Ham. O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? And shall I couple hell?-O fie!-Hold, hold, my heart; And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, Remember thee? Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, All sawst of books, all forms, all pressures past, O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! ACT II. OPHELIA'S DESCRIPTION OF HAMLET'S MAD My lord, as I was sewing in my closet, As if he had been loosed out of hell, To speak of horrors, he comes before me. Oph. But, truly, I do fear it. *Head. My lord, I do not know; † Sayings, sentences. + Memorandum-book. Pol. What said he? Oph. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard, Then goes he to the length of all his arm; As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so; At last a little shaking of mine arm, And thrice his head thus waving up and down,- And end his being: That done, he lets me go OLD AGE. Beshrew my jealousy! It seems it is as proper to our age To lack discretion. HAPPINESS CONSISTS IN OPINION. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so; to me it is a prison. REFLECTIONS ON MAN. I have of late, (but, wherefore, I know not,) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises: and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like * Body. a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, nor woman neither;, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so. HAMLET'S REFLECTIONS ON THE PLAYER AND HIMSELF. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I? 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, That I have? He would drown the stage with tears, Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peek, As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha! Why, I should take it: for it cannot be, Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave; That I, the son of a dear father murder'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, And fall a cursing, like a very drab, A scullion. Fie upon't! foh! About my brains! Humph! I have heard, That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak ACT III. HYPOCRISY. We are oft to blame in this. 'Tis too much prov'd,—that, with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er The devil himself. King. SOLILOQUY ON LIFE AND DEATH. To be, or not to be, that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer |