Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, you should | For the demand of our neglected tribute r admit no discourse to your beauty. Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness; this was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so, Ham. You should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I lov'd you not.. Oph. I was the more deceived. Ham. Get thee to anunnery; Why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better, my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in: What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven! We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell. Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens! Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry; Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery; farewell: Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough, what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell. Haply, the seas, and countries different, King. SCENE II.-A Hall in the same. Enter HAMLET, and certain Players. Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. 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) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated 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'er-doing Ter magant; it out-herods Herod : pray you, avoid it. 1 Play. I warrant your honour. Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him! Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another; you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own your wantonness your ignorance: Go to, I'll no discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, more of't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will the word to the action; with this special observance, have no more marriages: those that are married that you o'er-step not the modesty of nature; for already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playas they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit HAMLET.ing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword: The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observ'd of all observers! quite, quite down! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck'd the honey of his musick vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! Re-enter KING and POLONIUS. King. Love! his affections do not that way tend; or what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Vas not like madness. There's something in his soul, 'er which his melancholy sits on brood; nd, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose, Will be some danger: Which for to prevent, have, in quick determination, hus set it down; He shall with speed to England, is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirrour up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your allowance, o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of christians, nor the gait of christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. 1 Play. I hope, we have reformed that indifferently with us. Ham. O, reform it altogether. And let those, that play your clowns, speak no more than is set down for them for there be of them, that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service. As e'er my conversation cop'd withal. No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp; Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled, As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note: Well, my lord: Hor. Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be idle : Oph. What is, my lord? Ham. Nothing. Oph. You are merry, my lord. Ham. Who, I? Oph. Ay, my lord. Ham. O your only jig-maker. What should a man do, but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours. Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. Ham. So long? Nay, then let the devil wer black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope, a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: But, by'r-lady, he must build churches then: or else shall be suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, 0, the hobby-horse is forgot. Trumpets sound. The dumb show follees. Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly ; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and parkes show of protestation unto him. He takes her p and declines his head upon her neck: lays down upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takr off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; fish the King dead, and makes passionate action. T poisoner, with some two or three mutes, como again, seeming to lament with her. The dead bal is carried away. The poisoner woes the Que with gifts; she seems loath and unwilling ankli but, in the end, accepts his love. Oph. What means this, my lord? Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it mischief. Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument the play. Enter Prologue. Ham. We shall know by this fellow; the player cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all. Oph. Will he tell us what this show mesat? Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show humi Be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means. Oph. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play. Pro. For us, and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency, Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Ham. As woman's love. Enter a King and a Queen. P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen, About the world have times twelve thirties been; Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands, Unite commutual in most sacred bands. - P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o'er, ere love be done! So far from cheer, and from your former state, Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know; My operant powers their functions leave to do: P. Queen. O, confound the rest! Such love must needs be treason in my breast: In second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second, but who kill'd the first. Ham. That's wormwood. P. Queen. The instances, that second marriage move, Are base respects of thrift, but none of love; P. King. I do believe, you think what now you speak; But, what we do determine, oft we break. Of violent birth, but poor validity: Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree; To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt: Their own enactures with themselves destroy : light! Sport and repose lock from me, day, and night! [TO OPHELIA. P. King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while; My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile P.. Queen. [Sleeps Sleep rock thy brain And never come mischance between us twain ! [Exit. Ham. Madam, how like you this play? Queen. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Ham. O, but she'll keep her word. King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't? Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i'the world. King. What do you call the play? Ham. The mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: But what of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. The croaking raven Doth bellow for revenge. Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing; Confederate season, else no creature seeing; [Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears. Ham. He poisons him i'the garden for his estate, His name's Gonzago ; the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian: You shall see anon, how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife, Hor. You might have rhymed. Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed. Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? Ros. My lord, you once did love me. Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers. Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend. Ham. Sir, I lack advancement. Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark? Ham. Ay, sir, but, While the grass grows, — the proverb is something musty. Enter the Players, with recorders. O, the recorders: - let me see one.-To withdraw with you: Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly. Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word play upon this pipe? for a thousand pound. Didst perceive? ́ Hor. Very well, my lord. Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning, Hor. I did very well note him. Ham. Ah, ha!- Come, some musick; come, the recorders.— For if the king like not the comedy,' Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy. Come, some musick. Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. Ham. Sir, a whole history. Guil. The king, sir, Ham. Ay, sir, what of him? Guil. My lord, I cannot. Guil. Believe me, I cannot. Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord. Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent musick. Look you, these are the stops. Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill. Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: Guil. Is, in his retirement, marvellous dis- and there is much musick, excellent voice, in this tempered. Ham. With drink, sir? Guil. No, my lord, with choler. Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer, to signify this to the doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler. Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair. little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. Sblood, God bless you, sir! Pol. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently. Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in Ham. I am tame, sir: pronounce. Guil. The queen, your mother, in most great shape of a camel? affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. Ham. You are welcome. Pol. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Pol. Very like a whale. Ham. Then will I come to my mother by and by. -They fool me to the top of my bent. - I will come by and by. Pol. I will say so. And do such business as the bitter day SCENE III.A Room in the same. Enter KING, Rosencrantz, and GUILDENSTERN. King. I like him not; nor stands it safe with us, To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you; I your commission will forthwith despatch, And he to England shall along with you: The terms of our estate may not endure, Hazard so near us, as doth hourly grow Out of his lunes. Guil We will ourselves provide: Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound, Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet: Behind the arras I'll convey myself, To hear the process; I'll warrant, she'll tax him home. 'Tis meet, that some more audience than a mother, Thanks, dear my lord. [Exit POLONIUS. O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; Or pardon'd, being down? Then I'll look up; My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen, Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe; [Retires, and kneels. Enter HAMLET. Ham. Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying; Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge. Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent: Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven: [Exit. tongue. |