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! A broken voice, and his whole function suiting What's Hecuba to him, or be to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would he do, 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, Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave; Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, And fall a cursing like a very drab, A scullion! Fye upon 't! foh! About my brains! Humph! That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, players Play something like the murder of my father, ACT III. SCENE I. A Room in the Castle. Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. King. And can you, by no drift of conference Get from him why he puts on this confusion; Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? 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. 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. To any pastime? Did you assay him 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; And, as I think, they have already order This night to play before him. Pol. 'Tis most true: And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties, To hear and see the matter. King. With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclin'd. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Her father, and myself (lawful espials), Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen, If't be the affliction of his love, or no, Queen. I shall obey you: And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish, That your good beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope, your virtues Will bring him to his wonted way again, Oph. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit Queen. please you, Pol. Ophelia, walk you here:-Gracious, so We will bestow ourselves:-Read on this book; [To OPHELIA. That show of such an exercise may colour Your loneliness.-We are oft to blame in this,'Tis too much prov'd,-that, with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er King. [Aside. Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my [Exeunt King and POLONIUS. lord. Enter HAMLET. Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question:- No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con tumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; Oph. Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longed long to redeliver; I pray you, now receive them. Ham. I never gave you aught. No, not I; Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well, you did: And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd As made the things more rich: their perfume lost, Ham. Ha, ba! are you honest? Ham. Are you fair? Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? 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 his 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 believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not. Oph. I was the more deceived. 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 VOL. VIII. R |