rightly

The Duke hath put on a religious life

And thrown into neglect the pompous court.

JAQUES DE BOIS He hath.

JAQUES

To him will I. Out of these convertites

There is much matter to be heard and learned.

(To the Duke)

You to your former honour I bequeath;

Your patience and your virtue well deserves it.

(To Orlando)

You to a love that your true faith doth merit;

(To Oliver)

You to your land, and love, and great allies;

(To Silvius)

You to a long and well-deserved bed;

(To Touchstone)

And you to wrangling, for thy loving voyage

Is but for two months victualled.—So, to your

pleasures;

I am for other than for dancing measures.

DUKE SENIOR Stay, Jaques, stay.

JAQUES

To see no pastime, I. What you would have

I’ll stay to know at your abandoned cave. Exit

DUKE SENIOR

Proceed, proceed. We’ll so begin these rites

As we do trust they’ll end, in true delights.

⌈They dance; then⌉ exeunt all but Rosalind

Epilogue

ROSALIND (to the audience) It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes, and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnished like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me. My way is to conjure you; and I’ll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you. And I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women—as I perceive by your simpering none of you hates them—that between you and the women the play may please. If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not. And I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths will for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

Exit

HAMLET

SEVERAL references from 1589 onwards witness the existence of a play about Hamlet, but Francis Meres did not attribute a play with this title to Shakespeare in 1598. The first clear reference to Shakespeare’s play is its entry in the Stationers’ Register on 26 July 1602 as The Revenge of Hamlet Prince [of] Denmark, when it was said to have been ‘lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain his servants’. It survives in three versions; their relationship is a matter of dispute on which views about when Shakespeare wrote his play, and in what form, depend. In 1603 appeared an inferior text apparently assembled from actors’ memories; it has only about 2,200 lines. In the following year, as if to put the record straight, James Roberts (to whom the play had been entered in 1602) published it as ‘newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy’. At about 3,800 lines, this is the longest version. The 1623 Folio offers a still different text, some 230 lines shorter than the 1604 version, differing verbally from that at many points, and including about 70 additional lines. It is our belief that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet about 1600, and revised it later; that the 1604 edition was printed from his original papers; that the Folio represents the revised version; and that the 1603 edition represents a very imperfect report of an abridged version of the revision. So our text is based on the Folio; passages present in the 1604 quarto but absent from the Folio are printed as Additional Passages because we believe that, however fine they may be in themselves, Shakespeare decided that the play as a whole would be better without them.

The plot of Hamlet originates in a Scandinavian folk-tale told in the twelfth-century Danish History written in Latin by the Danish Saxo Grammaticus. François de Belleforest retold it in the fifth volume (1570) of his Histoires Tragiques, not translated into English until 1608. Saxo, through Belleforest, provided the basic story of a Prince of Denmark committed to revenge his father’s murder by his own brother (Claudius) who has married the dead man’s widow (Gertrude). As in Shakespeare, Hamlet pretends to be mad, kills his uncle’s counsellor (Polonius) while he is eavesdropping, rebukes his mother, is sent to England under the escort of two retainers (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) who bear orders that he be put to death on arrival, finds the letter containing the orders and alters it so that it is the retainers who are executed, returns to Denmark, and kills the King.

Belleforest’s story differs at some points from Shakespeare’s, and Shakespeare elaborates it, adding, for example, the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, the coming of the actors to Elsinore, the performance of the play through which Hamlet tests his uncle’s guilt, Ophelia’s madness and death, Laertes’ plot to revenge his father’s death, the grave-digger, Ophelia’s funeral, and the characters of Osric and Fortinbras. How much he owed to the lost Hamlet play we cannot tell; what is certain is that Shakespeare used his mastery of a wide range of diverse styles in both verse and prose, and his genius for dramatic effect, to create from these and other sources the most complex, varied, and exciting drama that had ever been seen on the English stage. Its popularity was instant and enduring. The play has had a profound influence on Western culture, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet has himself entered the world of myth.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

1.1 Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels, at several doors

BARNARDO Who’s there?

FRANCISCO

Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDO

Long live the King!

FRANCISCO

Barnardo?

BARNARDO

He.

FRANCISCO

You come most carefully upon your hour.

BARNARDO

’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO

For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

BARNARDO

Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO

Not a mouse stirring.

BARNARDO Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus

FRANCISCO

I think I hear them.—Stand! Who’s there?

HORATIO

Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS