Don't get too excited yet, sir. Just listen carefully
while I tell you the amazing thing I saw, with these gentlemen as
witnesses.
HAMLET
For God's love, let me
hear.
HAMLET
For God's sake, let me hear it.
HORATIO
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encountered: a figure like your father,
200
Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie,
Appears before them and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walked
By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd eyes
Within his truncheon's length, whilst they, distilled
205
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where—as they had delivered, both in time,
210
Form of the thing, each word made true and good—
The apparition comes. I knew your father.
These hands are not more like.
HORATIO
After midnight, for two nights running, these two guards,
Marcellus and Barnardo, saw a figure that looked very much like your
father, in full armor from head to toe. It just appeared before them
and marched past them with slow dignity three times, a
staff's distance from their amazed eyes, while they
turned, quaking with fear and too shocked to speak. They told me all
about this, so on the third night I agreed to come stand guard with
them, to see for myself. It happened again, just as they had
described. I knew your father. This ghost looked as much like him as
my two hands are like each other.
