BARNARDO. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. 

 HORATIO. And then it started, like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, Th’extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine. And of the truth herein This present object made probation. 

 MARCELLUS. It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm; So hallow’d and so gracious is the time. 

 HORATIO. So have I heard, and do in part believe it. But look, the morn in russet mantle clad, Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill. Break we our watch up, and by my advice, Let us impart what we have seen tonight Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life, This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, As needful in our loves, fitting our duty? 

 MARCELLUS. Let’s do’t, I pray, and I this morning know Where we shall find him most conveniently. 

 [Exeunt.] 

 SCENE II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.

 Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltemand, Cornelius, Lords and Attendant. 

King

Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltemand, Cornelius, Lords

Attendant

 KING. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe; Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature That we with wisest sorrow think on him, Together with remembrance of ourselves. Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, Th’imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy, With one auspicious and one dropping eye, With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in 

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