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Oph.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels * bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.-Act 3, Sc. I.

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!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,

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
As e'er my conversation cop'd 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
flatter'd?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,

And crook the pregnant 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 seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
in suffering all, that suffers nothing,

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,
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.-Act 3, Sc. 2.

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 :
So runs the world away.-Act 3, Sc. 2.

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,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.-Act 3, Sc. 2.

King. O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven.

Act 3, Sc. 3.

King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go.

Act 3, Sc. 3.

Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; *
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:

This was your husband. Look you now what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age

The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense

Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd

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!-
A station like Harry Mercury new"

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