Hamlet

HORATIO Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season

Wherein the spirit held his wont7 to walk.

A flourish of trumpets and drums, perhaps also cannon

What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET The king doth wake tonight and takes his rouse9,

Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels10:

And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish11 down,

The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out12

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 manner17 born, it is a custom

More honoured in the breach than the observance18.

Enter Ghost

HORATIO Look, my lord, it comes!

HAMLET Angels and ministers of grace20 defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin21 damned,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape24

That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane. O, O, answer me!

Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell

Why thy canonized bones, hearsed28 in death,

Have burst their cerements, why the sepulchre29

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurned30,

Hath oped his ponderous31 and marble jaws

To cast32 thee up again. What may this mean,

That thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel33