There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. A dream itself is but a shadow. Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2. Ibid. Ibid. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks. This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! Ibid. Man delights not me: no, nor woman neither. Ibid. There is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. Ibid. I know a hawk from a handsaw. Ibid. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou! Ibid. One fair daughter and no more, The which he loved passing well. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Ibid. Ibid. The play, I remember, pleased not the million; 't was caviare to the general. Ibid. 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. Ibid. Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? Ibid. Ibid. Unpack my heart with words, And fall a-cursing, like a very drab. Hamlet. Act ü. Sc. 2. For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ.1 Ibid. The play's the thing Ibid. Ibid. Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. With devotion's visage And pious action we do sugar o'er Ibid. Act iii. Sc. 1. To be, or not to be: that is the question: The heartache and the thousand natural shocks To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub: Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 1 See Chaucer, page 5. With a bare bodkin? who would fardels' bear, But that the dread of something after death, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd. Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1 Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. I am myself indifferent honest. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go. Ibid. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another. Ibid. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! Ibid. The expectancy and rose of the fair state, Ibid. Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! 1 "Who would these fardels" in White. Ibid. Ibid. 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, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwigpated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod. Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. To hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature. Ibid. Ibid. The very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Ibid. Though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve. Not to speak it profanely. Ibid. Ibid. I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. Ibid. No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Ibia. A man that fortune's buffets and rewards Ibid. They are not a pipe for fortune's finger To sound what stop she please. Give me that man In my heart's As I do thee. core, ay, in my heart of heart, Something too much of this. Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. Ibid. There's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year. Ibid. For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot. Ibid. This is miching mallecho; it means mischief. Ibid. Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. Ibid. The story is extant, and writ in choice Italian. Ibid. Why, let the stricken deer go weep, For some must watch, while some must sleep: |