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With forms 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 I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,1
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property,2 and most dear life,
A damned 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 throat,3

1 Peak like John-a-dreams, &c.] Creep about languidly like a sleepy-headed dreamy fellow, unready in my cause. John-a-dreams

was a cant name for such a fellow.

2 Property.] Prerogative, rank, state.

3 Gives me the lie.] The 'word of the lie,' as Bacon calls it, was in old times a thing of serious moment. To give one the lie was to impute to him a cowardice that is afraid to speak truth, and challenged him to stake his personal safety in defence of his reputation. There were, however, two principal degrees of dishonour imputed in this way:—simply to give one the lie, was to impute an untruth that might have been somewhat hastily or inconsiderately uttered; but the lie in the throat implied deliberate and deeply-intended falsehood, and this charge was often aggravated by some such addition as that in the text-'as deep as to the lungs.'

'Did I say you were an honest man? I had said so,' 2 K. Henry IV. i. 2.

I had lied in my throat if 'As low as to thy heart,

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? ha!
Why, I should take it: for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,

I should have fatted all the region1 kites
With this slave's offal:-Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain !

O vengeance !—

Why what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of the dear murdered,

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!
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul, that presently

I have heard,

through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest,' K. Richard II., i. 1. 'I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart, where it was forged, with my rapier's point,' Ibid., iv. 1.

Fuller, in his Profane State, ch. 12, says, 'He that is called a liar to his face is also called a coward in the same breath, if he swallows it; and the party charged doth conceive that if he vindicates his valour, his truth will be given him into the bargain.' The idea of the cowardice involved in falsehood may be traced to Plutarch's Lysander, where, according to North's translation, it is said, 'He that deceiveth his enemy, and breaketh his oath to him, showeth plainly that he feareth him, but that he careth not for God.' Montaigne borrowed this sentiment from his favourite Plutarch, though Bacon (Essay on Lying) seems to give Montaigne the credit of having originated it.

1 Region.] Shakspeare sometimes uses this word to denote the airy region, or the element. It has this sense in the Player's speech about Pyrrhus, p. 67. In the Merry Wives, iii. 2, 'He is of too high a region,' means his element is too high.

They have proclaimed their malefactions;

For murder, though it hath no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these 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 but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

May be the 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,2
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

[Exit.

1 Abuses me.] Practises on my credulity with a forged story. In the old Historie of Hamblet,' it is said that the prince had learned that science with which the evil spirit abuses men, and that perhaps, through the power of his melancholy, he received such impressions as enabled him to divine past occurrences with which no man had acquainted him.

2 The play's the thing.] Compare what Massinger (Roman Actor, ii.) makes Paris say, 'Now could you but persuade the emperor to see a comedy we have,' &c.

ACT III.

SCENE I.-A Room in the Castle.

Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King. And can you, by no drift of circumstance,1
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 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 confession
Of his true state.

Queen.

Did he receive you well?

Ros. Most like a gentleman.

Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition.

Ros. Niggard of question ;2 but, of our demands, Most free in his reply.

Queen.

To any pastime?

Did you assay him 3

' Drift of circumstance.]

Design of circumvention.

2 Niggard of question, &c.] Niggard of what we tried to draw out of him, but yet kindly and courteous in his manner of answering our inquiries.

3

Assay him.] Try to induce him; or, perhaps, try his inclination.

E

Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players

We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;
And there did 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.

'T is most true:

And he beseeched me to entreat your majesties,

To hear and see the matter.

King. With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclined.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.

Ros. We shall, my lord.

King.

[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.

Sweet Gertrude, leave us too:

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither;

That he, as 't were by accident, may here

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We

Her father, and myself,-lawful espials,-
Will so bestow ourselves, that seeing, unseen,
may
of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
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

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness; so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

1 Affront.] Meet, encounter. So in Cook's Green's Tu Quoque, 'This I must caution you of, in your affront or salute, never to move your hat.' And in Spenser's F. Queen, 'Who him affronting soon to fight was ready prest.'

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