With variable objects, fhall expel This fomething-fettled matter in his heart; King. It fhall be fo: Madness in great ones muft not unwatch'd go. [Exeunt. Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players. Ham. Speak the fpeech, I pray you; as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouthit, as many of our players do, I had as lieve, the towncrier had spoke my lines. And do not faw the air too much with your hand thus; but ufe all gently; for in the very torrent, tempeft, and, as I may fay, whirl-wind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothnefs. Oh, it offends me to the foul, to hear a robuftious periwig-pated fellow tear a paffion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings who (for the moit part) are capable of nothing, but inexplicable dumb fhews, and noife: I could have fuch a fellow whipt for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it. : Play. I warrant your honour. Ham. Be not too tame neither; but let your own difcretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this fpecial obfervance, that you you o'er-flep not the modefty of nature; for any thing fo overdone is from the purpofe of playing; whofe end, both at the first and now; was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to fhew virtue her own feature, fcorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and preffure. Now this over-done, or come tardy of, tho' it make the unfkilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve: the cenfure of which. one must in your allowance o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. Oh, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praife, and that highly, (not to speak it prophanely) that neither having the accent of chriftian,. nor the gait of christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellow'd, that I have thought fome of nature's journey-men had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity fo abominably. Play. I hope, we have reform'd that indifferentlywith us. Ham. Oh, reform it altogether. And let thofe, that play your clowns, fpeak no more than is fet down for. them: For there be of them that will themfelves laugh, to fet on fome quantity of barren fpectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, fome neceffary question of the Play be then to be confidered: That's villainous; and fhews a moft pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready. [Exeunt Players. Enter Polonius, Rofincrantz, and Guildenstern. How now, my Lord; will the King hear this piece of work? Pol. And the Queen too, and that prefently. Ham. Bid the Players make hafte. [Exit Polonius.. Will you two help to haften them? Both. We will, my Lord. Ham. What, ho, Horatio!". Enter Horatio to Hamlet. Hor. Here, fweet Lord, at your fervice. Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as juft a man, As e'er my conversation cop'd withal. [Exeunt Hor. Oh my dear Lord, Ham. Nay, do not think, I flatter : For what advancement may I hope from thee, To feed and cloath thee? Should the poor be flatter'd? Haft ta'en with equal thanks. And bleft are those, Hor. Well, my Lord. (17) And my Imaginations are as foul, As Vulcan's Stithy.] I have ventured against the Authority of all the Copies, to substitute Smithy here. I have given my Reasons already in a Note on Troilus, to which, for Brevity's fake, I beg leave to refer the Readers. If he fteal aught, the whilft this Play is playing, Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rofincrantz, Guildenstern, and other Lords attendant, with a guard carrying torches. Danish March. Sound a flourish. Ham. They're coming to the Play; I must be idle. Get you a place. King. How fares our coufin Hamlet? Ham. Excellent, i'faith, of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promife-cramm'd: you cannot feed capons fo. King. I having nothing with this anfwer, Hamlet; these words are not mine. Ham. No, nor mine.-Now, my Lord; you play'd once i'th' univerfity, you fay [To Polonius. Pol. That I did, my Lord, and was accounted a good actor. Ham. And what did you enact ? Pal. I did enact Julius Cæfar, I was kill'd i'th' Capitol: Brutus kill'd me. Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill fo capital a calf there. Be the players ready? Rof. Ay, my Lord, they ftay upon your patience. Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, fit by me. Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive. Pol. Oh, ho, do you mark that? Ham. Lady, fhall I lie in your lap ? Oph. No, my Lord. [Lying down at Ophelia's feet. Ham. I mean, my Head upon your lap? Oph. Ay, my Lord. Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters ? Oph. I think nothing, my Lord. Ham. That's a fair thought, to lie between a maid's legs, Oph. What is, my Lord! Ham. Nothing. Oph. You are merry, my Lord. Ham. Who, I? Oph Oph. Ah, my Lord. Ham. Oh God! your only jig-maker; what fhould a man do, but be merry? For, look you, how chearfully my mother looks, and my father dy'd within these two hours. Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my Lord. Ham. So long nay, then let the Devil wear black, for I'll have a fuit of fables. Oh heav'ns! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet! then there's hope, a great man's memory may out-live his life half a year: but, by'r lady, he muft build churches then; or else shall he fuffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horfe; whose epitaph is, For ob, for oh, the hobby-horje is forgot.. Hautboys play. The dumb fhew enters. (18) Enter a Duke and Dutchess, with regal Coronets, very lovingly; the Dutchefs embracing him, and he her. She kneels; he takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck; he lays him down upon a bank of flowers; the. Seeing him afleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his Crown, kiffes it, and pours poifon in the Duke's 's ears, and Exit. The Dutchess returns, finds the Duke dead, and makes paffionate action. The poifoner, with fome two or three mutes, comes in again, feeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poifoner woes the Dutchefs with gifts; he seems loth and unwilling a while, but in the end accepts his love. [Exeunt. (18) Enter a King and Queen very lovingly:] Thus have the blundering and inadvertent Editors all along given us this StageDirection, though we are exprefly told by Hamlet anon, that the Story of this introduced Interlude is the Murder of Gonzago Duke of Vienna. The Source of this Miftake is eafily to be accounted for, from the Stage's dreffing the Characters. Regal Coronets being at first ordered by the Poet for the Duke and Dutchefs, the fucceeding Players, who did not strictly obferve the Quality of the Perfons or Circumftances of the Story, miftock 'em for a King and Queen; and fo the Error was deduced down from thence to the prefent Times. |