Enter the Players, with Recorders. HAMLET. O, the recorders: - let me see one. To withdraw with you :- - Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

PL. 7.

HAMLET. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN. But these cannot I command to

any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill. HAMLET. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me;

GUILDENSTERN. My lord, I cannot.

out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. S'blood, do you think, I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me

SERIES I.

Enter HAMLET.

praying;

And now I'll do't;-and so he goes to heaven:
And so am I reveng'd? That would be scann'd :
A villain kills my father; and, for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, no revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And, how his audit stands, who knows, save heaven?
But, in our circumstance and course of thought,

When he is fit and season'd for his passage? No.

PL. 8.

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage;
Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed;
At gaming, swearing; or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't :
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven:
And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black,
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

(Exit.)