Act 1, Scene 4

The platform.

[Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.]
Hamlet
607 The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
Horatio
608 It is a nipping and an eager air.
Hamlet
609 What hour now?
Horatio
610 I think it lacks of twelve.
Marcellus
611 No, it is struck.
Horatio
612 Indeed? I heard it not: then draws near the season
613 Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
[A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within.]
Horatio
614 What does this mean, my lord?
Hamlet
615 The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
616 Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
617 And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
618 The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
619 The triumph of his pledge.
Horatio
620 Is it a custom?
Hamlet
621 Ay, marry, is't;
622 But to my mind,—though I am native here,
623 And to the manner born,—it is a custom
624 More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
625 This heavy-headed revel east and west
626 Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations:
627 They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
628 Soil our addition; and, indeed, it takes
629 From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
630 The pith and marrow of our attribute.
631 So oft it chances in particular men
632 That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,
633 As in their birth,—wherein they are not guilty,
634 Since nature cannot choose his origin,—
635 By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
636 Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
637 Or by some habit, that too much o'er-leavens
638 The form of plausive manners;—that these men,—
639 Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
640 Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,—
641 Their virtues else,—be they as pure as grace,
642 As infinite as man may undergo,—
643 Shall in the general censure take corruption
644 From that particular fault: the dram of eale
645 Doth all the noble substance often doubt
646 To his own scandal.
Horatio
647 Look, my lord, it comes!
[Enter Ghost.]
Hamlet
648 Angels and ministers of grace defend us!—
649 Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
650 Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
651 Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
652 Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
653 That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,
654 King, father, royal Dane; O, answer me!
655 Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
656 Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
657 Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
658 Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,
659 Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws
660 To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
661 That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
662 Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
663 Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
664 So horridly to shake our disposition
665 With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
666 Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
[Ghost beckons Hamlet.]
Horatio
667 It beckons you to go away with it,
668 As if it some impartment did desire
669 To you alone.
Marcellus
670 Look with what courteous action
671 It waves you to a more removed ground:
672 But do not go with it!
Horatio
673 No, by no means.
Hamlet
674 It will not speak; then will I follow it.
Horatio
675 Do not, my lord.
Hamlet
676 Why, what should be the fear?
677 I do not set my life at a pin's fee;
678 And for my soul, what can it do to that,
679 Being a thing immortal as itself?
680 It waves me forth again;—I'll follow it.
Horatio
681 What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
682 Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
683 That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
684 And there assume some other horrible form
685 Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
686 And draw you into madness? think of it:
687 The very place puts toys of desperation,
688 Without more motive, into every brain
689 That looks so many fadoms to the sea
690 And hears it roar beneath.
Hamlet
691 It waves me still.—
692 Go on; I'll follow thee.
Marcellus
693 You shall not go, my lord.
Hamlet
694 Hold off your hands.
Horatio
695 Be rul'd; you shall not go.
Hamlet
696 My fate cries out,
697 And makes each petty artery in this body
698 As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.—
[Ghost beckons.]
Hamlet
699 Still am I call'd;—unhand me, gentlemen;—
[Breaking free from them.]
Hamlet
700 By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!—
701 I say, away!—Go on; I'll follow thee.
[Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.]
Horatio
702 He waxes desperate with imagination.
Marcellus
703 Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Horatio
704 Have after.—To what issue will this come?
Marcellus
705 Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio
706 Heaven will direct it.
Marcellus
707 Nay, let's follow him.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 615archaic vocab
“takes his rouse”
A 'rouse' is a full draught of liquor drunk as a toast — essentially chugging a cup dry to honor someone. Claudius is staging an elaborate drinking ceremony, not merely having a nightcap.
TLN 616cultural context
“Keeps wassail”
'Wassail' (from the Old English/Norse toast 'be in good health') denotes a riotous drinking bout, particularly the ceremonial toasts and carousing at feasts. Hamlet is describing the Danish court's habitual drunken revels as a custom that shames the nation abroad.
TLN 617cultural context
“draughts of Rhenish”
Rhenish is white wine from the Rhine valley in Germany — the fashionable import drink at Elizabethan and Danish courts. The specific detail grounds the Danish drinking custom in real geography and anchors Hamlet's disgust in something concrete and recognizable to the play's original audience.
