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Pol.

'Fore heaven, my lord, well spoken, with good accent

and good discretion.

Hamlet.

So proceed you.

First Play.

Anon he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command; unequal matched,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives: in rage strikes wide;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
The unnervèd father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear; for, lo! his sword,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seemed i' the air to stick:
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood :
And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.

But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death; anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
Arousèd vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars's armour, forged for proof eterne,
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.-

Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod, take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends!

This is too long.

Pol.

Hamlet.

It shall to the barber's, with your beard.-Pr'ythee, say on:-come to Hecuba.

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Hamlet.

[With momentary sad pre-occupation: his thought is

of his mother.

"The inobled queen."

Pol.

That's good; "inobler queen" is good.

First Play.

Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood; and for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemèd loins,

A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up; -
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped,
'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounced:
But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made
(Unless things mortal move them not at all),
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.

Pol.

Look, whether he has not turned his colour, and has tears in 's eyes.- Pray you, no more.

Hamlet.

'T is well; I 'll have thee speak out the rest soon. - Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you

live.

Pol.

My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

1

Hamlet.

Much better, sir; use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Come, sirs.

Pol.

Hamlet.

Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow. [Exit Polonius, with all the players except the first, L. Old friend.

[The First Player pauses in the act of retiring. Hamlet then addresses Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

My good friends, I 'll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Hamlet then speaks again to the player.

Can you play the murder of Gonzago ?

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Hamlet.

We 'll have it to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in 't, could you not ?

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Hamlet.

Very well.- Follow that lord; and look you mock him

not.

Now I am alone.

[Exit First Player L.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous, that this player here,

HAMLET.

But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his visage wanned;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspèct,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!

What 's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward ?
Who calls me villain ?

Gives me the lie i' the throat,

As deep as to the lungs ? who does me this?
Why, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal :- bloody, bawdy villain !
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Why, what an ass am I ! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a bawd, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion!

Fie upon it! foh!- About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,

Have by the very cunning of the scene

Been struck so to the soul, that presently

They have proclaimed their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I 'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this:- the play 's the thing
Wherein I 'll catch the conscience of the king.

CURTAIN.

[Exit Hamlet L

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