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. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours? Guil. 'Faith, her privates we. Ham. In the secret parts 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 prison hither? Guil. Prison, my lord! 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 nutshell, 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. Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs, and outstretch'd heroes, the beggar's shadows: Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you. 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 ? Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion. Ham. 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. Anything-but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties * (At). 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. I have of late (but, wherefore, I know not), lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a steril promontory; this most 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 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, 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 lentent 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 laugh, 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 followed ? Ros. No, indeed they are not. Ham. How comes it? do they grow rusty? * Understand you. Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: But there is, Sir, an aiery of children,* little eyasest that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped 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. Ham. What, are they children? who maintains them? how are they escoted? § Will they 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 T 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? Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains. Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. ** Ham. It is not very strange: for my uncle is king of Denmark, and those, that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. Guil. There are the players. [Flourish of Trumpets within. Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands. Come, then the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: 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 deceived. Guil. In what, my dear lord ? 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! Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern;-and you too;-at each ear a hearer: that great baby, you see there, is not yet out of his swaddling clouts. Ros. Happily, he's the second time come to them; for, they say, an old man is twice a child. Ham. I will prophesy, he comes to tell me of the players; mark it. You say right, Sir: o'Monday morning; 'twas then, indeed. * An allusion to a competition worked against Shakespeare's theatre by means of the children of the Chapel Royal. + Nestlings. I Profession. + Dialogue. ¶ Provoke. * Compliment. ** I. e. the Globe, the sign of Shakspeare's theatre. †† Miniature. Paid. Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you. Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you; when Roscius was an actor in Rome, Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord. 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, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral [tragicalhistorical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral], scene individable, 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. Still on my daughter. Ham. Am I not i'the right, old Jephthah? [Aside. 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 what, and then, you know, It came to pass, As most like it was,-The first row of the pious chanson + will show you more; for, look, my abridgment comes. 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 crack'd 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. 1 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 caviare ¶ 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 sallads in the lines, to make the matter savoury; nor no matter in the phrase, that might indite the author of affection: §§ but call'd it, an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more hand * Writing. § Fringed. + Christmas carol. ** Common people. †† Above. * Convict. + Or "brief chronicle." A Russian delicacy. §§ Affectation. some 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, To their lord's murder: Roasted in wrath, and fire, 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, Of reverend Priam, seem'd i'the air to stick ; But, as we often see, against some storm, A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, Pol. This is too long. * All red. † Smeared. Light clouds. Eternal. |