Ham. Do the boys carry it away? Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. Ham. It is not very strange for my uncle is king of Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. [Flourish of Trumpets within. Guil. There are the players. Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to ElsiYour hands. Come then: the apurte Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late (but, wherefore, I know not,) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a steril promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air,-look you, this brave o'erhanging firma-nore. ment, this majestical roof fretted with golden nance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: fire,why, it appears no other thing to me, than foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me, nor woman neither; though, by your smiling, you seem to say so. Ham. he that plays the king, shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me: the adventurous knight shall use his foil, and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh, whose lungs are tickled o'the sere ? and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't, -What players are they? Ros. Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city. Ham. How chances it, they travel? residence, both in reputation and profit, better both ways. Ros. I think their inhibition comes by means of the late innovation. let me comply with you in this garb; lest my extent to the players, which I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome : But my uncle-father, and aunt-mother, are deceived. Guil. In what, my dear lord? Ham. I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hand-saw. Enter POLONIUS. Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen! Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too; at each ear a hearer: that great baby, you see there, is not yet out of his swaddlingclouts. Ros. Happily, he's the second time come to them; for, they say, an old man is twice a child. Ham. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players: mark it.-You say right, Sir: o'Monday morning; 'twas then, indeed. Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you. Pol. Upon my honour, Ham. Then came each actor on his ass. Pol. The best actors in the world, either for their tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoralwas comical, historical-pastoral, [tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral,] scene indi vidable, or poem unlimited: the Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed? Ros. No, indeed they are not. Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty ? Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: But there is, Sir, an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion; and so beFattle the common stages, (so they call them) that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come thither. Ham. What, are they children? who maintains them? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players, (as it is most like, if their means are no better,) their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession ? Seneca cannot be two heavy, nor Plantus too light. For the the Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel,—what a treasure badst thou ! a Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord? Ham. Am I not i'the right, old Jephthah? Ham. Nay, that follows not. Pol. What follows then, my lord? Ham. Why, As by lot, God wot, and then, you know, It came to pass, As most like it was,-The first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for, look, my abridgment comes. Enter Four or Five PLAYERS. You are welcome, masters; welcome, all :-I am glad to see thee well-welcome, good friends.-O old friend! Why, thy face is valan Ros. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre them on to controversy: there was, forced since I saw thee last; Com'st thou to • Spare. Paid. 1 Become strollers. Le. The Globe, the sign of Shakspeare's Theatre. + Miniature. Compliment. § Writing. iChristmas carols. Fringed, beard me in Denmark?-What! my young lady and mistress! By-'r-lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. + Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.-Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, ny at any thing we see: We'll have a speech straight: Come, give us a taste of your quality: Come, a passionate speech. With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword Now falls on Priam !— [gods, Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you In general synod, take away her power; Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of 1 Play. But who, ah woe! had seen the mobled queen Ham. The mobled queen? Pol. That's good; nobled queen is good. 1 Play. What speech, my lord ? Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your -but it was never acted; or, if it was, not | beard.-Pr'ythee, say on:-He's for a jig, or above once: for the play, I remember, pleased a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:-say on: come not the million; 'twas caviare to the gene- to Hecuba. ral: but it was (as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters, cried in the top of mine,) an excellent play; well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallads in the lines, to make the matter savoury; nor no matter in the phrase, that | might indite the author of affection: ++ but called it, an honest method, as wholesome sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved 'twas Eneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam's slaughter: If it live in your memory, begin at this line; let me see, let me see ; as The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast-tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus. The rugged Pyrrhus,-he, whose sable arms, With heraldry more dismal; head to foot sons; Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets, With bisson + rheum; a clout upon that Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe, But if the gods themselves did see her then, The instant burst of clamour that she made, Pol. Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's eyes.-Prythee, no more. Ham. "Tis well; I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.-Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time: After your death And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, Old grandsire Priam seeks ;-So proceed you. Pol. 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken; with good accent, and good discretion. 1 Plag. Anon he finds him Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, wide; But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Which was declining on the milky head But, as we often see, against some storm, The bold winds speechless, and the orb below pause, ill report while you live. Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their desert. Ham. Odd's bodikin, man, much better: Use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. Oh! what a rogue and peasant slave am I! A roused vengeance sets him new-a-work ; Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, For Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, [do, And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward ? As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Why, I should take it: for it cannot be, Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless, Fie upon't! foh! About my brains! Humph! That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, ACT III. SCENE 1.-A Room in the Castle. [Erit. Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. King. And can you, by no drift of conference, Get from him, why he puts on this confusion; Ros. He does confess, be feels himself distracted; But from what cause he will by no means speak. Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded; But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof. When we would bring him on to some confes Of his true state. Queen. Did he receive you well? Ros. Most like a gentleman. • Destruction. 1 Search bis wounds. [sion + Unantural. Shrink or start. To hear him so inclin'd. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Her father, and myself (lawful espials, t) Queen. I shall obey you: And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish Will bring him to his wonted way again, Oph. Madam, I wish it may. (Exit QUEEN. Pol. Ophelia, walk you here:-Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves :-Read on this book : [TO OPHELIa. That show of such an exercise may colour And pious action, we do sugar o'er King. Oh! 'tis too true: how smart For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, To groan and sweat under a weary life, Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; Ham. No, not 1; I never gave you aught. of Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did; And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd [lost, As made the things more rich their perfume Take these again for to the noble mind, Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind. There, my lord. Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest? 0,4. My lord f Hm. Are you fair? What means your lordship? H. That if you be honest, and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty. Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? Hz. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will er transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate brants lato his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did ve you once. Op. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe Ham. You should not have believed me; for Vitze cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shail relish of it: I loved you not. OA. 1 was the more deceived. Him. Get thee to a nunnery; Why wouldst thea be a breeder of sinners? I am myself in&ferrat honest; but yet I could accuse me of or things, that it were better my mother had 14 bore me: I am very prond, revengeful, tinas; with more offences at my beck, ** Bas I have thoughts to put them in, imagination give them shape, or time to act them in: What should such fellows as I do crawling be n earth and heaven! We are arrant knaves, *), bebeve none of us: Go thy ways to a nunBr. Where's your father? Qj4. At home, my lord. liam. Let the doors be shut upon him; that be may play the fool no where but in's own e. Farewell. 0,4. O help him, you sweet heavens ! Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this page for thy dowry; Be thou as chaste as ice, a pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nannery; farewell: Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough, what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too Farewell. Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him! Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance: Go to: Pll no more of't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Erit HAMLET. Oph. Oh! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! [sword: The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observ'd of all observers ! quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, Blasted with ecstacy: +0 woe is me! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see, Re-enter KING and POLONIUS, King. Love his affections do not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's something in bis soul, O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; Thus set it down; He shall with speed to For the demand of our neglected tribute: This something-settled matter in his heart; Enter HAMLET, and certain PLAYERS. Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue : but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, Nor do not saw the air too much with your I bad as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustions The model by whom all endeavoured to form them. Alienation of mind. 1 Reprimand him with freedom. selves. man [bim periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger to very rags, to split the ears of the ground-To sound what stop she please: Give me that lings: who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show, and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod : Pray you, avoid it. 1 Play. I warrant your honour. Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so over. done is from the purpose of playing, whose end both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the miror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now, this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players, that I have seen play,—and heard others praise, and that highly-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of That is not passion's slave, and I will wear [ing, If he steal aught, the whilst this play is playAnd scape detecting, I will pay the theft. Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be idle: Get you a place. POLONIUS, Danish March.-A Flourish.-Enter KING, QUEEN, so strutted Christian, Pagan, nor man, have and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably, 1 Play. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us. Ham. O reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns, speak no more than is set down for them for there be of them, that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the meantime, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous; and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. [Exeunt PLAYERS. Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUIL OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others. King. How fares our cousin Hamlet ? Ham. Excelleut, i'faith; of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: You cannot feed capons so. King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet: these words are not mine. Ham. No, nor mine now. My lord, you played once in the university, you say? [To POLONIUS. Pol. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor. Ham. And what did you enact ? Pol. I did enact Julius Cesar; I was killed i'the Capitol; Brutus killed me. Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there.-Be the players ready? Ros. Ay, my lord, they stay upon your pa tience. Queen, Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. Oph. I think nothing, my lord. Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs. Oph. What is, my lord? Ham. Nothing. Oph. You are merry, my lord. Oph. Ay, my lord. Ham. O your only jig-maker. What should a man do, but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours. Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. Ham. So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year; But, by 'rlady, he must build churches then or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby. horse; whose epitaph is, For, 0, for, 0, the hobby-horse is forgot. |