first row of the pious chanson1 will show you more; for look, my abridgment comes. Enter four or five Players. You are welcome, masters; Welcome, all :-I am glad to see thee well-welcome, good friends.— O, old friend! Why, thy face valenced2 since I saw thee last; Com'st thou to beard3 me in DenInark?-What! my young lady and mistress! By'rlady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine.4 Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked with 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;5 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 caviare6 to the general:7 but it was (as I received it, and others, whose judgments, in such matters, cried in the tops 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 sallads in the lines, to make the matter savoury; nor no matter in the phrase, that might indite9 the author of affection : 10 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 (1) Christmas carols. (3) Defy. (4) Clog. (2) Fringed. (5) Profession. (6) An Italian dish, made of the roes of fishes. (7) Multitude. (8) Above. (9) Convict. (10) Affectation. 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, To their lord's murder: Roasted in wrath, and fire, 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 rack1 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, Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe, About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins, A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up; But if the gods themselves did see her then, (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 ! Is 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, Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? Why, I should take it for it cannot be, lain! Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave; (1) Destruction. |