Hamlet Page #10

well-digested in the scenes...

...set down with as much modesty

as cunning.

I remember one said there were no sallets

in the lines to make the matter savory...

...nor no matter in the phrase...

...which might indict

the author of affectation...

...but called it an honest method...

...as wholesome as sweet,

and by very much more handsome than fine.

One speech in it I chiefly loved,

'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido...

...and thereabout of it especially

where he speaks of Priam's slaughter.

If it live in your memory,

begin at this line:

Let me see, let me see:

The rugged Pyrrhus,

like th' Hyrcanian beast--

-It 'tis not so.

-It begins with Pyrrhus.

It begins with Pyrrhus.

The rugged Pyrrhus,

he whose sable arms...

...black as his purpose,

did the night resemble...

...when he lay couch'd

In the ominous horse...

...hath now this dread

and black complexion smeared...

...with heraldry more dismal.

-Head to foot now is he total gules...

ALL:
Gules.

...horridly tricked with blood of fathers,

mothers, daughters, sons...

...baked and impasted

with the parching streets...

...that lend a tyrannous and damned light

to their lord's murder.

Roasted in wrath and fire...

...and thus o'er-sized

with coagulate gore...

...with eyes like carbuncles

the hellish Pyrrhus...

...old grandsire Priam seeks.

So proceed you.

Fore God, my lord, well-spoken,

with good accent and good discretion.

Anon he finds him...

...striking too short at Greeks.

His antique sword, rebellious to his arm,

lies where it falls...

...repugnant to command.

Unequal match,

Pyrrhus at Priam drives...

...in rage strikes wide.

But with the whiff and wind

of his fell sword...

...th' unnerved father falls.

Then senseless Ilium...

...seeming to feel his blow,

with flaming top...

...stoops to his base,

and with a hideous crash...

...takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear.

For lo, his sword,

which was declining on the milky head...

...of reverend Priam,

seemed i' th' air to stick.

So as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood...

...and like a neutral to his will and matter,

did nothing.

But as we often see

against some storm...

...a silence in the heavens,

the rack stand still...

...the bold winds speechless...

...and the orb below as hush as death...

...anon the dreadful thunder

doth rend the region.

So after Pyrrhus' pause,

a roused vengeance sets him new a-work.

And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall...

...on Mars his armor,

forged for proof eterne...

...with less remorse

than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword...

...now falls on Priam.

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune!

All you gods,

in general synod, take away her power...

...break all the spokes and fellies

from her wheel...

...and bowl the round nave

down the hill of heaven...

...as low as to the fiends!

This is too long.

It shall to the barber's, with your beard.

Prithee, say on.

He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry,

or he sleeps.

Say on.

Come to Hecuba.

But who,

O who had seen the mobbled queen.

Mobbled queen.

That's good. "Mobbled queen" is good.

Run barefoot up and down...

...threat'ning the flames

with bisson rheum.

A clout upon that head

where late the diadem stood...

...and for a robe,

about her lank and all o're-teemed loins...

...a blanket in the alarm of fear caught up.

Who this had seen,

with tongue in venom steeped...

...'gainst Fortune's state

would treason have pronounced.

But if the gods themselves

did see her then...

...when she saw Pyrrhus

make malicious sport...

...in mincing with his sword

her husband's limbs...

...the instant burst of clamor

that she made...

...unless things mortal

move them not at all...

...would have made milch

the burning eyes of heaven...

...and passion in the gods.

Look, whe'er he has not turned his color,

and has tears in's eyes.

Prithee, no more.

[APPLAUDING]

-'Tis well.

-Sir.

Ill have thee speak out the rest soon.

Will you see the players well bestowed?

Do you hear? Let them be well used...

...for they are the abstract

and brief chronicles of the time.

After your death you were better

have a bad epitaph...

...than their ill report while you live.

My lord, I will use them

according to their desert.

God's bodkin, man, much better.

Use every man after his desert,

and who shall scape whipping?

Use them after your own honor

and dignity.

The less they deserve,

the more merit is in your bounty.

-Take them in.

-Come, sirs.

Follow him, friends.

We'll hear a play tomorrow.

Dost thou hear me, old friend?

-Can you play The Murder of Gonzago?

-Ay, my lord.

We'll ha't tomorrow night.

You could for a need study a speech

of some dozen or 1 6 lines...

...which I would set and insert in 't,

could you not?

-Ay, my lord.

-Very well.

Follow that lord,

and look you mock him not.

My good friends, Ill leave you till night.

-You are welcome to Elsinore.

-Good, my lord.

Ay, so, God b' wi' ye.

[PANTING]

Now I am alone.

O what a rogue...

...and peasant slave am I.

Is it not monstrous

that this player here...

...but in a fiction...

...in a dream of passion...

...could force his soul

so to his own conceit...

...that from her working

all his visage waned...

...tears in his eyes,

distraction in's aspect...

...a broken voice...

...and his whole function suiting

with forms to his conceit?

And all for nothing.

For Hecuba.

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

that he should weep for her?

What would he do had he the motive

and the cue for passion that I have?

He would drown the stage with tears...

...and cleave the general ear

with horrid speech...

...make mad the guilty

and appall the free...

...confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed

the very faculty of eyes and ears.

Yet I,

a dull and muddy-mettled rascal...

...peak like John-a-dreams,

unpregnant of my cause...

...and can say nothing.

No, not for a king...

...upon whose property and most dear life

a damned defeat was made.

Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain,

breaks my pate across...

...plucks off my beard

and blows it in my face...

...tweaks me by th' nose,

gives me the lie i' th' throat...

...as deep as to the lungs?

Who does me this?

'Swounds, I should take it!

For it cannot be

but I am pigeon-livered and lack gall...

...to make oppression bitter, or ere this...

... I should ha' fatted all the region kites

With this slave's offal.

Bloody, bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous,

lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

What an ass am I?

This is most brave...

...that I, the son

of a dear father murdered...

...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 brain.

I have heard

that guilty creatures sitting at a play...

...have by the very cunning of the scene

been struck so to the soul that presently...

...they have proclaimed

their malefactions.

For murder, though it have no tongue,

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