count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams. Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow. Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow. Ham. Then are our beggars bodies; and our monarchs and outstretch'd heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you. Ham. No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore? Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion. Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear, a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come; deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak. Guil. What should we say, my lord? Ham. Anything,-but to the purpose. sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know the good king and queen have sent for you. Ros. To what end, my lord? You were Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for or no. Ros. [Aside to GUIL.] What say you? Ham. [Aside.] Nay, then I have an eye of you.-I{ you love me, hold not off. Guil. My lord, we were sent for. Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secresy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, foregone 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 vapours. 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 is 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. Ham. How comes it? do they grow rusty? Ros. Nay, their endeavour 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, a hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little. 'Sblood, 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 aunt-mother 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 handsaw. 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; 'twas then, indeed. Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you. Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome, Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord. Pol. Upon my honour, Ham. Then came cach actor on his ass,"Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historicalpastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historicalpastoral, 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, "As by lot, God wot," And then, you know, "It came to pass, As most like it was,"The first row of the pious chanson will shew you more; for look, my abridgment comes. Enter four or five Players. You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:-I am glad to see thee well:-welcome, good friends.-O, old friend! Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last; com'st 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't 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. 1 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; 'twas caviare 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 were no salads in the lines, to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase, that might indíte 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 chicfly loved: 'twas Eneas' 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,” — 'Tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus: "The rugged Pyrrhus,-he, whose sable arms, To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire, With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus So proceed you. Pol. 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion. 1 Play. "Anon he finds him Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword, But, as we often see against some storm Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, 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; a clout upon that head, A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;- 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 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 bodikins, 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 Ros. Good my lord! [Exeunt Ros, and GUIL Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' you!-Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! A broken voice, and his whole function suiting What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would he do, That I have? He would drown the stage with tears, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? Why, I should take it: for it cannot be That I, the son of a dear father murder'd, 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 Been struck so to the soul, that presently They have proclaim'd their malefactions; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players I know my course. The spirit that I have seen Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. [Exit. ACT III. SCENE I.-A Room in the Castle. Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. King. And can you, by no drift of conference, Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted; But from what cause, he will by no means speak. Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded; But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, When we would bring him on to some confession Queen. Did he receive you well? Ros. Most like a gentleman. Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply. Queen. Did you assay him To any pastime? Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him; And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it: they are about the court; Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, And drive his purpose on to these delights. Ros. We shall, my lord. [me [Exeunt Ros. and GUIL. King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too; For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither, That he, as 'twere by accident, may here Affront Ophelia : Her father and myself (lawful espials) Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen, We may of their encounter frankly judge; And gather by him, as he is behaved, If't be the affliction of his love or no, That thus he suffers for. Queen. I shall obey you. And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That your good beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues To both your honours. Oph. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit QUEEN. Pol. Ophelia, walk you here.-Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves.-[To OPHELIA.] Read on this book; That show of such an exercise may colour The devil himself. King. [Aside.] 0, 'tis too true! How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience! Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord. Ham. To be, or not to be,-that is the question:- To sleep! perchance to dream-ay, there's the rub; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The That patient merit of the unworthy takes, Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; Oph. Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day? Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longed long to re-deliver; I pray you, now receive them. Ham. No, not I; I never gave you aught. Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did; Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest? Oph. My lord? Ham. Are you fair? Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That if you be honest and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty. Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not. Oph. I was the more deceived. Ham. Get thee to a nunnery; why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house. Farewell. Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens! Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry,-be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery; farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell. Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him! Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more of 't; it hath made me mad. I say we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit HAMLET. 