What might you think? no, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus did I bespeak;
Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy sphere;
This must not be: and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulsed, (a short tale to make,)
Fell into a sadness; then into a fast;

Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness;
Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,

And all we mourn for.

King.
Do you think, 'tis this?
Queen. It may be, very likely.

Pol. Hath there been such a time, (I'd fain know

that,)

That I have positively said, 'Tis so,

When it prov'd otherwise?

King.

Not that I know.

Pol. Take this from this, if this be otherwise : [Pointing to his Head and Shoulder.

If circumstances lead me, I will find

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.

King.

How may we try it further? Pol. You know, sometimes he walks four hours together,

Here in the lobby.

Be

Queen.

So he does, indeed.

Pol. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to

him:

you and I behind an arras then ;

Mark the encounter: if he love her not,

And be not from his reason fallen thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,

But keep a farm, and carters.

• Roundly, without reserve.

King.

We will try it.

Enter HAMLET, reading..

Queen. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch

comes reading.

Pol. Away, I do beseech you,

I'll board him presently:

both away;

O, give me leave.

[Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants.

How does my good lord Hamlet?

Ham. Well, god-'a-mercy.

Pol. Do you know me, my lord?

Ham. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

Pol. Not I, my lord?

Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man. Pol. Honest, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. Pol. That's very true, my lord.

Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing carrion,

daughter?

Pol. I have, my lord.

Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun:

to 't.

Have you a

friend, look

Pol. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harping on my daughter:- yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger: He is far gone, far gone: and, truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love: very near this. I'll speak to him again. What do you read, my lord? Ham. Words, words, words! Pol. What is the matter, my lord? Ham. Between who?

Pol. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here, that old men have grey beards; that their

faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, and plumb-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit: all of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. [Aside.] Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Ham. Into my grave?

How preg

Pol. Indeed, that is out o' the air. nant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often nadness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter. My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life.

Pol. Fare you well, my

lord.

Ham. These tedious old fools!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Pol. You go to seek the lord Hamlet;

there

he is.

[TO POLONIUS.

Ros. God save you, sir!

Guil. My honour'd lord!

Ros. My most dear lord!

[Exit POLONIUS.

Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.

Ready, apt.

Guil. Happy, in that we are not over happy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live in the middle of her favours? Well, what news?

Ros. None, my lord; but that the world is grown honest.

Ham. Then is dooms-day near: But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guil. Prison, my lord!

Ham. Denmark's a prison.
Ros. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my

lord.

Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O heaven! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.

Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow.

Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs, and outstretched heroes, the beggars' shadows: Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.

Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you.

Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: But there is, sir, an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question', and are most tyrannically clapp'd for 't: 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.

3

Ham. What, are they children? who maintains them? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sin? 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?

Ros. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre* them on to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

Ham. Is it possible?

Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

away?

Ham. Do the boys carry it 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, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little. There is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

[Flourish of Trumpets within.

Guil. There are the players.

9 Young nestlings.

3 Profession.

Dialogue.

2 Paid.

4 Provoke.

5 i. c. The globe, the sign of Shakspeare's Theatre.