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, And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore, 1 Play. Anon he finds him Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword, 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, 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: come to Hecuba. 1 Play. But who, ah wo! 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, A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up; But if the gods themselves did see her then, (1) Light clouds. (2) Eternal. (4) Blind. (Unless things mortal move them not at all,) Would have made milch the burning eye of heaven, And passion in the gods. Pol. Look, whether he has not turn'd 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 desert. 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 Polonius, with some of the Players. Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play tomorrow.-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 Guil. Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' you:-Now I am alone, O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! (1) Milky. 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, That he should weep for her? What would he do, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, Why, I should take it: for it cannot be, lain! Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave; That I, the son of a dear father murder'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, (2) Unnatural. (1) Destruction. And fall a cursing, like a very drab, A scullion! Fie upon't! foh! About my brains! Humph! I have heard, That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, [Exit. ACT III. SCENE 1-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, (1) Search his wounds. (2) Shrink or start. |