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, Pol. Look, whether he has not turned 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 de sert. Ham. Odd's 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 PoL. 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. 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 Ros. and GUIL.] I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore. Ros. Good my lord! [Exeunt Ros. and GUILD. Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' 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 aspéct, 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, Make mad the guilty, and appal the free, The eyes and ears. A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, Ha! Why, I should take it: for it cannot be, I should have fatted all the region kites Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, A scullion! Fye 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 For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak More relative than this: The play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. [Exit. ACT III. SCENE I.-A Room in the Castle. Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSEN- King. And can you by no drift of conference Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted; But from what cause he will by no means speak. Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded; But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, When we would bring him on to some confession. Of his true state. Queen. Did he receive you well? Ros. Most like a gentleman. Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply. Queen. Did you assay him To any pastime ? Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him; And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it; They are about the court; |