but call'd it, an honest1 method; as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly lov'd: 'twas Eneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam's slaughter; If 5 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,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble,
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,-
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
Now is he total gules2; horridly trick'd
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons;
Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
To their lord's murder: Roasted in wrath, and fire,
And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks:-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,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command: Unequal match'd,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage, strikes wide;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword,
Which was decl ning on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick :
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood;
And, like a neutral to his will and mutter,
Did nothing.

But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death: anon, the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region: So, after Pyrrhus' pause,
A roused vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars's armour, forg'd for proof eterne,
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod, take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nace down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends!

Pol. This is too long.

Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard.Pr'ythee, say on:-) -He's for a jigg, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:-say on; come to Hecuba. 1 Play. But who, ah woe! had seen the mobled queen

Ham. The mobled queen?

Pol. That's good; mobled queen is good.
1 Play. Run bare-foot up and down, threat'ning
the flames

10 With bisson rheum: a clout
4
upon that head,
Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,
15'Gainst fortune's state would treason have pro-
But if the gods themselves did see her then,[nounc'd:
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs ;
The instant burst of clamour that she made,
|20|(Unless things mortal move them not at all)
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.

25

Pol. Look, whe'er 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 30 were better have a bad epitath, than their ill report while you live.

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

Ham. Odds bodikins, man, much better: Use 35 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.

[Exit Polonius. 40 Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.-Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the murder of Gonzago?

1 Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, 45 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 50 you mock him not.-My good friends, [to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinour.

Ros. Good, my lord. [Exeunt Ros. and Guil. Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' you:-Now I am alone. 550, what a rogue and peasant slave am I !

Hamlet is telling how much his judgement differed from that of others. One said, there was no salt in the lines, &c., but called it an honest method. The author probably gave it, But I called it an honest method, &c. 2 Gules is a term in heraldry, and signifies red. According to Warburton, mobled, or mabled, signifies veiled; according to Dr. Johnson, it is huddled, grossly covered.-Mr. Steevens says, he was informed that mab-led in Warwickshire (where it is pronounced mob-led) signifies led astray by a will o' the whisp, or ignis fatuus.-Mr. Tollet adds, that in the latter end of the reign of king Charles II. the rabble that attended the earl of Shaftesbury's partisans was first called mobile vulgus, and afterwards, by contraction, the mob; and ever since, the word mob has become proper English. Bisson or beesen, i. e. blind; a word still in use in some parts of the North of England.

3T 4

Is

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 warm'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,
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 appall the free,
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed,
The very faculty of eyes and ears.
Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause2,
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 lye 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-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,

players

Play something like the murder of my father,
20 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.

25

1301

[Exit.

ND can you by no drift of con-
ference

Get from him, why he puts on this confusion;
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Queen. Did you assay him

40 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 here about the court;
45 And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted;|
But from what cause, he will by no means speak. 50
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.

Quicen. Did he receive you well?

Ros. Most like a gentleman.

Gail. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply.

i. e. the hint, the direction.

3

55

Pol. Tis most true:

+i. e. unnatural.

2 i. e. not quickened with a new desire of vengeance; not teeming with vengeance. Defeat, for dispossession. The meaning is, Wits, to your work. Brain, go about the present business. i. e. search his wounds. ' i. e. if he shrink, Relative, for convictive, according to Warburton.-Relative is, nearly related, closely connected, according to Dr. Johnson. 2 Over-raught is over-reached, that is, over-took. To affront, is only to meet directly.

or start,

8

10

Her

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 my part, Ophelia, I do wish,

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 conseience does make cowards of us all;
5 And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sickly'd o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.-Soft you, now!
[Seeing Ophelia.
The fair Ophelia?-Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness; so shall I hope, your vir-10
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
[tues

To both your honours.

Oph. Madam, I wish it may.
Pol. Ophelia, walk you here:-

please you,

[Exit Queen.
Gracious, so

We will bestow ourselves:-Read on this book ;|

15

[To Ophelia. That show of such an exercise may colour Your loneliness.-We are oft to blame in this,'Tis too much prov'd,—that, with devotion's vi-20I And pious action, we do sugar o'er [sage, The devil himself.

King. O, 'tis too true! how smart

A lash that speech doth give myconscience! Aside.
The harlot's cheek, beauty'd with plast' ring art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
Q heavy burthen!

Oph. Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham. I humbly thank you; well.

Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;

pray you, now receive them.
Ham. No, not I;

never gave you aught.

Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well, you did;

[pos'd, And, with them, words of so sweet breath comAs made the things more rich: their perfume lost, 25 Take these again; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.

Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my
lord. [Exeunt King, and Polonius. 30
Enter Hamlet.

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question:-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suiter
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?-To die;-to sleep;-
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die;-to sleep;
To sleep! perchance, to dream;-Ay, there's
the rub ;-

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil2,
Must give us pause: There's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life: [time',
For who would bear the whips and scorns of
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contume-
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, [ly,
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 groan and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn

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 com35 merce than with honesty?

