Is it not monstrous, that this player here, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, A damn'd defeat' was made. Am I a coward? throat, As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? About, my brains! Hum! I have heard, Play something like the murder of my father, 25 130 ND can you by no drift of con- Get from him, why he puts on this confusion; Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players Ros.He does confess, he feels himself distracted; Queen. Did he receive you well? Ros. Most like a gentleman. Gail. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply. 55 Pol. Tis most true: And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties, King. With all my heart; and it doth much To hear him so inclin'd. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither; 10 i. e. the hint, the direction. 2 i. e. not quickened with a new desire of vengeance; not teeming with vengeance. 'Defeat, for dispossession." * i. e. unnatural. The meaning is, Wits, to your work, Brain, go about the present business. i. e. search his wounds. i. e. if he shrink, or start. Relative, for convictive, according to Warburton.-Relative is, nearly related, closely connected, according to Dr. Johnson. ? Over-raught is over-reached, that is, over-took. 10 To affront, is only to meet directly. Her father, and myself (lawful espials') If 't be the affliction of his love, or no, Queen. I shall obey you: And, for my part, Ophelia, I do wish, No traveller returns-puzzles the will; That your good beauties be the happy cause Oph. Madam, I wish it may. please you, [Exit Queen. We will bestow ourselves:-Read on this book;} [To Ophelia. 15 That show of such an exercise may colour King. O, 'tis too true! how smart [sage, A lash that speech doth give myconscience![Aside. Oph. Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day? Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, never gave you aught. Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well, you did; [pos'd, And, with them, words of so sweet breath comAs made the things inore rich: their perfume lost, 25 Take these again; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind. There, my lord. Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question:- For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest? Ham. Are you fair? Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That, if you be honest, and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty. Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better com35 merce than with honesty? 40 Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into its likeness: this was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I'did love you once. Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have believ'd me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we 45 shall relish of it: I lov'd you not. Oph. I was the more deceiv'd. Ham. Get thee to a nunnery; Why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such 50 things, that it were better, my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in: What should 55 such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none 1 i. e. spies. 2 i. e. turmoil, bustle. Dr. Warburton remarks, that "the evils here complained of are not the product of time or duration simply, but of a corrupted age or manners. We may be sure, then, that Shakspeare wrote, the whips and scorns of th' time.' And the description of the evils of a corrupt age, which follows, confirms this emendation." This expression probably alluded to the writ of discharge, which was formerly granted to those barons and knights who personally attended the king on any foreign expedition. This discharge was called a Quietus. It is at this time the term for the acquittance which every sheriff receives on settling his accounts at the exchequer. A bodkin was the ancient term for a small dagger. of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell. 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! 5 10 15 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; 20 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 Hamlet. 25 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, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! King. Love! his affections do not that way Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; Thus set it down; He shall with speed to England, 4 't Pol. It shall do well: But yet do I believe Let his queen-mother all alone entreat him Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players. Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd 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 perriwig-pated' fellow tear a 30 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 whipp'd for o'er-doing Termagant'; it out-herods Herod*: Pray you, avoid it. 35 40 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 any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold as 'twere the mir ror up to nature; to shew virtue her own fea45ture, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this, over-done, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your 50allowance, o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play,—and heard others praise, and that highly,—not to speak fit profanely, that, neither having the accent of christians, nor the gait of christian, pagan, nor [55[man, have so strutted, and beHow'd, that I have i. e. you mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to mistake by ignorance. The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves. The word ecstacy was anciently used to signify some degree of alienation of mind. To be round with a person, is to reprimand him with freedom. This is a ridicule on the quantity of false hair worn in Shakspeare's time; for wigs were not in common use till the reign of Charles II. Players, however, seem to have worn them most generally. The meaner people then seem to have sat below, as they now sit in the upper gallery, who, not well understanding poetical language, were sometimes gratified by a mimical and mute representation of the drama, previous to the dialogue. 'Termagant was a Saracen deity, very clamorous and violent, in the old moralities. The character of Herod in the ancient mysteries was always a violent one. ? i. e. resemblance, as in a print. 10 Any gross or indelicate language was called profane. 1 thought 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 mean 10 time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous; and shews 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? Pol. And the queen too, and that presently. Will you two help to hasten them? 15 [Exit Pol. 20 [Exeunt Ros. and Guil. Enter Horatio. Ham. What ho; Horatio! 140 No, let the candy'd tongue lick absurd pomp; As Vulcan's stithy 3: Give him heedful note: 145 For I mine eyes will rivet to his face; 50 Hor. Well, my lord: If he steal aught, the whilst this play is playing, Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others. King, How fares our cousin Hamlet? 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 play'd once i' the university, you say? [To Polonius, Pol. That did I, my lord: and was accounted good actor. a Ham. And what did you enact? Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was kill'd 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? [To the King. Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [Lying down at Ophelia's feet. Oph. No, my lord. 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. [legs. Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' 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, by'r-lady, he must build 55 churches then: or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse'; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot. 2 The sense of pregnant in this place is, quick, ready, prompt. According to the doctrine of the four humours, desire and confidence were seated in the blood, and judgement in the phlegm; and the due mixture of the humours made a perfect character. Stithy is a smith's anvil. 4 Dr. Johnson thinks we must read, Do you think I meant country manners? Do you imagine that I meant to sit in your lap, with such rough gallantry as clowns use to their lasses? 'Amongst the country maygames there was an hobby-horse, which, when the puritanical humour of those times opposed and discredited these games, was brought by the poets and ballad-makers as an instance of the ridiculous zéal of the sectaries: from these ballads Hamilet quotes a line or two. Trumpets Trumpets sound. The dumb show follows. Enter a King and Queen, very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestations unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays 5 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 poisonin the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. 10 The poisoner, with some two or three mutes,comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but, in the end, accepts his love. 15 Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument 20 of the play. Enter Prologue. Ham. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all. Ŏph. Will he tell us what this show meant ? Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll shew him : Be not you asham'd to shew, 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. 25 My operant powers their functions leave to do: P. Queen. O, confound the rest! P. Queen. The instances that second marriage P. King. I do believe, you think what now you But what we do determine, oft we break. To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt: Their own enactures with themselves destroy: Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange, 30That even our loves should with our fortunes change; For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies; 35 The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemics. And hitherto doth love on fortune tend; For who not needs, shall never lack a friend; And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy. 40 P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and 45 moon But, orderly to end where I begun,- 6 Sport, and repose, lock from me, day, and night' To desperation turn my trust and hope! 50 An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope! Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy, Meet what I would have well, and it destroy! Both here, and hence, pursue my lasting strife, If, once a widow, ever I be wife! Make us again count o'er, ere love be done! there. [know; P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and 6c Ham. Ifshe should break it now,- [To Oph. P. King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave ine here a while; My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile Hanmer tell us, that miching malicho signifies mischief lying hid, and that malicho is the Spanish malheco." motives. A chariot was anciently so called. Splendour, lustre, * Operant is active. The And |