Or like a race, or like a goal, The arrow's shot, the flood soon spent,— Like to the lightning from the sky, The The pear doth rot, the plum doth fall,— The snow dissolves,—and so must all. HAMLET'S INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PLAYERS. SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier HAMLET'S INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PLAYERS. 341 spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand-thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise; I could have such a fellow whipp'd for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herod's Herod. Pray you, avoid it. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy of, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have seen play-and heard others praise, and that highly-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journey men had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity so abominably. And let those that play your clowns, speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered that's villanous; and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. SHAKSPERE. A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY, 1687. FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony When Nature underneath a heap Of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head, Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, What passion cannot Music raise and quell? Less than a God they thought there could not dwell Within the hollow of that shell, That spoke so sweetly and so well. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? The trumpet's loud clangour Excites us to arms, With shrill notes of anger, And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Cries, "Hark! the foes come; Charge, charge! 'tis too late to retreat." The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs, and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion, For the fair disdainful dame. But oh! what art can teach, What human voice can reach, The sacred organ's praise? Notes that wing their heavenly ways Orpheus could lead the savage race; But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher : GRAND CHORUS. As from the power of sacred lays And sung the great Creator's praise So when the last and dreadful hour DRYDEN. |