White

The unnerv'd 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 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.

taking

لمیه

460

Cutie the contest that which be intrunk who will one.

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,
Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work,
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fal!
On Mars's armour forg'd for proof eterne
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.

шаю

to stand blows sternally.

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 nave down the hill of heaven
As low as to the fiends!

Polonius. This is too long.

480

Hamlet. It shall to the barber's, with your beard.-Prithee, say on :—he 's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.— Say on; come to Hecuba.

1 Player. But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen-
Hamlet. 'The mobled queen?'

Polonius. That's good; 'mobled queen' is good.

I Player. Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
With bisson rheum; a clout about 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;

490

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

cutting Opies In mincing

with his sword her husband's limbs, The instant burst of clamour that she madeUnless things mortal move them not at all—

500

Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven will giving, a metipen
for Earqués
Polonius. Look, whether he has not turned his colour and

And passion in the gods. Sorrow.

has tears in 's eyes.-Pray you, no more.

Hamlet. 'Tis well, I'll have thee speak out the rest soon. -Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? woged Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract efte and brief chronicles of the time; after your death better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live. Polonius. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

you were

513

Hamlet. God's bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity; the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. Polonius. Come, sirs.

Hamlet. Follow him, friends; we 'll hear a play to-morrow. [Exit Polonius with all the Players but the First.] Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the Murther of Gonzago?

I Player. Ay, my lord.

522

Hamlet. We'll ha 't 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 Player. Ay, my lord.

Hamlet. Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him not.-[Exit Player.] My good friends, I'll leave you till night; you are welcome to Elsinore.

530

Rosencrantz. Good my lord!

91

Hamlet. Ay, so, God be wi' ye!—[Exeunt Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern.] Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I !
Is it not monstrous that this player here,

(Se

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 !
Conception of
the character.
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

action 540

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, free from quilt invent
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet I,

550

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,

شا

honey, unresolute

Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, at the cause

And can say nothing; no, not for a king,

king Upon whose property and most dear life

rein

A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? Maling defeat Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?

- the who

France"

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!

jus

'Swounds, 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 villain!

unnatural Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

O vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murther'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

570

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, unload (Sch)

And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion!

Fie upon 't! foh! About, my brain! 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 murther, though it have no tongue, will speak

580

Play something like the murther of my father

With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players

Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;

I'll tent him to the quick if he but blench, le start.
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

May be the 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.

590

the furpose,
[Exit (Sch

SCENE I. A Room in the Castle.

Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ,

and GUILDENSTERN.

King. And can you, by no drift of circumstance, Get from him why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet vering. With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

grate on you