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, seem'd 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 1 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,
A roused 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!

gods,

In general synod, take away her power;

All you

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!'

Po. This is too long.

Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard.— Pr'ythee, say on: he's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on: come to Hecuba.

1 Light clouds.

1 Play. But who, ah, woe! had seen the mobled

queen

1

Ham. The mobled queen?

Po. That's good; mobled queen is good.

1 Play. Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames

With bisson 2 rheum; a clout upon that head,
Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe,
About her lank and all o'erteemed loins,

A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;— Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd, '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 clamor that she made, (Unless things mortal move them not at all) Would have made milch the burning eye of heaven,

And passion in the gods.'

Po. Look, whether he has not turned his color, and has tears in 's eyes.-Pr'ythee, no more.

Ham. 'Tis well; I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.-Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear? let them be

1 i. e. the queen attired in a coarse and careless headdress. 2 Blind.

well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph, than their ill report while you live.

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

Ham. Odd's bodikin, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Po. Come, sirs.

[Exit Polonius, with some of the Players. Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play tomorrow. Dost thou hear me, old friend? can you play the murder of Gonzago?

1 Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. 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?

1 Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Very well.-Follow that lord; and look you mock him not. [Exit Player.] My good friends, [to Ro. and Guil.] I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore.

Ro. Good my lord!

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Ham. Ay, so, good bye to you. Now I am

alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous, that this player here,
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 wann'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect,

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 ear1 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 damn'd defeat 2 was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the
throat,

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha!

1 i. e. the ear of all mankind.

2 Destruction.

Why, I should take it; for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, 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 1 vil-

lain!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave; That I, the son of a dear father murder'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, And fall a cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion!

Fie upon

't! foh! About my brains! Humph! 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 proclaim'd 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 do blench,3
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil; and the devil hath power

Unnatural.

3 Shrink or start.

2 Search his wounds.