Blasted with ecstasy.1 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;

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 for 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.-What think you on 't?
Po. 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

1 Alienation of mind.

To show his grief; let her be round with him;1
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 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

2

1 i. e. reprimand him with freedom.

2 The meaner people seem to have sat in the pit in the time of our author.

have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant: it outherods Herod.1 Pray you, avoid it.

1 Play. 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'erstep 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. 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'erweigh 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

1 The character of Herod in the ancient mysteries was always violent.

21. e. impression or resemblance, as in a print.

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 villanous; and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go; make you ready. [Exeunt Players.

Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDenstern. How now, my lord? will the king hear this piece of work?

Po. And the queen too, and that presently.

Ham. Bid the players make haste.—

Will you two help to hasten them?

Both. Ay, my lord.

[Exit Polonius.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Ham. What, ho, Horatio!

Enter HORATIO.

Ho. Here, sweet lord, at your service.
Ham. Horatio, thou art ev'n as just a man

As e'er my conversation coped withal.

Ho. 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 flatter'd ?

be

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant1 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

Hast 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 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 a-foot,
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.3 Give him heedful note:
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;
And, after, we will both our judgments join