Hamlet.

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 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.

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 observed of all observers,-quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh ;
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Love! his affections do not that way tend;

Nor what he spake, though it lacked 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 brain still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on 't?

Pol.

It shall do well; but yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.

My lord, do as you please;

But, if you hold it fit, after the play,

Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
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.

It shall be so:

King.

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

[Exeunt c.

Scene Second.-A HALL IN THE CASTLE [FIRST GROOVES].

[N. B.-During this scene, set the Dais with chairs

R, Platform L, chair and stool c.

[Enter Hamlet and First Player.

Hamlet.

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, the whirlwind of 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'erdoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

First Player.

I warrant your honour.

Hamlet.

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 anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 't were, 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 the 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 them, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

First Player.

I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.

Hamlet.

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 meantime, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.

Horatio!

[Exit Player. [Enter Horatio.

Horatio.

Here, sweet lord, at your service.

Hamlet.

Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.

O, my dear lord,—

Horatio.

Hamlet.

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 flattered?
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

Hath sealed 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 blessed 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 mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note:

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;
And, after, we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

Horatio.

Well, my lord.

Hamlet.

[March, pp.

They are coming to the play. Get you a place.

I must be idle.

[Exeunt. Scene changes.

Scene Third.-SAME AS SCENE FIRST.

[Guards, lords, and ladies discovered.

Danish

march. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Horatio, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet

King.

[Ascends throne R.

How fares our cousin Hamlet ?

Hamlet.

Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's 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.

Hamlet.

No, nor mine now. [To Polonius.] played once in the university, you say?

Pol.

My lord, you

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

Hamlet.

And what did you enact ?

Pol.

I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i' the Capitol; Brutus killed me.