tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoricalcomical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene indi

vidable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too
heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of
writ, and the liberty, these are the only men.
Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel,—what a
treasure hadst thou!

Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord?
Ham. Why-

One fair daughter, and no more,

The which he loved passing well.

Pol. [aside.] Still on my daughter.

Ham. Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah? Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter, that I love passing well.

Ham. Nay, that follows not.

Pol. What follows then, my lord?
Ham. Why,

As by lot, God wot,

and then you know,

It came te pass, as most like it was.

The first row of the pious chanson will show you more: for look, where my abridgment

comes.

Enter four or five Players.

You're welcome, masters; welcome, all :-I am glad to see thee well :-welcome, good friends. -O, my old friend! Thy face is valiant since I saw thee last; com'st thou to beard me in Denmark? What! my young lady and mistress! By-'r-lady, your ladyship is nearer heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altitude

of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.-Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at anything we see we'll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.

I Play. What speech, my lord?

Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, -but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviarie to the general: but it was (as I received it, and others, whose judgments, in such matters, cried in the top of mine,) an excellent play: well digested in the scenes; set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said, there were no sallets in the lines, to make the matter savoury; nor no matter in the phrase that might indite the author of affectation; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One chief speech in it I chiefly loved: 'twas Æneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam's slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin at this line; let me see, let me see;

The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast, -it is not so; it begins with Pyrrhus

The rugged Pyrrhus,-he, whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,-

Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
With heraldry more dismal: head to foot
Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons;

Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and damned light

To their vile murders: roasted in wrath and fire.
And thus o'er-sizèd with coagulate gore,

With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.

So proceed you.

Pol. 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken; with good accent, and good discretion.

1 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 match'd,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide:
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
The unnerved father fails. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel his 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, 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 stand still,
The bold wind 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 his 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!

Pol. 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 Play. But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen

Ham. The mobled queen?

Pol. That's good: mobled queen is good.

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

With bisson rheum; a clout about that head,
Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed 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 pro-
nounced:

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 his eyes.-Pray you, no more.

Ham. 'Tis 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 lived.

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

:

Ham. Odd's bodikin man, better 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.

Pol. Come, sirs.

Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow [Exit PoL., with some of the Players.] -[Aside to 1 Player.] Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play The Murder of Gonzago? 1 Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. [aside.] We'll have't 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. [aside.] Very well.-Follow that lord; and look you mock him not. [Exit Player.] My good friends [to Ros. and GUIL.], I'll leave you till night you are welcome to Elsinore.

:

Ros. Good my lord!

Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' you:

[Exeunt ROSEN. and GUILD.
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 whole 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?

tears,

He would drown the stage with

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed,