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,t that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped fort: 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?

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. Ham. Buz, buz!

Pol. Upon my honour,

Ham. Then came each actor on his ass,

Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoralcomical, 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 pussing well. Pol. Still on my daughter. [Aside. Ham. Am I not i'the right, old Jephthah? Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter, that I love passing well. Ham. Nay, that follows not.

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.tt 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

[Flourish of Trumpets within.

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 beards 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 any thing 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, 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 judgements, 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 sallads in the lines, to make the matter savoury; nor no matter in the phrase, that might inditess the author of affection: but called it, an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved: 'twas Æneas' 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, * Writing. + Christmas carols. + Fringed. Profession. § Defy. || Clog. **An Italian dish made of the roes of fishes. ++ Multitude. ‡‡ Above. Convict. Affectation.

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 totul gules:* horribly trick'd
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters,

sons;

Bak'd and impusted 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 find 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
Tukes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo!
sword,

Which was declining 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 matter,
Did nothing.

his

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' hummers fall
On Mars' armour, forg'd for proof eternes
With less remorse thun Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.—

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

Pol. This is too long.

Hum. 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||| queen

Ham. The mobled queen?

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

With bisson rheum; a clout 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,

"Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd:

But if the gods themselves did see her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs;
The instant burst of clamour that she made,
(Unless things mortal move them not at all,)

Would have made milch the burning eye of And passion in the gods. [heuren, Pol. Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and his 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 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.

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 to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his visage wann'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, [ing
A broken voice, and his whole function suit-
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, [do,
That he should weep for her? What would he
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-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: Bloody, bawdy vil
lain!

Oph. Good my lord,

[kind.

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.

So.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe

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,t 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 crawl

ing 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 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! Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, * Prayers. + Call.

you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance: Go to; I'll no more oft; 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! [sword: The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, 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,
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;
[youth,
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown
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; [little, Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
Will be some danger: Which for to prevent,
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Thus set it down; He shall with speed to
I have, in quick determination,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
England,
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?

The origin and commencement of his grief
Pol. It shall do well: But yet I do believe,
Sprung from neglected love.-How now,
Ophelia?

We heard it all.-My lord, do as you please;
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show 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 him, where
Your wisdom best shall think.

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
King. It shall be so:
[Exeunt.

SCENE II-A Hall in the same. 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 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 periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the ground

The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves

+ Alienation of mind. Reprimand him with freedom.