The oppreffor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of defpis'd love, the law's delay, The infolence of office, and the fpurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To groan and fweat under a weary life; But that the dread of fomething after death, The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns-puzzles the will; And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus confcience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of refolution la fickly'd o'er with the pale caft of thought; And enterprizes of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lofe the name of action.- -Soft you, now! [Seeing OPHELIA. The fair Ophelia ?-Nymph, in thy orifons Be all my fins remember'd. Oph. Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day? Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longed long to re-deliver; pray you, now receive them. Ham. No, not I; I never gave you aught. Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well, you did; And, with them, words of fo fweet breath compos'd As made the things more rich: their perfume loft, Take thefe again; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind. There, my lord. Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest? Ham. Are you fair? Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That, if you be honest, and fair, you shoul admit no difcourfe to your beauty. Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better com merce than with honesty? Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty wil fooner transform honefty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty int its likeness: this was fome time a paradox, but nov the time gives it proof. I did love you once. Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe fo Ham. You fhould not have believ'd me: for vir tue cannot fo inoculate our old stock, but we shal relifh of it: I lov'd you not. Oph. I was the more deceiv'd. Ham. Get thee to a nunnery; why would't thou be a breeder of finners? I am myself indifferent ho neft; but yet I could accuse me of fuch things, that it were better, my mother had not born me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more of fences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them fhape, or time to act them in: What should fuch fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all: believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery: Where's your father? Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell. Opb. O, help him, you sweet heavens! Ham. If thou doft marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as fnow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery; farewell: Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wife men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery go; and quickly too. Farewell. Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him! Ham. I have heard of your paintings too well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lifp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonnefs your ignorance: Go to; I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I fay, we will have no more marriages: thofe that are married already, all but one, fhall live; the rest fhall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit HAMLET. Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, foldier's, fcholar's, eye, tongue, fword; The expectancy and rofe of the fair state, To have feen what I have feen, fee what I fee! F Re-enter Re-enter, King, and POLONIUS. King. Love his affections do not that way tend; Nor what he fpake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's fomething in his foul O'er which his melancholy fits on brood; And, I do doubt the hatch, and the disclose, Thus fet it down; he fhall with speed to England, This fomething-fettled matter in his heart; King. It fhall be fo: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. [Exeunt. SCENE SCENE II. A Hall. 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 mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lieve the town-crier fpoke my lines. Nor 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 say) whirlwind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the foul, to hear a robuftious perriwig-pated fellow tear a paffion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb fhews, and noife: I would have fuch a fellow whipp'd for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: Pray you, avoid it. 1 Play. I warrant your honour. Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own difcretion be your tutor: fuit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special obfervance, that you o'er-ftep not the modesty of nature: For, any thing fo over-done is from the purpose of playing, whofe end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to shew 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 off, though it make the unfkilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the cenfure of which one, muft, in your allowance, o'er-weigh a whole theatre F 2 |