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. These 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 over-happy; =On fortune's cap we are not the very button. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe? Ros. Neither, my lord. Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs, and outstretch'd heroes, the beggars' 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. 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 Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in sent for, or no? the middle of her favours? Guil. 'Faith, her privates we. Ros. What say you? [To Guildenstern. Ham. Nay, then I have an eye of you; [Aside.] most-if you love me, hold not off. Ham. In the secret parts of fortune? O, true; she is a strumpet. What news? Ros. None, my lord; but that the world's grown honest. Ham. Then is dooms-day 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 Ham. Denmark's a prison. 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. VOL. II. 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'er-hanging 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, 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 2 M way; and hither are they coming, to offer you | tent to the players, which, I tell you, must show service. 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. 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? 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 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 dure 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 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? 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 swaddlingclouts. Ros. Happily, he's the second time come to them; for, they say, an old man is twice a child. Ham. I will prophecy, he comes to tell me of the players; mark it.-You say right, sir: o'Monday morning; 'twas then, indeed. Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you. 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, tragical-historical, 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 s treasure hadst thou! Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord? Pol. What follows then, my lord? Guil. O, there has been much throwing about know, It came to pass, As most like it was,―The of brains. Ham. Do the boys carry it away? Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look, my abridgment comes. Enter four or five Players. Ham. It is not very strange : for my uncle is You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:-[ king of Denmark; and those, that would make am glad to see thee well:-welcome, good friends. mouths at him while my father lived, give twen--O, old friend! Why, thy face is valanced since ty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for I saw thee last; Com'st thou to beard me in his picture in little. 'Sblood, there is something Denmark?-What! my young lady and misin this more than natural, if philosophy could tress! By-'r-lady, your ladyship is nearer to find it out. [Flourish of trumpets within. heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altiGuil. There are the players. tude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsi-a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked with nore. Your hands. Come then: the appurte- the ring.-Masters, you are all welcome. We nance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let e'en to it like French falconers, fly at any thing me comply with you in this garb; lest my ex- we see: We'll have a speech straight: Com give us a taste of your quality; come, a passion- Now falls on Priam.ate 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 sallets in the lines, to make the matter savoury; nor no mat=ter 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 Æneas' 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,— Aud thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, 1 Play. Anon he finds him But, as we often see, against some storm, Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, In general synod, take away her power; Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven, As low as to the fiends! Pol. This is too long. Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard.-Pr'ythee, say on:-He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:-say on: to Hecuba. come 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 turned his colour, and has tears in's eyes.-Pr'ythee, no 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, Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave; Fye upon't! foh! About my brains! Humph! That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, Play something like the murder of my father, [Ex Will bring him to his wonted way again, Oph. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit Queen. We will bestow ourselves :-Read on this book; And pious action, we do sugar o'er King. O, 'tis too true! how smart A lash that speech doth give my conscience! [Aside. Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord. [Exeunt King, and Polonius. Enter HAMLET. But that the dread of something after death,- Take these again; for to the noble mind, Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest? Ham. Are you fair? Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, you Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the ques- should admit no discourse to your beauty. tion: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer No more ;—and, by a sleep, to say we end For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, For who would bear the whips and scorns of The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con- The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, 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. SO. Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe 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 such 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 such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven! We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? Oph. At home, my lord. |