The dramatic works of Shakspeare, from the text of Johnson and Stevens [sic. Wanting pp

Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.
Oph.
Madam, I wish it may.
[Exit Queen.
Pol. Ophelia, walk you here:-Gracious,
so please you,
We will bestow ourselves :-Read on this
book;
[To OPHELIA.
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.-We are oft to blame in this,
'Tis too much proved |,-that, with devotion's
And pious action, we do sugar o'er [visage,
The devil himself.
O, 'tis too true! how smart
A lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering
art,

King.

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burden!

[Aside.

Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw,
my lord.

[Exeunt King and POLONIUS.
Enter HAMLET.

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the ques-
tion:-

But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscover'd country,from whose bourn¶¶
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.-Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia: Nymph, in thy orisons***,
Be all my sins remember'd.
Oph.
Good, my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham. I humbly thank you; well. [your's,
Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
pray you, now receive them.
Ham.

I never gave you aught.

well, you did;

No, not I;

Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right [composed And, with them, words of so sweet breath As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,

Take these again; for to the noble mind,
Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove un-
There, my lord.

Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest?
Oph. My lord?

Ham. Are you fair? ·

[kind.

Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, you should 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 proof. I did love you once.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
Aud, by opposing, end them?-To die,-toit
sleep,-

No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ach, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die;-to sleep;
To sleep! perchance to dreani;-ay, there's
the rub;
[come,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
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,
[tumely tt,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con-
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin, who would fardels
To grunt and sweat under a weary life; [bear,

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 loved you not. Oph. I was the more deceived.

Ham. Get thee to a nuunery; Why wouldst 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 ttt, 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;

** Consideration.

$5 The ancient term for a small dagger..
TT Boundary, limits.
*** Prayers.

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.

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 your wantonness your ig-
norance: Go to; I'll no more of't; it hath
made me mad. I say, we will have no more
marriages: those that are married already, all
but one shall live; the rest shall keep as they
are. To a nunnery go. [Exit HAMLET.
-Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'er-
thrown!
[sword:
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue,
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould * of form,
The observed of all observers! quite, quite
down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music 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
Blasted with ecstasy +: 0, woe is me! [youth,
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;
[little,
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a
Was not like madness. There's something in
his soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Will be some danger: Which for to prevent,
I have, in quick determination,
[land,
Thus set it down; he shall with speed to Eng-
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you
on't?

Pol. It shall do well: But yet I do believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.-How now,
Ophelia,

You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all.-My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him

The model by whom all endeavoured to form
Reprimand him with freedom.

To show his grief; let her be round with him;
And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference: If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him, where
Your wisdom best shall think.
King.
It shall be so:

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go..
[Exeunt.

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 1 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 Termagant; it outherods Herod : Pray you, avoid it.

1 Play. I warrant your honour.

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'er-step not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror 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 T. 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 bel lowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abo. minably.

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 con sidered: that's villanous; and shows a most

themselves.

+ Alienation of mind. The meaner people then seem to have sat in the pit. Impression, resemblance. Conversation, discourse.

Herod's character was always violent.
• Approbation.

Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service. Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation coped withal. Hor. O, my dear lord,Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter: For what advancement may I hope from thee, That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits, To feed, and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp; And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish her election,
She hath seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast
been

As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;
A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards
Has ta'en with equal thanks: and bless'd are
those,
[mingled,
Whose blood and judgment are so well co-
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please: Give me that

man

That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee-Something too much of this.-
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance,
Which I have told thee of my father's death.
I pr'ythee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe my uncle: if his occulted + guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note:
For I mine cyes will rivet to his face;
And, after, we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

Hor.

Well, my lord:

dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: You cannot feed capons so.

King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

Ham. No, nor mine now. My lord,-you played once in the University, you say? [TO POLONIUS.

Pol. That did I, my lord ; and was accounted a good actor.

Ham. And what did you enact? Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i'the Capitol; Brutus killed me.

Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there.-Be the players ready? Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay || upon your patience.

Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

Pol. O ho! do you mark that?

[To the King. Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap? down at

Oph. No, my lord.

