Enter four or five Players. Y'are welcome, masters, welcome all. [To Polonius. Good my Lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do ye hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chroniclers of the time. After your death, you were better have a bad epitaph, than their ill report while you lived. Pol. My Lord, I will use them according to their desert. Ham. God'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 them in. Pol. Come, Sirs. [Exit Polonius. Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll have a play to-morrow. Dost thou hear me, old friend, can you play the murder of Gonzago? Play. Ay, my Lord. Ham. 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? Play, Ay, my Lord. Ham. Very well. you mock him not. you 'till night : ་ Follow that Lord, and look My good friends, I'll leave -I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my father, I'll tent him to the I know my course. quick; if he but blench, This spirit that I have seen, May be the devil; and the devil hath power ACT III. [Exit. SCENE-The Palace. Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, RoSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and Lords. 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. Did you assay him to any pastime ? Ros. Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o'ertook 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 beseeched me to intreat your Majesties To hear and see the matter. King. With all my heart, and it doth much con To hear him so inclined. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, And drive his purpose into these delights. [tent me [Exeunt. King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too; Affront Ophelia. Her father and myself 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 th' affection of his love, or no, That thus he suffers for. Queen. I shall obey you : And for my part, Ophelia, I do wish, That your good beauties be the happy cause To both your honours. Oph. Madam, I wish it may. Pol. Ophelia, walk you here. please ye, [Exit Queen. (Gracious, so We will bestow ourselves.) Read on this book ; That shew of such an exercise may colour Your loneliness. We're oft to blame in this, 'Tis too much proved, that with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er The devil himself. King. Oh, 'tis too true. How smart a lash that speech doth give my con science! [Aside. The harlot's cheek, beautied with plaistring art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it, Than is my deed to my most painted word. Oh heavy burden! Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my Lord. [Exeunt all but Ophelia. Enter HAMLET. Ham. To be, or not to be? that is the question.-- For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, That patient merit of th' unworthy takes; But that the dread of something after death, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, |