears, Act II. sc. 1.
A Captain.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 4.

An Ambassador.
Appears, Act V. sc. 2.

Ghost of Hamlet's Father.

Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 4; sc. 5. Act III. sc. 4.
FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.

Appears, Act IV. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2.

GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, and mother of Hamlet.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Gravediggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE,-ELSINORE.

The earliest edition of 'Hamlet' known to exist is that of 1603. It bears the following title: The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke, by William Shakespeare. As it hath beene diverse times acted by his Highnesse servants in the Cittie of London: as also in the two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere. At London, printed for N. L. and John Trundell, 1603.' The only known copy of this edition is in the library of the Duke of Devonshire; and that copy is not quite perfect. It was reprinted in 1825.

The second edition of Hamlet' was printed in 1604, under the following title: The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke. By William Shakespeare. Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect coppie. Printed by J. R. for N. Landure, 1604, 4to.' This edition was reprinted in 1605, in 1609, in 1611, and there is also a quarto edition without a date.

In the folio of 1623 some passages which are found in the quarto of 1604 are omitted. In our text we have given these passages. In other respects our text, with one or two minute exceptions, is wholly founded upon the folio of 1623. From this circumstance our edition will be found considerably to differ from the text of Johnson and Steevens, of Reed, of Malone, and of all the current editions which are founded upon these.

In the reprint of the edition of 1603, it is stated to be "the only known copy of this tragedy, as originally written by Shakespeare, which he afterwards altered and enlarged." We believe that this description is correct; that this remarkable copy gives us the play as originally written by Shakspere. It may have been piratical, and we think it was so. The "Hamlet' of 1603 is a sketch of the perfect 'Hamlet,' and probably a corrupt copy of that sketch.

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

ACT I.

SCENE I.—Elsinore. A Platform before the Castle.

FRANCISCO on his post. Enter to him BERNARDO.

BER. Who's there?

FRAN. Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.
BER. Long live the king!

FRAN.

BER.

Bernardo?

He.

FRAN. You come most carefully upon your hour.

BER. "T is now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. FRAN. For this relief, much thanks: 't is bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

If

BER. Have you had quiet guard?

FRAN.

BER. Well, good night.

Not a mouse stirring.

you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

FRAN. I think I hear them.-Stand! who's there?

HOR. Friends to this ground.

BER.

Say.

What, is Horatio there?

HOR.

A piece of him.

BER. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.
MAR. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
BER. I have seen nothing.

MAR. Horatio says, 't is 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.
HOR. Tush! tush! 't will not appear.
BER.

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

HOR.

Sit down awhile;

Well, sit we down,`

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

BER. Last night of all,

When yon same star, that's westward from the pole
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,

The bell then beating one,

MAR. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

Enter GHOST.

BER. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

MAR. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.

BER. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

HOR. Most like:-it harrows me with fear, and wonder. BER. It would be spoke to.

MAR.

Question it, Horatio.

HOR. 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.
MAR. It is offended.

BER.

See! it stalks away.

HOR. Stay; speak: speak I charge thee, speak.

MAR. 'T is gone, and will not answer.

[Exit GHOST

BER. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale:

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you on 't?

HOR. Before my God, I might not this believe,

Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

MAR.

Is it not like the king?

HOR. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on,
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

"T is strange.

MAR. Thus, twice before, and just at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

HOR. 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.

MAR. 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 art 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?

HOR.

At least, the whisper goes so.

That can I;

Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law, and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd on, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same cov'nant
And carriage of the article design'd,

His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd 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 romage in the land.
BER. I think it be no other, but even so:
Well may it sort, that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch: so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.
HOR. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.—