Ham. I mean my head upon your lap? Oph. Ay, my lord.

feet.

Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters?

Oph. I think nothing, my lord.

Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

Oph. What is, my lord?
Ham. Nothing.

Oph. You are merry, my lord.
Ham. Who, I?

Oph. Ay, my lord.

What

Ham. O! your only jig-maker. 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 wear 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 he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby. horse is forgot.

Trumpets sound. The dumb show follows. Enter a King and a Queen, very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poi soner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with

Wait..

Shop, stithy is a smith's shop. The richest dress.

her. The dead body is carried away. The | A second time I kill my husband dead, poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she When second husband kisses me in bed. seems loath and unwilling awhile, but, in P. King. I do believe, you think what now the end, accepts his love. [Exeunt. you speak; Oph. What means this, my lord? Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho*: it means inischief.

Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all. Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant? Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him: 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,
We beg your hearing patiently,

But, what we do determine, oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory;
Of violent birth, but poor validity:
[tree;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis, that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy [stroy:
Their own enactures with themselves de.
Where joy most revels, grief doth most la.
ment;

Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for ayess; nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes
change;

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,

ring?

Oph. 'Tis brieft, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a King and a Queen.

P. King. Fall thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round [ground; Neptune's salted wash, and Tellus' orbid And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen ||, [been; About the world have times twelve thirties Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,

Unite eommntual in most sacred bands.
P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun!
and moon

Make us again count o'er, ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer, and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women fear too much, even as they love;
And women's fear and love hold quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity. [know;
Now, what my love, is proof hath made you
And as my love is sized ¶, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are
fear;
[there.
Where little fears grow great, great love grows
P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love,
and shortly too;
[do:
My operant ** powers their functions leave to
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, beloved; and, haply, one as kind,
For husband shalt thou-

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;

*Secret wickedness. Magnitude, proportion.

Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune lovea

[flies; The great man down, you mark his favourite The poor advanced makes friends of enemies, And hitherto doth love on fortune tend: For who not needs, shall never lack a friend;

And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,-
Our wills, and fates, do so contrary run,
That our devices still are overthrown; [own:
Our thoughts are our's, their ends none of our
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is
dead.
[heaven light

P. Queen. Nor earth to give me food, nor Sport and repose lock from me, day and night!

To desperation turn my trust and hope'
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
Both here, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

Ham. If she should break it now,--
[To OPHELIA.
P. King. 'Tis deeply sworn, Sweet, leave
me here a while;

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with sleep. [Sleeps. P. Queen. 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.

+ Short. + Car, chariot.
** Active. + Motive Determinations.
Anchoret.

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 wincet, our withers are unwrung.Enter LUCIANUS.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord. Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying. Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge.

Oph. Still better, and worse.

Ham. So you mistake your husbands.Begin, murderer ;-leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come;

-The croaking raven Doth bellow for revenge.

Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;

Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, [fected, With Hecat's bant thrice blasted, thrice inThy natural magic and dire property, On wholesome life usurp immediately. [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.

Oph. The king rises.

Hum. What! frighted with false fire!
Queen. How fares my lord?
Pol. Give o'er the play.

King. Give me some light :-away!
Pol. Lights, lights, lights!

[Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO.
Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play:

For some must watch, while some must Thus runs the world away.- [sleep, Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers ý, (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me,) with two Provencial roses on my razed ¶ shoes, get me a fellowship in a ery **of players, sir ?

Hor. Half a share.

Ham. A whole one, I.

For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very-peacock.

Hor. You might have rhymed.
Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's
word 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 music; come,
the recorders H.-

For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy #.-
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Come, some music.

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. Is, in his retirement, marvellous distempered.

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.

Ham. I am tame, sir :-pronounce. Guil. The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. Ham. You are welcome.

Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment; if not, your pardou, and my return, shall be the end of my business.

Ham. Sir, I cannot.

Guil. What, my lord?

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: My mother, you say,

Ros. Then thus she says; Your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!-But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? impart.

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 o 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?

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The dramatic works of Shakspeare, from the text of Johnson and Stevens [sic ...