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Oph. At home, my lord.

Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in 's own

house. Farewell.

Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens!

Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this 140 plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go. Farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what 145 monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.

Oph. O heavenly powers, restore him!

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well
enough. God hath given you one face, and 150
you make yourselves another. You jig, you
amble, and you lisp, you nick-name God's
creatures and make your wantonness your
ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
made me mad. I say, we will have no more 155
marriages. Those that are married already,
all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as
they are. To a nunnery, go.
[Exit.
Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, 160
tongue, sword;

The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of

form,

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170

175

180

The observed of all observers, quite, quite

down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and
harsh;

That unmatched form and feature of blown

youth

Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me,

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
Re-enter King and Polonius.

King. Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a

little,

Was not like madness. There's something

in his soul

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood,

And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger; which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination

Thus set it down: he shall with speed to
England,

For the demand of our neglected tribute.
Haply the seas and countries different
With variable objects shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him
thus

From fashion of himself. What think you on't?

Pol. It shall do well; but yet do I believe

The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.

Ophelia !

How now,

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all. My lord, do as you please,
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief. Let her be round with
him,

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And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him, or confine him where 195
Your wisdom best shall think.

Enter Hamlet and Players.

Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with 5 your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,

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25

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whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, 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-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

First Play. I warrant your honour.

Suit the action to action; with this

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. the word, the word to the special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 't were, 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 off, though it make the unskillful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, 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 journeymen 40
had made men and not made them well, they
imitated humanity so abominably.

First Play. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.

Ham. O, reform it altogether.

And let those 45 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 50 question of the play be then to be considered. That's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.

How now, my lord!

this piece of work?

[Exeunt Players.

Will the King hear 55

Pol. And the Queen too, and that presently.

Ham. Bid the players make haste.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Ham. What ho! Horatio.

Enter Horatio.

Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service.

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