Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you. thick amber, and plum-tree gum; and that they shadows: Shall we to the court? for, by my have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most fay, I cannot reason. weak hams: All of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down: for yourself, sir, should be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward. Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. [Aside.] Will you walk out of the air, my lord? Ham. Into my grave? Pol. Indeed, that is out o' the air.-How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter. My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life. Pol. Fare you well, my lord. Ham. Those tedious old fools! Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Pol. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is. Ros. God save you, sir! [To POLONIUS. [Exit POLONIUS. Guil. My honour'd lord!— Ros. My most dear lord!Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both? Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. Guil. Happy, in that we are not overhappy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button, Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe? Ros. Neither, my lord. Ham. No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore? [sion. Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occaHam. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear, a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come,-deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak. Guil. What should we say, my lord? Ham. Any thing--but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know, the good king and queen have sent for you. Ros. To what end, my lord? Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no? Ros. What say you? [To GUILDENSTERN. Ham. Nay, then, I have an eye of you; [Aside.] -if you love me, hold not off. Guil. My lord, we were sent for. Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. have of late (but, wherefore, I know not,) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in seems to me a steril promontory; this most the middle of her favours? Guil. 'Faith, her privates we. Ham. In the secret paths of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What news? Ros. None, my lord; but that the world is grown honest. Ham. Then is doomsday near: But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to Guil. Prison, my lord? [prison hither? Ham. Denmark's a prison. Ros. Then is the world one. Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst. Ros. We think not so, my lord. Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison. Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind. Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a mutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams. Guil. Which dreams, indeed are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow. Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow. Hom. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs, and outstretch'd heroes, the beggars' excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form, and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me, no, nor woman neither; though, by your smiling, you seem to say so. Ros. My lord, there is no such stuff in my thoughts. Ham, Why did you laugh, then, when I said, Man delights not me? Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service. Ham. He that plays the king, shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me: the adventurous knight shall use his foil, and target: the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace: the clown shall make those langh, whose lungs are tickled o'the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't. What players are they? Ros, Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city. Ham. How chances it, they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. Ros. I think, their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation. Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so folRos. No, indeed, they are not. [lowed? Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty? Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: But there is, sir, an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapp'd for't; these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages (so they call them), that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come thither. 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 Jepthah, judge of Israel,-what a treasure hadst thou! a Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord? Pol. Still on my daughter, Ham. Nay, that follows not. Pol. What follows then, my lord? Ham. Why, As by lot, God woot, and then, you know, It came to pass, As most like it was,-The Ham. What, are they children? who main-first row of the pious chanson will show you tains them? how are they escoted? Will they more; for look, my abridgment comes. pursue the quality, no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players (as it is most like, if their means are no better,) their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession? Ros. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre them on to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. Ham. Is it possible? [of brains? Guil. O, there has been much throwing about Ham. Do the boys carry it away? Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. Enter Four or Five Players. You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:-I am glad to see thee well-welcome, good friends.-O, old friend! Why thy face is valanced 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 to 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 any thing we see: We'll have a speech straight: Come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech. Ham. It is not very strange: for my uncle is 1 Play. What speech, my lord? King of Denmark, and those, that would make Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, mouths at him while my father lived, give-but it was never acted; or, if it was, not twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats a piece, above once: for the play, I remember, pleased for his picture in little. 'Sblood, there is some- not the million; 'twas caviare to the general: thing in this more than natural, if philosophy but it was (as I received it, and others, whose could find it out. [Flourish of Trumpets within. judgments, in such matters, cried in the top of Guil. There are the players. mine), an excellent play: well digested in the Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsi-scenes, set down with as much modesty as nore. Your hands. Come theu: the appurte- cunning. I remember, one said, there were no nance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: sallets in the lines, to make the matter savoury: let me comply with you in this garb; lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my uncle-father, and aunt-mother, are deGuil. In what, my dear lord? [ceived, Ham. I am but mad north-north west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hand-saw. Enter POLONIUS. Pol, Well be with you, gentlemen! Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you. Pol. Upon my honour, Ham. Then came each actor on his ass, Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoralcomical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene indi nor no matter in the phrase, that might indite the author of affection; but called it, an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved: 'twas Eneas' 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, 'tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus. The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword, But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword But as we often see, against some storm, Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, 1 Play. But who, ah woe! had seen the mobled queen Ham. The mobled queen? Pol. That's good; mobled queen is good. 1 Play. Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head, But if the gods themselves did see her then, Pol. Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, 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 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. Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their desert. Ham. Odds bodikin, man, much better: Use every man after his desert, and who shall '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. [Exit POLONIUS, with some of the Players. Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow. Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the murder of Gonzago? 1 Play. Ay, my lord. Yon Ham. We'll have it to-morrow night. 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 Ros, and GUIL.] I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore. Ros. Good my lord! [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' you:-Now I am alone. O what a rogue and peasant slave am I What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Why, I should take it: for it cannot be, villain! Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave; Fye upon't! foh! About my brains! Humph! Play something like the murder of my father, |