mouths at him while my father lived, give twen-jan excellent play: well digested in the scenes, ty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats a piece, for his set down with as much modesty as cunning. cenes picture in little. 'Sblood, there is something in remember, one said, there were no sallets in the this more than natural, if philosophy could find lines, to make the matter savoury: nor no matit out. [Flourish of Trumpets within.ter in the phrase, that might indite the author of Guil. There are the players. affection; but called it, an honest method, as Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsi-wholesome as sweet, and by very much more nore. Your hands. Come then the appurte-handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly nance of welcome is fashion and ceremony loved: 'twas Eneas' tale to Dido; and therelet me comply with you in this garb; lest my about of it especially, where he speaks of Priam's extent to the players, which, I tell you, must slaughter: If it live in your memory, begin at show fairly outward, should more appear like this line; let me see, let me see ;entertainment than yours. You are welcome: The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,→ but my uncle-father, and aunt-mother, are de-tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus. Guil. In what, my dear lord?

ceived.

Ham. I am but mad north-north west; when the wind is southerly, 1 know a hawk from a hand-saw.

Enter Polonius.

Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen!
Ham Hark you, Guildenstern ;-and you
100;-at each ear a hearer: that great baby, you
see there, is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts.
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.
Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you;
When Roscius was an actor in Rome,

Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord.
Ham. Buz, buz!

Pol. Upon my honour,

Ham. Then came each actor on his ass,
Pol. The best actors in the world, either for
tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-
comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene indi-
vidable, or poem unlimited:-Seneca cannot be
too heavy, nor Plautus too light for the law of
writ, and the liberty-these are the only men.
Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel,what a
treasure hadst thou!

Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord?
Ham. Why-One fair daughter, and no more,
The which he loved passing well.
Pol. Still on my daughter.
[Aside.
Ham Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?
Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have
a daughter that I love passing well.
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.

The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble,
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
Hath now his dread and black complexion
smear'd

With heraldy more dismal: head to foot
Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters,sons;
Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
To their lord's murder: Roasted in wrath, and
And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,
fire,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks ;-So proceed you.
good accent, and good discretion.
Pol. 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken with

1 Play. Anon he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command: Unequai match'd,
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage, strikes wide;
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless

Ilium,

Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his

sword

Which was declining on the milky head

Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick :
And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood;
Did nothing.

་

But as we often see, against some storm,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
As hush as death: anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region: So, after Pyrrhus' pause,
A roused vengeance sets him new a work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
with less remorse than Pyrrhus bleeding sword
On Mars's armour, forg'd for proof eterne
Now falls on Priam.-

heaven,

As low as to the fiends!

Pol. This is too long,

Enter Four or Five Players. Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:-1 In general synod, take away her power; am glad to see thee well:-welcome, good Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, friends.-O, old friend! Why, thy face is va-And bowl the round nave down the hill of lanced since I saw thee last; Com'st thou to 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, fly at any thing we see: We'll have a speech straight: Come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.

1 Play. What speech, my lord? Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once,but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general: but it was (as I received it, and others, whose judgments, in such matters, cried in the top of mine,)

Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard Pr'ythee, say on:-He's for a jig, or a tale bawdry, or he sleeps:-say on: come to Hecuba 1 Play. But who, ah wo! had seen the mobled

queen

Ham. The mobled queen?

Pol. That's good: mobled queen is good.
1 Play. Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning
the flames

With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head,
Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom
steep'd,

'Gainst fortune's state would treason have Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless vil

pronounc'd:

But if the gods themselves did see her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs:
The instant burst of clamour that she made
(Unless things mortal move them not at all,)
Would have made milch the burning eye of
heaven,

And passion in the gods.

more.

Pol. Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's eyes.-'Pr'ythee, no 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 us'd; for they are the abstract, and brief chronicles, of the time: After your death you were better have a bad epitaph, than their 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. Pol. Come, sirs.

[Exit Polonius, with some of the Players. Ham Follow him, friends; we'll hear a play to-morrow. Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the murder of Gonzago?

1 Play Ay, my lord.

Ham. We'll have it to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down, and insert in't? could you not?

1 Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Very well-Follow that lord; and look you mock him not. Exit Player.] My good friends. [To Ros. and Guil. I'll leave you till night you are welcome to Elsinore.

Ros. Good my lord!

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' you :-Now I am alone,

O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That from her working, all his visage wann'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forins to his conceit ? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion,
That I have? He would drown the stage with

tears,

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Yet J,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no not for a king,
Upon whose property, and most dear life,

A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the
throut,

As deep as to the lungs ? Who does me this?
Ha!

Why, I should take it for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites.
With this slave's offal: Bloody, bawdy villain'

lain !

Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave;
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a cursing like a very drab,
A scullion!

Fie upon 't! foh! About my brains! Humph
I have heard,

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
Have, by the very cunning of the scene,
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have thes
players
Play something like the murder of my father,
Before mine uncle; I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick; if he do blench,
know my course. The spirit that I have seen,
May be a devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape: yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness and my melancholy
(As he is very potent with such spirits.)
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

ACT III.

SCENE I. A Room in the Castle.

[Exit

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosen-
crantz, and Guildenstern.

King. And can you, by no drift of conference
Get from him why he puts on this confusion;
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
Ros. He does confess, he feels himself dis
tracted;

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 confession
Did he receive you well?
Ros. Most like a gentlemen.

Of his true state.

Queen.

Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply.

Queen.

To any pastime?

Did you assay him

Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain player
We o'er-raught on the way of these we told him;
And there dit seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: They are about the court;
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

Pol.

"Tis most tre

And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties,
To hear and see the matter.

