Ros. To what end, my lord?

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. What say you?

[TO GUILDENSTern. Ham. Nay, then I have an eye of you; [Aside.]—if 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 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 steril 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 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 for you: we met 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 repu ation 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. 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. You are welcome: but my uncle-father, and aunt-mother, are deceived. Guil. In what, my dear lord?

Ham. I am but mad north-northwest: 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 clothes. 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
-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.
Ham. Buz, buz!

Pol. Upon my honor,

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, tragical-comical, 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?

Ham. Why-One fair daughter, and no more,

The which he loved passing well.

Pol. Still on my daughter.

Ham. Am not I i' the right, old Jephthah?

[Aside.

Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter, that I

love passing well.

Ham. Nay, that follows not.

Pol. What follows then, my lord?

Ham. Why, 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 show you more; for look, my abridgment comes.

The Players enter, and at Hamlet's request, the first player recites a speech. 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 abstract, and brief chronicles, of the time: After your death you were better have a bad epitaph, than their ill re ort while you live.

Pol. My lord, I will use hem according to their desert.

Ham. 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.

Pol. Come, sirs.

[Exit POLONIUS with some of the Players. Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.-Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the murder of Gonzago ? 1st 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?

1st Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Very well,-follow that lord; and look you mock him not. [Exit Player.] 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, heaven 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 his 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,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion,

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,

And cleave the general ear, with horrid speech;

Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property, and most dear life,
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha!

Why, I should take it: for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall,

To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal:

Humph! I have heard,

Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave;
Fye upon't! foh! About my brains!
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
Play something like the murder of my father,
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick; if he do blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen,
May be a devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,
(As he is very potent with such spirits,)
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

ACT III.

SCENE I.-A Room in the Castle.

[Exit.

Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King. And can you, by no drift of conference

Get from him, why he puts on this confusion;
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy ?

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
Of his true state.

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.

To any pastime ?

Did you assay him

3

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.
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

Pol.

'Tis most true:

And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties,

To hear and see the matter.

King. With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclin'd.

Good gentlemen, give him. a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros. We shall, my lord.

King.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN 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 behav'd,
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

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honors.

Oph.

Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit QUEEN

[To OPHELIA

Pol. Ophelia, walk you here:-Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves :-Read on this book;

That show of such an exercise may color

Your loneliness.-We are oft to blame in this,'Tis too much prov'd, that, with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

King.

O, 'tis too true! how smart

A lash that speech doth give my conscience!
Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord.

[Exeunt KING and PO' ONIUS

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question :

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;