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 ignorance: 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'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 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 youth,
Blasted with ecstasy:† 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?
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 themselves.
† Alienation of mind.

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.

SCENE II-A Hall in the same.

Enter HAMLET, and certain PLAYERS.

[Exeunt.

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 show, and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods 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'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 '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, to'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, 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 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?

*The people in the pit.
+ Opinion.

+ Impression.
Conversation,

Pol. 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.

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 candid 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
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and bless'd are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
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 eyes will rivet to his face;

And, after, we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

Hor. Well, my lord:

If he steal aught, the whilst this play is playing,

And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be idle:

Get you a place.

Danish March-A Flourish.-Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?

* Quick.

† Secret.

+ Opinion.

Ham. Excellent i'faith; of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promise-cramm'd: 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 kill'd 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?
Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

Oph. No, my lord.

[To the KING.

[Lying down at OPHELIA'S Feet.

Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?

Oph. Ay, my lord.

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.

Ham. O! your only jig-maker. What 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, by3r-lady, he must build churches then: or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobbyhorse; 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 poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts; she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but, in the end, accepts his love. [Exeunt.

.* Wait.

† A suit lined with sables.

Oph. What means this, my lord ?

Ham. Marry, this is miching malheco;* it means mischief. 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.

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

Oph. Tis brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a KING and a QUEEN.

P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen,†
About the world have times twelve thirties been ;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual 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 woman's fear and love hold quantity:
In neither aught, or in extremity.

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;

Where little fears grows great, great love grows there.

P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;

My operant powers their functions leave to do:

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;
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
* Skulking wickedness.
+ Shining:

[Aside.

+ Active. § Motives.