King. With all my heart; and it doth mech

content me

To hear him so inclin'd.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros. We shall, my lord.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
King.
Sweet Gertrude, leave ns too
For we have closely sent for Hainlet hither;
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia :

Her father, and myself (lawful espials,)
Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behav'd,
If 't be the affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.

Queen.
I shall obey you
And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish,

Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, your ho
nesty should admit no discourse to your beauty
Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better com-

Oph. Madam, I wish it may. [Erit Queen.merce than with honesty 7
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
Your loneliness.-We are oft to blame in this,
Tis too much prov'd,-that, with devotion's
visage,

And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.

Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness; this was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.

Oph. I was the more deceived.

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery: Why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better, my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in; What should such fellows as I do crawling between :-earth and heaven! We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating, puts hini thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Pol. It shall do well: But yet, I do believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.-How now, Ophe-
fia 7

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all.-My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit after the play,

Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief; let her be round with him;
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference; If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him, where
Your wisdom best shall think.

King.
It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
[Exeunt.

Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service.
Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal
Hor. O, my dear lord,

Ham.
Nay, do not think I flatter:
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,
To feed, and clothe thee? Why should the poor
be flatter'd ?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou
hear?

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish her election,
She hath seal'd thee for herself, for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;
A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and bless'd are
those,

SCENE II. A Hall in the same. Enter Hamlet and certain Players. Ham. Speak the speech, I pray yon, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, Whose blood and judgment are so well cothus; but use all gently for in the very torrent,

mingled,

tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger passion, you must acquire and beget a temper-To sound what stop she please: Give me that man ance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to As I do thee.-Something too much of this.— split the ears of the groundlings: who, for the There is a play to-night before the king; most part, are capable of nothing but inexplica- One scene of it comes near the circumstance, ble dumb shows, and noise: I would have such Which I have told thee of my father's death. a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it I pr'ythee, when thou seest that act afoot, out-herod's Herod: 'Pray you, avoid it." Even with the very comment of thy soul 1 Play. I warrant your honour. Observe my uncle: if his occulted guilt Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your Do not itself unkennel in one speech, own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to It is a damned ghost that we have seen; the word, the word to the action: with this And my imaginations are as foul special observance, that you o'erstep not the As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note: modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone For I mine eyes will rivet to his face; is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both And, after, we will both our judgments join at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as In censure of his seeming. 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue Well, my lord: her own feature, scorn her own image, and the If he steal aught, the whilst this play is playing, very age and body of the time, his form and And scape detecting, I will pay the theft pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of Get you a place. which one, must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, 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 Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted, 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 mean time, 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 Guilden

stern.

How now, my lord 7 will the king hear this
piece of work?

Pol. And the queen too, and that presently.
Ham Bid the players make haste.-
[Exit Polonius

Hor.

idle:

Enter King,
Danish March. A Flourish.
Queen, Polonins, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, GL
denstern, and Others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?
Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's
dish; I eat the air, promise-crammed; you can
not 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 Polonies Pol. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

Ham. And what did you enact? Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed ! the Capitol; Brutus killed me. Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so cap ital a calf there.-Be the players ready? Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your p tience.

Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by ma Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more al tractive.

Pol. O ho! do you mark that? [To the King
Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[Lying down at Ophelia's Fes
Oph. No, my lord.
Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap 1

Oph Ay, my lord.

Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters?
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.
Ham. Who, I?

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 'r-lady, he must build churches then: or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby horse is forgot.

P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and
shortly too;

My operant powers their functions leave to do;
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, belov'd; and, haply, one as kind
For husband shalt thou
P. Queen.
O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast;
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second, but who kill'd the first.
Ham. That's wormwood.

P. Queen. The instances, that second marriage
move,
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love;
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
P. King I do believe, you think what now you
speak;

Trumpets sound. The dumb Show follows. But, what we do determine, oft we break. Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly; the Of violent birth, but poor validity: Purpose is but the slave to memory; Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree; and makes show of protestation unto him. But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be. He takes her up, and declines his head upon Most necessary 'tis, that we forget her neck: lays him down upon a bank of To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt: flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. What to ourselves in passion we propose, Anon comes in a Fellow, takes off his crown, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, The violence of either grief or joy and exit. The Queen returns; finds the Their own enactures, with themselves destroy; King dead, and makes passionate action. The Where joy most revels, grief do most lament; Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. in again, seeming to lament with her. The This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange, dead body is carried away. The Poisoner That even our loves should with our fortunes woos the Queen with gifts; she seems loath

his love.

[Exeunt.

change;

and unwilling awhile: but, in the end, accepts For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. The great man down, you mark his favourite

Oph. What means this, my lord? Ham. Marry, this is miching malicho; it means mischief.

Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.

Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant? Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him: Be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play.

Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

flies;

The poor advane'd makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:
For who not needs, shall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,-
Our wills, and fates, do so contrary run,
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our

own:

So think thon wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead.
P. Queen. Nor earth to me give food, nor hea-
ven light!

Sport and repose lock from me, day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!

Opo. 'Tis brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a King and a Queen.

P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart
gone round

Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen,
About the world have times twelve thirties been;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and

moon

Make us again count o'er, ere love be done!
But, wo is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer, and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women fear too much, even as they love;
And women's fear and love hold quantity;
in neither aught, or in extremity.

Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
Both here, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
Ham. If she should break it now,

[To Ophella. P. King. "Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while:

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
[Sleeps.

P. Queen.
Sleep rock thy brain;
And never come mischance between us twain!
[Exil.

Ham. Madam, how like you this play?
Queen. The lady doth protest too much, me-
thinks.

Ham. O, but she'll keep her word.

King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't?

Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest ; no offence i' the world.