Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;

And, I do doubt, the hatch and the disclose 1
Will be some danger: Which for to prevent,
I have, in quick determination,

Thus set it down: He shall with speed to England
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on 't?
Pol. It shall do well; but yet do I believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.-How now, Ophelia,-
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 griefs; let her be round 2 with him;
And I'll be placed, 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.

It shall be so;

King.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

1 The disclose.] The offspring or issue.
2 Round.] Plain-spoken, free and full.

and explicit, not abbreviated.

[Exeunt.

Round terms are full

SCENE II.-A Hall in the same.

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 your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus: but use all gently for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to see a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I could have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: 3 pray you, avoid it.

1 The groundlings.] Those of the audience that occupied the yard or pit of the theatre. The censure here passed on the taste of the habitués of the pit might give offence to some; but our poet, zealous for the reformation of such taste, presently asserts that the opinion of one judicious hearer should, in the actor's estimation, outweigh a whole theatre of others.

2 Dumb show.] 'The dumb show consisted of dumb actors who by their dress and action prepared the spectators for the matter and substance of each ensuing act, respectively; as also of much hieroglyphical scenery, calculated for the same purpose,' Warton's Observations on Spenser, vol. ii. p. 80. The play-scene in Hamlet is introduced by a dumb show.

8 Termagant Herod.] Termagant, one of the Saracen deities, and Herod, the king of Jewry, were clamorous and violent characters in the old Moralities. A blustering ranting style especially characterised the acting of Termagant. Chaucer, in the Miller's Tale, says:

'Sometime, to show his lightness and maistrye,
He playeth Herod on a scaffold hye.'

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 anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body1 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 the which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. 0, there be players that I have seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the account 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, sir.

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 villainous; and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. [Exeunt Players. Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

1 The age and body of the time.] The present age with all its constituent features.

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

Pol. And the queen too, and that presently.

Ham. Bid the players make haste.

Will you too help to hasten them?

Both. We will, my lord.

[Exit POL.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Ham. What, ho, Horatio!

Enter HORATIO.

Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service.
Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man

As e'er my conversation coped 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 flattered?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;

And crook the pregnant1 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
Hath sealed thee for herself: for thou hast been

As one, in suffering all,2 that suffers nothing;

A man that fortune's buffets and rewards

Hath ta'en with equal thanks: and blessed are those

1 Pregnant.] Ready.

2 In suffering all, &c.] That through cheerfully bearing all things suffers nothing. Hamlet himself had not the elasticity of mind he here attributes to Horatio. In saying, as he does presently, 'blessed are those whose blood and judgment are so well comingled,' &c., he is conscious that he himself is not thus blessed.

Whose blood and judgment are so well comingled,
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger

To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.-Something too much of this.—
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death:
I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul

1

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note:
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ;

And, after, we will both our judgments join

In censure of his seeming.

If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be idle: 2 Get you a place.

Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and other Lords attendant, with the Guard, carrying torches. Danish March. Sound a flourish.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the cameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: You cannot feed capons so. Stithy.] Workshop. A stith is an anvil.

2 Be idle.] Staunton properly observes that to be idle here means to affect being crazy.