40

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 its likeness: this was some time 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 believ'd me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we 45 shall relish of it: I lov'd you not.

Oph. I was the more deceiv'd.

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery; Why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such 50 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 55 such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none

1i. e. spies. i. e. turmoil, bustle. › Dr. Warburton remarks, that "the evils here complained of are not the product of time or duration simply, but of a corrupted age or manners. We may be sure, then, that Shakspeare wrote, the whips and scorns of th' time.' And the description of the evils of a corrupt age, which follows, confirms this emendation." 4 This expression probably

alluded to the writ of discharge, which was formerly granted to those barons and knights who personally attended the king on any foreign expedition.-This discharge was called a Quietus. It is at this time the term for the acquittance which every sheriff receives on settling his accounts at the exchequer. A bodkin was the ancient term for a small dagger.

of

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 hel may play the fool no where 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!

5

10

15

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 nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance': Go to; 20 I'll no more on'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. 25 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 observ'd of all observers! quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies, most deject and wretched,
'I hat 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!
Re-enter King, and Polonius.

King. Love! his affections do not that way
tend;

Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his
soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Will be some danger; Which, for to prevent,

I have, in quick determination,

Thus set it down; He shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on 't

4

Pol. It shall do well: But yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.--How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all.-My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play,

Let his queen-mother all alone entreat him
To shew his grief; let her be round with him*;
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference: If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine kim, where
Your wisdom best shall think.

Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players. Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue : but lif you mouth it, as many of our 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) 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 perriwig-pated' fellow tear a 30 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 whipp'd for o'er-doing Termagant'; it out-herods Herod': 35 Pray you, avoid it.

40

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 any thing 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 fea45ture, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this, over-done, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your 50 allowance, o'er-weigh 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 [55]man, have so strutted, and below'd, that I have

1i. e. you mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to mistake by ignorance. * The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves. The word ecstacy was anciently used to signify some degree of alienation of mind. To be round with a person, is to reprimand him with freedom. This is a ridicule on the quantity of false hair worn in Shakspeare's time; for wigs were not in common use till the reign of Charles II. Players, however, seem to have worn them most generally. The meaner people then seem to have sat below, as they now sit in the upper gallery, who, not well understanding poetical language, were sometimes gratified by a mimical and mute representation of the drama, previous to the dialogue. Termagant was a Saracen deity, very clamorous and violent, in the old moralities. The character of Herod in the ancient mysteries was always a violent one.

10

? i. e, resemblance, as in a print. 1o Any gross or indelicate language was called profane.

1

thought

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 bar-
ren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mear 10
time, some necessary question of the play be then
to be considered: that's villainous; and shews a
most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go,
make you ready.-
[Exeunt Players.
Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.
How now, my lord? will the king hear this piece
of work?

Pol. And the queen too, and that presently.
Ham. Bid the players make haste.-

Will you two help to hasten them?

15

[Exit Pol. 20

Both. Ay, my lord.

[Exeunt Ros. and Guil.

Ham. What ho; Horatio!

pomp;

30

40

No, let the candy'd tongue lick absurd
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear? 35
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
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;
A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those,
Whosebloodandjudgementaresowellco-mingled,
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. Something too much of this.-
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance,
Which I have told thee, of my father's death.
I pr'ythee, when thou see'st that act a-foot,
Even with the very cominent of thy soul
Observe my uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy': Give him heedful note:

45

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;
And, after, we will both our judgements join
In censure of his seeming.

50

Hor. Well, my lord:

if he steal aught, the whilst this play is playing,
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft. [idle:
Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be
Get you a place.

Danish march. A flourish.

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promise-cramm'd: You cannot feed capons so.

King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

Ham. No, nor mine now.-My lord, you play'd once i' the university, you say? [To Polonius. Pol. That did I, my lord: and was accounted good actor.

a

Ham. And what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was kill'd i' the Capitol; Brutus kill'd 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.
Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more

attractive.

Pol. O ho! do you mark that? [To the King.
Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[Lying down at Ophelia's feet.
Oph. No, my lord.

Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?
Oph. Ay, my lord.

I

Ham. Do you think I meant country matters"?
Oph. I think nothing, my lord.

[legs.

Ham.That's a fair thought to lie between maids'
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 months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope, a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: But, by'r-lady, he must build 55 churches then: or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse'; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.

3

The sense of pregnant in this place is, quick, ready, prompt. 2 According to the doctrine of the four humours, desire and confidence were seated in the blood, and judgement in the phlegin; and the due mixture of the humours made a perfect character. Stithy is a smith's ancil. 4 Dr. Johnson thinks we must read, Do you think I meant country manners? Do you imagine that I meant to sit in your lap, with such rough gallantry as clowns use to their lasses? Amongst the country maygames there was an hobby-horse, which, when the puritanical humour of those times opposed and discredited these games, was brought by the poets and ballad-makers as an instance of the ridiculous zeal of the sectaries: from these ballads Hanilet quotes a line or two.

5

Trumpets