Oph. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, To the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. Act 3, Sc. I. Ham. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.--Act 3, Sc. I. Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, * Burdens. The observed of all observers, quite, quite down! That suck'd the honey of his music vows, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! Act 3, Sc. 1. King. Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. Act 3, Sc. I. Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: and 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 hear a robustious periwigpated 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 would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it outherods Herod: pray you, avoid it. First Player. I warrant your honour. 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 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body 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. 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. First 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 villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.-Act 3, Sc. 2. Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter; To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? And could of men distinguish, her election As one, A man that fortune's buffets and rewards Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those K Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, To sound what stop she please. Give me that man Ham. Here's metal more attractive.-Act 3, Sc. 2. Ham. Is this a prologue, or the poesy of a ring? Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord. Ham. As woman's love.-Act 3, Sc. 2. Ham. Why, let the stricken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For some must watch, while some must sleep : Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! Pol. Very like a whale.-Act 3, Sc. 2. Act 3, Sc. 2. Ham. They fool me to the top of my bent.—Act 3, Sc. 2. Ham. By and by is easily said.—Act 3, Sc. 2. Ham. 'Tis now the very witching time of night, King. O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven. Act 3, Sc. 3. King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Act 3, Sc. 3. Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this, This was your husband. Look you now what follows: The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err, But it reserved some quantity of choice, To serve in such a difference. What devil was 't That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind? Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope. O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, *Sheridan makes Mrs. Malaprop deliver the following parody on these beautiful lines in "The Rivals," Act 4, Sc. 2 :— "Hesperian curls-the front of Job himself!— An eye like March, to threaten at command!- |