TLN 623archaic vocab
“to the manner born”
'Manner' here means custom or practice — not 'manor' (estate). The phrase means 'born into this custom, accustomed to it from birth.' Hamlet says he grew up with this drinking culture and knows it from the inside, which is precisely what makes his criticism of it sting.
TLN 624rhetorical device
“More honour'd in the breach than the observance”
A sententia (a pithy, aphoristic judgment), now a proverbial English phrase. The line means the custom would be more honorable to break than to keep — the opposite of what 'custom' usually implies. The paradox is the rhetorical engine of Hamlet's whole speech condemning Danish drinking.
TLN 626archaic vocab
“traduc'd and tax'd of other nations”
'Traduc'd' means slandered or defamed (from Latin traducere, to lead across in disgrace). 'Tax'd' means censured or accused. Together they mean other nations slander and censure Denmark — a pointed claim that the drinking culture is a matter of national reputation, not just personal taste.
TLN 632cultural context
“vicious mole of nature in them”
A 'mole' here is a blemish or spot — not the burrowing animal. The phrase means a 'vicious (harmful) natural blemish.' Hamlet is developing a theory that a single flaw in a person's character can corrupt all their other virtues, the way one drop of poison corrupts a whole vessel. The speech draws on Elizabethan humoral psychology, which held that personality was governed by bodily 'complexions' (fluid balances).
TLN 635cultural context
“o'ergrowth of some complexion”
In Elizabethan medicine, 'complexion' meant the balance of the four bodily humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) that determined personality and health — not just skin color. An 'o'ergrowth' (excess) of one humor — say, too much blood making a man reckless — was thought to override rational control. Hamlet is using medical language familiar to his original audience.
TLN 648biblical allusion
“Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”
Hamlet's first reaction to seeing the Ghost is a prayer invoking angelic protection. 'Ministers of grace' refers to angels as God's servants (ministers) — a phrase drawn from Psalm 104 and Hebrews 1:14, where angels are described as 'ministering spirits.' The invocation also signals Hamlet's immediate theological uncertainty: is this a good spirit or a demon?
TLN 652archaic vocab
“questionable shape”
'Questionable' does not mean 'doubtful' here; it means 'inviting or provoking questions' — a shape that can be questioned, i.e., spoken to and interrogated. Hamlet means the Ghost has appeared in a form he can address directly. The word captures both his willingness to engage and his uncertainty about the spirit's nature.
TLN 656archaic vocab
“canoniz'd bones”
'Canoniz'd' here means properly buried according to the rites of the church (canon law), not 'made a saint.' Hamlet is asking why bones that received proper Christian burial have broken out of the grave — implying a deep violation of sacred order. The word 'hearsed' (coffined) in the same line reinforces the image of formal funerary ceremony disrupted.
TLN 683archaic vocab
“beetles o'er his base into the sea”
'Beetles' here is a verb meaning to jut out or overhang — not the insect. A cliff that 'beetles o'er its base' projects dramatically outward over the ground or sea below it. The verb is cognate with 'beetle-browed' (with jutting brows). Horatio is warning Hamlet that the overhanging cliff itself could lure him to suicidal despair.
TLN 698classical allusion
“Nemean lion's nerve”
The Nemean lion was an enormous, invulnerable beast slain by Hercules as his first labor in Greek myth. Its hide was so tough that no weapon could pierce it, so Hercules strangled it with his bare hands. Hamlet is invoking Herculean strength: his fate is stiffening every sinew in his body to the hardness of the lion's fiber ('nerve' = sinew or tendon).
classical The Nemean lion (Hercules' first labour)
TLN 705rhetorical device
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
The line is often misattributed to Hamlet, but it is Marcellus — the common soldier — who speaks it. 'Rotten' activates the play's pervasive imagery of disease and corruption (poison, ulcers, decay) that began in Act 1.2 with Hamlet's 'unweeded garden.' The word 'state' carries its political sense (the nation/government), not just the condition. The line functions as a thesis statement for the whole play.