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, 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! Re-enter KING and POLONIUS. King. Love! his affections do not that way tend; I have, in quick determination, Thus set it down-he shall with speed to England, This something-settled matter in his heart; King. It shall be so: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. SCENE II-A Hall in the same. [Exeunt. 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 our players do, I had as lief the townNor do not saw the air too crier spoke my lines. much with your hand, thus; but use all gently for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) 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 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 would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it. 1 Play. 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 shew 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 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. 1 Play. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us. 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 meantime, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous, and shews a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses [Exeunt Players. it. Go, make you ready. Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. Both. Ay, my lord. [Exit POL. [Exeunt Ros. and GUIL. Enter HORATIO. Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service. Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter; For what advancement may I hope from thee, To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flat- She hath seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast been As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note: And, after, we will both our judgments join Hor. Well, my lord: If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing, Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERS, and others. Danish march. A flourish. King. How fares our cousin Hamlet? Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed capons so. King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine. Ham. No, nor mine now.-[To POL.] My lord, you played once in the university, you say? Pol. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor. Ham. And what did you enact? Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i the Capitol; Brutus killed me. Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.-Be the players ready? Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience. Oph. No, my lord. [Lying down at OPHELIA's feet. Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap? Oph. Ay, my lord. Ham. Do you think I meant country matters? Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids legs. Oph. What is, my lord? Ham. Nothing. Oph. You are merry, my lord. Ham. Who, I? Oph. Ay, my lord. Ham. O your only jig-maker. What should a man do, but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours. Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. Ham. So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two Then there's months ago, and not forgotten yet? hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: but, by 'r lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobbyhorse, whose epitaph is," For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot." Trumpets sound. The dumb show follows. Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes shew of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. poisoner, with some two or three mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems loath and unwilling a while, but in the end accepts his love. [Exeunt. Oph. What means this, my lord? The Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief. Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of the play. Enter Prologue. Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all. Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant? be not you ashamed to shew, he'll not shame to tell you what it means. Oph. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play. Pro. For us, and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency. Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Enter a King and a Queen. P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground; [round And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen, About the world have times twelve thirties been: Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands, Unite commutual in most sacred bands. P. Quern. So many journeys may the sun and moon So far from cheer, and from your former state, Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know; [too; P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly My operant powers their functions leave to do: And thou shalt live in this fair world behind, Honour'd, beloved; and, haply, one as kind For husband shalt thou P. Queen. O, confound the rest! Such love must needs be treason in my breast: In second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second, but who kill'd the first. Ham. [Aside.] That's wormwood. P. Queen. The instances that second marriage move, Are base respects of thrift, but none of love: A second time I kill my husband dead, P. King. I do believe you think what now you speak; But what we do determine, oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory; Of violent birth, but poor validity: Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree; Most necessary 'tis that we forget To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt: Their own enactures with themselves destroy: Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. That even our loves should with our fortunes change; For who not needs, shall never lack a friend; Ham. [To OPHELIA.] If she should break it now,- P. Queen. Sleep rock thy brain; And never come mischance between us twain! [Exit. Ham. Madam, how like you this play? Queen. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Ham. O, but she'll keep her word. King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't? Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' the world. King. What do you call the play? Ham. The mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. Enter LUCIANUS. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord. Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying. Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge. Oph. Still better and worse. Ham. So you mistake your husbands.-Begin, murderer; leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come :-The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge. [agreeing; Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property, On wholesome life usurp immediately. [Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears. Ham. He poisons him i the garden for his estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife. Oph. The king rises. liam. What, frighted with false fire! Queen. How fares my lord? Pol. Give o'er the play. King. Give me some light:-away! Pol. Lights, lights, lights! [Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO. Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep, For some must watch, while some must sleep: Would not this, Sir, and a forest of feathers, (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me,) with two Provençal roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, Sir? Hor. Half a share. Ham. A whole one, I. For thou dost know, O Damon dear, This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself; and now reigns here A very, very-peacock. Hor. You might have rhymed. Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive? Hor. Very well, my lord. Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning, Hor. I did very well note him. Ham. Ah, ha!-Come, some music! come, the re corders! For if the king like not the comedy, Why then, belike,―he likes it not, perdy. |