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 away,
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orizons
Be all my sins remembered.

Ophe. Good my Lord,

How does your Honor for this many a day?

Ham. I humbly thank you: well, well, well.

Ophe. My Lord, I have Remembrances of yours, That I have longed long to re-deliver.

I

pray you now, receive them.

Ham. No, no, I never gave you ought.

Ophe. My honour'd Lord, I know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd,
As made the things more rich, then perfume left:
Take these again, for to the Noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind.
There my Lord.

Ham. Ha, ha: Are you honest ?

Ophe. My Lord.

Ham. Are you fair?

Ophe. What means your Lordship?

Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your Honesty should admit no discourse to your Beauty.

Ophe. Could Beauty my Lord, have better Comerce than your 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 sometime a Paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Ophe. Indeed my Lord, you made me believe so.

Ham. You should not have believed me. For virtue cannot so innoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.

Ophe. I was the more deceived.

Ham. Get thee to a Nunnery. Why would'st thou be a breeder of Sinners? I am my self 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 Heaven and Earth. We are arrant Knaves all, believe none of us. Go thy ways to a Nunnery. Where's your Father? Ophe. At home, my Lord.

Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the Fool no way, but in 's own house. Farewell.

Ophe. 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. Go, 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.

Ophe. O heavenly Powers, restore him.

Ham. I have heard of your prattlings too well enough. God has given you one pace, and you make your self another: you gidge, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname Gods creatures, and make your Wantonness, your Ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on'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.

Ophe. Oh what a Noble mind is here o'er-thrown? The Courtiers, Soldiers, Scholars: Eye, tongue, sword, Th' expectancy and Rose of the fair State,

The glass of Fashion, and the mould of Form,
Th' observ'd of all Observers, quite, quite down.

D

Have 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 Bels jangled out of tune, and harsh,
That unmatch'd Form and Feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy. Oh woe is me,

T'have seen what I have seen: see what I see.

Enter King, and Polonius.

King. Love? His affections do not that way tend,
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd Form a little,
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 to prevent

I have in quick determination

Thus set it down. He shall with speed to England

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.

Pol. It shall do well.

you on't?

What think

But yet do I believe

The Origin and Commencement of this 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
To shew his Griefs: let her be round with him,
And I'll be plac'd 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.

Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players. Ham. Speak the Speech I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you trippingly on the Tongue: But if you mouth it, as many of your Players do, I had as lief the Town-Crier had spoke my Lines: Nor do not saw the Air too much your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the very Torrent, Tempest, and (as I may say) the Whirl-wind of Passion, you must acquire and beget a Temperance that may give it Smoothness. O it offends me to the Soul, to see a robustious Pery-wig-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 shews, and noise: I could have such a Fellow whipt for o'er-doing Termagant: it out-Herod's Herod. Pray you avoid it.

Player. I warrant your Honor.

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-stop not the modesty of Nature; for any thing so over-done, 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 shew Virtue her own Feature, Scorn her own Image, and the very Age and Body of the Time, his form and pressure. Now, this over-done, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the Judicious grieve; The censure of the which One, must in your allowance o'er-weigh a whole Theatre of Others. Oh, 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, or Norman, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Natures Journey-men had made men, and not made them well, they imitated Humanity so abominably.

Play. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us, Sir. 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 considered: that's Villainous, and shews a most pitiful Ambition in the Fool that uses it. Go make you ready. Exit Players.

Enter Polonius, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne.

How now my Lord,

Will the King hear this piece of Work?

Pol. And the Queen too, and that presently.

Ham. Bid the Players make haste.

Will you two help to hasten them?

Both. We will my Lord.

Exit Polonius.

Exeunt.

Enter Horatio.

Ham. What hoa, Horatio?

Hora. Here sweet Lord, at your Service. Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my Conversation coped withal.

Hora. 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, like absurd pomp,

And crook the pregnant Hinges of the knee,

Where thrift may follow faining? Dost thou hear,
Since my dear Soul was Mistress of my choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election

Hath seal'd thee for her self. For thou hast been

As one in suffering all, that suffers nothing.

A man that Fortunes buffets, and Rewards

Hath ta'en with equal Thanks. And bless'd are those,
Whose Blood and Judgment are so well co-mingled,
That they are not a Pipe for Fortunes finger,

To sound what stop she please. Give me that man,
That is not Passions Slave, and I will wear him
In my hearts Core: Ay, in my Heart of heart,