it is as proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions, To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king; This must be known; which, being kept close, might move More grief to hide, than hate to utter love, [Exeunt. SCENE II. A Room in the Castle. Enter KING, QUEEN, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDEN- liege, Assure you, my good I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, King. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz, and Guilden- My news shall be the fruit to that great feast. stern! Moreover that we much did long to see you, in. King. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them More than his father's death, that thus hath put Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS. him King. Well, we shall sift him. - - Welcome, my good friends! Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway? It was against your highness: Whereat griev'd, — [Gives a paper. That it might please you to give quiet pass King. [Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time, Queen. Mad let us grant him then: and now remains, I have a daughter; have, while she is mine; That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; beautified is a vile phrase; but you shall hear. Thus : In her excellent white bosom, these, &c. Pol. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faith ful. think, When I had seen this hot love on the wing, 3 Roundly, without reserve. Queen. But look, where sadly the poor wretch Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away; O, give me leave.- How does my good lord Hamlet? Pol. Do you know me, my lord? Ham. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger. Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man. Ham. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing carrion, Have you a daughter? Pol. I have, my lord. Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a blessing; but not as your daughter may conceive - friend, look to't. Pol. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harping on my daughter:- yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger; He is far gone, far gone and, truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love: very near this. I'll speak to him again. Ham. Words, words, words! Pol. What is the matter, my lord? Ham. Between who? - What do you read, my lord? Pol. I mean the matter that you read, my lord. Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here, that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit: all of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward. Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. [Aside.] Will you walk out of the air, my lord? 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. 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 honoured lord!- Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. Ham. Then you live in the middle of her favours? 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. 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 heaven! 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 outstretched 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? 4 Ready, apt 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 at 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. You Guil. What should we say, my lord? Ham. Any thing but to the purpose. 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 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 anticipa tion 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, forgone all custom of exercise: and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory: this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majes tical 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 lenten5 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? 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 8, and are most tyrannically clapp'd 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? 9 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? Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains. Ham. Do the boys carry it away? Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load, too. 3 : 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, tragicalcomical-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? Pol. Still on my daughter. [Aside. Ham. Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah? Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter, that I love passing well. Ham. Nay, that follows not. Ham. Why, As by lot, God wot, and then you know, It came to pass, As most like it was, — The first row of the pious chanson 6 will show you more: for look, my abridgment comes. Enter four or five Players. I am You are welcome, masters: welcome all; glad to see thee well: - welcome, good friends : — O, old friend! Why, thy face is valanced 7 since I saw thee last; Com'st thou to beard me in DenHam. It is not very strange for my uncle is mark? What! my young lady and mistress! king of Denmark, and those, that would make your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his pic-heaven, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, ture in little. There is something in this more natural, if philosophy could find it out. [Flourish of Trumpets within. Guil. There are the players. Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands. Come then the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply 4 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 auntmother, 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 sce 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. Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you. Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord. Pol. Upon my honour, be not cracked 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 a caviare 9 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 salads in the lines, to make the matter savoury; nor no matter in the phrase, that might indite 3 the author of affection 4: 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 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 sce;— The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast, 'tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus. The rugged Pyrrhus, — he, whose sable arms, Black as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in the ominous horse, Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd With heraldry more dismal; head to foot Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons; Bak'd and impasted with the parcking streets, 5 Writing 6 Christmas carols. 7 Fringed. 9 An Italian dish made of the roes of fishes. 2 Above. 3 Convict. 4 Affectation. Red, a term in heraldry. 6 Blazoned. & Clog. 1 Multitude That lend a tyrannous and a fearful light 1 Play. Anon he finds him Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword, But, as we often see, against some storm, [Exeunt ROSENCrantz and GuildENSTERN. Ham. Ay, so adieu, and, - 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 aspect, 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, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, 1 Play. Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the And can say nothing; no, not for a king, flames With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head, A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up; 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. 7 Light clouds. 9 Eternal. 9 Muffled. 1 Blind. 3 Milky Upon whose property, and most dear life, As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Why, I should take it: for it cannot be, 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 3 Destruction. |