When he lay couched in the ominous horse, Pol. 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken; with good accent, and good discretion. 1 Play. Anon he finds him So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood; But, as we often see, against some storm, A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, Pol. This is too long. Ham, It shall to the barber's, with your beard.— Pr'ythee, say on:-He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:-say on: come to Hecuba. 1 Play. But who, ah woe! had seen the mobled Ham. The mobled queen? Pol. That's good; mobled queen is good. 1 Play. Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the With bisson rheum 53; a clout upon that head, Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd, When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport Pol. Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's eyes.-Pr'ythee, 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 bestow'd? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstract, 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 honour and dignity: The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. Pol. Come, sirs. Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play tomorrow. Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the murder of Gonzago? 1 Play. Ay, my lord. Ham. We'll have it to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down, and insert in't? could you not? 1 Play. Ay, my lord. Ham. Very well,-Follow that lord; and look you mock him not. [Exeunt Polonius and Players. My good friends, [To Ros. and Guil.] I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore. Ros. Good my lord! [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' you:-Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! Is it not monstrous, that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit, That, from her working, all his visage wann'd; Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting 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, Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, Like John a-dreams 54, unpregnant of my cause, Upon whose property, and most dear life, A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? Ha! Why, I should take it: for it cannot be, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, A scullion! Fie upon't! foh! About my brains! Humph! I have heard, That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, Have by the very cunning of the scene They have proclaim'd their malefactions: For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my father, |