All Chapters of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

HAMLET, Prince of Denmark.CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle.The GHOST of the late king, Hamlet’s father.GERTRUDE, the Queen, Hamlet’s mother, now wife of Claudius.POLONIUS, Lord Chamberlain.LAERTES, Son to Polonius.OPHELIA, Daughter to Polonius.HORATIO, Friend to Hamlet.FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.VOLTEMAND, Courtier.CORNELIUS, Courtier.ROSENCRANTZ, Courtier.GUILDENSTERN, Courtier.MARCELLUS, Officer.BARNARDO, Officer.FRANCISCO, a SoldierOSRIC, Courtier.REYNALDO, Servant to Polonius.Players.A Gentleman, Courtier.A Priest.Two Clowns, Grave-diggers.A Captain.English Ambassadors.Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and Attendants.

Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltemand, Cornelius, Lords and Attendant.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 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, With one auspicious and one 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 barr’d Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone 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

Enter Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus.HAMLET. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.HORATIO. It is a nipping and an eager air.HAMLET. What hour now?HORATIO. I think it lacks of twelve.MARCELLUS. No, it is struck.HORATIO. Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.[A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within.]What does this mean, my lord?HAMLET. The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels; And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge.HORATIO. Is it a custom?HAMLET. Ay marry is’t; And to my mind, though I am native here, And to the manner born, it is a custom More honour’d in the breach than the observance. This heavy-headed revel east and west Makes us traduc’d and tax’d of other nations: They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase Soil our addition; and indeed it takes From our

Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.POLONIUS. Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.REYNALDO. I will, my lord.POLONIUS. You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo, Before you visit him, to make inquiry Of his behaviour.REYNALDO. My lord, I did intend it.POLONIUS. Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir, Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; And how, and who, what means, and where they keep, What company, at what expense; and finding By this encompassment and drift of question, That they do know my son, come you more nearer Than your particular demands will touch it. Take you as ’twere some distant knowledge of him, As thus, ‘I know his father and his friends, And in part him’—do you mark this, Reynaldo?REYNALDO. Ay, very well, my lord.POLONIUS. ‘And in part him, but,’ you may say, ‘not well; But if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild; Addicted so and so;’ and there put on him What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank As may dishonour him; take heed of th

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.KING. And can you by no drift of circumstance Get from him why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?ROSENCRANTZ. He does confess he feels himself distracted, But from what cause he will by no means speak.GUILDENSTERN. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty madness keeps aloof When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state.QUEEN. Did he receive you well?ROSENCRANTZ. Most like a gentleman.GUILDENSTERN. But with much forcing of his disposition.ROSENCRANTZ. Niggard of question, but of our demands, Most free in his reply.QUEEN. Did you assay him to any pastime?ROSENCRANTZ. Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o’er-raught on the way. Of these we told him, And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it. They are about the court, And, as I think, they have already order This night to play be