Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd,
But it reserved some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference. What devil was 't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?†
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans‡ all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope.§

O shame! where is thy blush ?

Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.

QUEEN.

O Hamlet, speak no more:

my very soul;

Thou turn'st mine eyes into

And there I see such black and grained spots,

As will not leave their tinct. ||

Enter Ghost.

HAMLET. Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards! What would your gracious

figure?

QUEEN. Alas, he's mad.

HAMLET. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by

The important acting of your dread command?

O, say!

GHOST. Do not forget: this visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted

purpose.

* Frenzy.

+ Blindman's-buff.

Without.

Could not be so absurd.

|| Tinge, hue.

But, look! amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul;
Conceit* in weakest bodies strongest works;
Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET.

How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN. Alas, how is't with you?

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with the incorporal air do hold discourse.
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
HAMLET. On him! On him! Look you, how
pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.+ Do not look upon me;
Lest with this piteous action, you convert

My stern effects; then what I have to do

Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.
QUEEN. To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET.

Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET. Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN.

No, nothing, but ourselves.

HAMLET. Why look you there! look, how it steals

away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

[Exit Ghost.

QUEEN. This is the very coinage of your brain :

* Fancy.

+ Would make them comprehend.

Actions.

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

HAMLET. Ecstasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come.

ACT IV.

Hamlet's Irresolution.

How all occasions do inform against me, spur my dull revenge! what is a man

And

If his chief good, and market* of his time,
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,+
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on the event,—

A thought which quarter'd hath but one part wisdom And, ever, three parts coward,—I do not know Why yet I live to say, "This thing's to do ;"

Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me.

*Profit.

+ Capacity.

+ Moulder.

Sorrows rarely single.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions!

The Divinity of Kings.

There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will.

ACT V.

Hamlet's Reflections on Yorick's Skull.

GRAVE-DIGGER. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, Sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

HAMLET. This?

GRAVE-DIGGER, E'en that.

HAMLET. Alas poor Yorick!-I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour* she must come ; make her laugh at that.

Ophelia's Interment.

Lay her i' the earth;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh,

* Condition.

May violets spring!-I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,

When thou liest howling.

Melancholy.

This is mere madness;

And thus a while the fit will work on him:
Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.

Providence directs our Actions.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.

-000

statue.

JULIUS CESAR.

Brutus and Cassius, noble Romans, envious of the popularity of Cæsar, conspire with Casca, Decius, and others to assassinate him. Cæsar is warned by his wife Calphurnia and a soothsayer against attending the Capitol; he however disregards their admonitions, and is killed by the conspirators at the foot of Pompey's In the commotion which ensues Brutus harangues the citizens, and wins them over to his side, but Mark Antony (called in the play Marcus Antonius), who is a strong adherent of Cæsar's, afterwards addresses the populace, and excites in them a desire to avenge the death of Cæsar. Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, march with an army against Brutus and Cassius, who have fled from Rome and await with their forces the attack of Antony and his confederates. A quarrel ensues between Brutus and Cassius in the tent of the former, prior to the battle which is to decide their fates; their differences, however, are soon healed, and they meet the hostile army at Philippi where they are defeated, and, rather than fall into the hands of their foes, kill themselves. Portia, the