And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends!

Pol. This is too long.

Ham. It fhall to the barber's, with your beard.-Pr’ythee, fay on :-He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he fleeps:-fay on: come to Hecuba.

1. Play. But who, ab woe! had seen the mobled queenHam. The mobled queen?

Pol. That's good; mobled queen is good.

[flames

1. Play. Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the
With biffon rheum; a clout upon that head,
Where late the diadem ftood; and, for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,

A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
Who this bad feen, with tongue in venom steep'd,
'Gainft fortune's ftate would treafon have pronoun'd:
But if the gods themselves did fee her then,
When be faw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his fword her husband's limbsz
The inftant burst of clamour that she made,
(Unless things mortal move them not at all,)
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And paffion in the gods.

Pol. Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in his eyes.-Pr'ythee, no more.

Ham. 'Tis well; I'll have thee speak out the rest of this foon.-Good my lord, will you fee the players well beftow'd? Do you hear, let them be well ufed; 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. Odds bodikin, man, much better: Ufe every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping? Use

E

them

them after your own honour and dignity: The lefs they deferve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. Pol. Come, firs.

Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.-Doft 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, ftudy a fpeech of fome dozen or fixteen lines, which I would fet down, and infert in't? could you not? 1. Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Very well.-Follow that lord; and look you mock him not. [Exeunt POLONIUS and Players.] My good friends, [To Ros. and GUIL.] I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elfinore.

Rof. Good, my lord!

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, Ham. Ay fo, God be wi' you :-Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant flave am I! Is it not monstrous, that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of paffion, Could force his foul fo to his own conceit, That, from her working, all his vifage wann'd. Tears in his eyes, distraction in's afpect, A broken voice, and his whole function fuiting 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,
Had he the motive and the cue for paffion,
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed,

The

The very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rafcal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can fay nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property, and most dear life,

A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nofe? gives me the lie i'the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?

Ha!

Why, I fhould take it: for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppreffion bitter; or, ere this,
I fhould have fatted all the region kites
With this flave's offal: Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorfelefs, treacherous, lecherous, kindlefs villain!
Why, what an afs am I! This is moft brave!

That I, the fon of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

Muft, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a cursing, like a very drab,

A fcullion!

Fie upon't! Foh! About my brains! Humph!-I have heard,

That guilty creatures, fitting at a play,
Have, by the very cunning of the scene,
Been ftruck fo to the foul, that presently

They have proclaim'd their malefactions:
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play fomething like the murder of my father,
E 2

Before

Before mine uncle: I'll obferve his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick; if he do blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen,
May be a devil: and the devil hath power
To affume a pleafing fhape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weaknefs, and my melancholy,
(As he is very potent with fuch spirits)
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the confcience of the king.

[Exit.

ACT

ACT III. SCENE I.

A Room in the Castle.

Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSEN.
CRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King. And can you by no drift of conference
Get from him, why he puts on this confusion;
Grating fo harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Rof. He does confefs, he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means fpeak.
Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be founded;
But, with a crafty madnefs, keeps aloof,

When we would bring him on to fome confeffion
Of his true ftate.

Queen, Did he receive you well?

Rof. Moft like a gentleman.

Guil. But with much forcing of his difpofition. Rof. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Moft free in his reply.

Queen. Did you affay him

To any paftime?

Rof. Madam, it fo fell out, that certain players We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him ;;

And there did feem 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 moft true:

And he befeech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and fee the matter.