Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play'd the desk, or table-book ;'
Or given my heart a working, mute and dumb;
Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;

What might you think? no, I went round to work,2
And my young mistress thus did I bespeak;
Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy sphere;
This must not be: and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice ;3
And he, repulsed, (a short tale to make,)
Fell into a sadness; then into a fast;
Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness;
Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,

And all we mourn for.*

King. Do you think, 'tis this?

Queen. It may be, very likely.

Pol. Hath there been such a time, (I'd fain know that,) That I have positively said, 'Tis so,

When it prov'd otherwise?

King. Not that I know.

Pol. Take this from this, if this be otherwise :

[Pointing to his head and shoulder.

If circumstances lead me, I will find

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed

Within the centre.

King. How may we try it further?

Pol. You know, sometimes he walks for hours together,

Here in the lobby.

Queen. So he does, indeed.

Pol. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him:

Be you and I behind an arras then ;

Mark the encounter: if he love her not,

And be not from his reason fallen thereon,

Let me be no assistant for a state,

But keep a farm, and carters.

King. We will try it.

[1] If I had locked up this secret in my own breast, as closely as it were confined in a desk or table-book.

MALONE.

[2] Roundly, without reserve. So Polonius, in the third act,

-be round with him."

STEEVENS.

[8] She took the fruit of advice when she obeyed advice, the advice was then made fruitful. JOHNSON.

[4] See Illustrations, Vol. X.

Enter HAMLET, reading.

Queen. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes

reading.

Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away;

I'll board him presently :-O, give me leave.—

[Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants.

How does my good lord Hamlet?

Ham. Well, God-'a-mercy.

Pol. Do you know me, my lord?

Ham. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

Pol. Not I, my lord.

Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.

Pol. Honest, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be

one man picked out of ten thousand.

Pol. That's very true, my lord.

Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing carrion,- -Have you a daughter?

Pol. I have, my lord.

Ham. Let her not walk i'the sun conception is a blessing; but not as your daughter may conceive,—friend, look to't.

Pol. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harping on my daughter :--yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger: He is far gone, far gone: and, truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I'll speak to him again.-What do you read, my lord? Ham. Words, words, words!

Pol. What is the matter, my lord?

Ham. Between who?

Pol. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says her, that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: All of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. [Aside.] Will you walk out of the air, my lord? Ham. Into my grave?

Pol. Indeed, that is out o'the air.-How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often mad

ness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter. My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life.

Pol. Fare you well, my lord.

Ham. These tedious old fools!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTern.

Pol. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there he is.

Ros. God save you, sir!

[TO POLONIUS.

Ex. POL.

Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern ?—Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both? Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.

Guil, Happy, in that we are not overhappy :

On fortune's cap we are not the very button.
Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

Guil. 'Faith, her privates we.

Ham. In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true : she is a strumpet. What news?

Ros. None, my lord; but that the world's grown honest. Ham. Then is dooms-day near; But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guil. Prison, my lord!

Ham. Denmark's a prison.

Ros. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one o'the worst. Ros. We think not so, my lord.

Ham. 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.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one: 'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and

count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.

Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow.

Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs, and outstretch'd heroes, the beggars' shadows :* Shail we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you.

Ham. No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants: for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion,

Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear, a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come, deal justly with me come, come; nay, speak.

Guil. What should we say, my lord?

Ham. Any thing-but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know, the good king and queen have sent for you.

Ros. To what end, my lord?

Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no?

[To GUILD.

Ros. What say you? Ham. Nay, then I have an eye of you 5 [Aside.]—if you love me, hold not off.

Guil. My lord, we were sent for.

Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king

[4] Shakespeare seems here to design a ridicule of those declamations against wealth and greatness, that seem to make happiness consist in poverty. JOHNSON. [5] I have a glimpse of your meaning. STEEVENS.

and queen moult no feather. 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 steril promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'er-hanging 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 a 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 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.

Ros. My lord, there is no such stuff in my thoughts. Ham. Why did you laugh then, when I said Man delights not me?

Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten' entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way, and hither are they coming, to offer you service.

Ham. He that plays the king, shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me: the adventurous knight shall use his foil, and target: the lover shall not sigh gratis the humorous man shall end his part in peace: the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o'the sere: and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't.-What players are they? Ros. Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.

Ham. How chances it, they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

Ros. I think, their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so follow'd?

[6] This is an admirable description of a rooted melancholy sprung from thickness of blood; and artfully imagined to hide the true cause of his disorder from the penetration of these two friends, who were set over him as spies.

19, dase,

WARBURTON.

STEEVENS.

ose who are asthmatical, and to whom laughter is most uneasy. This is the i am told, with those whose lungs are tickied by the sere or serum. STEEVENS.