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! Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you. Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord. Pol. Upon my honour, Ham. Then came each actor on his ass, Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord? Pol. What follows then, my lord? The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, With heraldy more dismal: head to foot 1 Play. Anon he finds him Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword, Ilium, Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash sword Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick : ་ But as we often see, against some storm, 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. With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head, 'Gainst fortune's state would treason have Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless vil pronounc'd: But if the gods themselves did see her then, 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! A broken voice, and his whole function suiting What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, tears, 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, lain ! Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave; Fie upon 't! foh! About my brains! Humph That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, ACT III. SCENE I. A Room in the Castle. [Exit Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosen- King. And can you, by no drift of conference But from what cause he will by no means speak. 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 Pol. "Tis most tre And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties, King. With all my heart; and it doth mech content me To hear him so inclin'd. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Her father, and myself (lawful espials,) Queen. That your good beauties be the happy cause virtues: Will bring him to his wonted way again, To both your honours. Ham. Are you fair? Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, your ho Oph. Madam, I wish it may. [Erit Queen.merce than with honesty 7 We will bestow ourselves:- Read on this book; And pious action, we do sugar o'er King. O, 'tis too true! how smart A lash that speech doth give my conscience! The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it, Than is my deed to my most painted word: O heavy burden! Aside. Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord. [Exeunt King and Polonius. Enter Hamlet. 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? Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them ?-To die,-to sleep, No more and, by a sleep, to say we end For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, 1 Oph. Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day? Ham. I humbly thank you; well." Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longed long to redeliver; I pray you, now receive them. Ham. No, not I; I never gave you aught. Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well, you did: And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd As made the things more rich: their perfume lost, Ham. Ha! are you honest ? Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell. Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens! Ham. If thou dost narry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry; Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery; 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 nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance; Go to; I'll no more of it: 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 shal keep as they are. To a nunnery, [Exit Hamlet. go. The expectancy and rose of the fair state, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! Re-enter King and Polonius. King. Love! his affections do not that wa tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like inadness. There's something in his sonl, O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; Thus set it down; He shall with speed to England, For the demand of our neglected tribute: This something-settled matter in his heart; You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said; Let his queen mother all alone entreat him King. Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service. Ham. No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp; Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, 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 Pol. And the queen too, and that presently. Hor. idle: Enter King, King. How fares our cousin Hamlet? 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 Oph Ay, my lord. Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters? Ham That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs. Oph. What is, my lord? 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 '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 My operant powers their functions leave to do; P. Queen. The instances, that second marriage 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. own: So think thon wilt no second husband wed; Sport and repose lock from me, day and night! 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 Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o'er, ere love be done! Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy, [To Ophella. P. King. "Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while: My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile P. Queen. Ham. Madam, how like you this play? 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. |