Ham. Nay, then, I have an eye of you [Aside]. - If me, hold not off. love 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 sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,-why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a 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. Ros. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts. Ham. Why did you laugh then, when I said, "Man delights not me!" Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service. 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? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. Ros. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation. 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. Ros. Nay, their endeavor 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 berattle 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? 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, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. Ham. Is it possible? Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains. 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, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little. 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 Elsinore. Your hands. Come then the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb; lest my extent to the players, which I tell you must shew fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours You are welcome; but my uncle-father and auntmother 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 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; 't was then, indeed. Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you. Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you. Roscius was an actor in Rome,— Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord. Ham. Buz, buz! Pol. Upon my honor, When 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, tragicalcomical historical-pastoral, scene individable, 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? "One fair daughter and no more, O, old friend! why thy face is valanced since I saw thee last; comest 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 it like French falconers, fly at anything we see: we'll have a speech straight come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech. 1st 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: 't was caviarie to the general: 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 was no salt in the lines, to make the matter savory: nor no matter in the phrase that might indite the author of affectation: but called it, an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved: 't was Æneas' 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; The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast, - With heraldry more dismal; head to foot With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons; Baked and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrannous and a damned light To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire, And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, 1st Player. Anon he finds him Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword Of reverend Priam, seemed in the air to stick : But as we often see, against some storm, Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, The instant burst of clamor that she made Pol. Look whether he has not turned his color, and has tears in 's eyes!- Pr'y thee, 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 abstracts 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 honor and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave; That he should weep for her? What would he do, That I, the son of a dear father murdered, Had he the motives and the cue for passion A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward? As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? lain! Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Fie upon 't! foh!-About, my brains!-Humph! That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, АСТ III. SCENE I. A Room in the Castle. King. And can you by no drift of conference, Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted; But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, King. With all my heart; and it doth much The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; content me To hear him so inclined. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Her father and myself (lawful espials) Will so bestow ourselves, that seeing, unseen, Queen. I shall obey you: And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That your good beauties be the happy cause 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 The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your vir- With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life; Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, Oph. Good my lord, How smart a lash that speech doth give my con- How does your honor for this many a day? |