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Enter HAMLET,
HORATIO, and MARCELLUS
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HAMLET, HORATIO, and
MARCELLUS enter.
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HAMLET The air bites shrewdly. It is very cold.
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HAMLET The air is biting cold.
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HORATIO It is a nipping and an eager air.
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HORATIO Yes, it’s definitely nippy.
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HAMLET What hour now?
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HAMLET What time is it?
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HORATIO I think it lacks of twelve.
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HORATIO A little before twelve, I think.
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MARCELLUS
5No, it is struck.
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MARCELLUS No, it’s just after twelve; I heard the clock
strike.
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HORATIO Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
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HORATIO Really? I didn’t hear it. So it’s nearly the
time when the ghost likes to appear.
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A flourish of trumpets and two pieces of ordnance goes
off
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Trumpets play offstage and two cannons are
fired.
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What does this mean, my lord?
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What does that mean, sir?
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HAMLET The king doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
10Keeps 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.
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HAMLET The king is staying up all night drinking and dancing. As he
guzzles down his German wine, the musicians make a ruckus to
celebrate his draining another cup.
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HORATIO Is it a custom?
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HORATIO Is that a tradition?
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HAMLET
15Ay, marry, is ’t.
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honored in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
20Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations.
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HAMLET Yes, it is. But though I was born here and should consider that
tradition part of my own heritage, I think it would be better to
ignore it than practice it. Other countries criticize us for our
loud partying.
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