Hamlet Page #12

HAMLET:
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 lisp...

...and you nickname God's creatures...

...and you make your wantonness

your ignorance.

Go to.

Ill no more on't.

It hath made me mad.

I say...

...we will have...

...no more marriages.

Those that are married already...

...all but one, shall live.

The rest shall keep as they are.

[SHRIEKS]

To a nunnery.

Go.

O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown.

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye...

...tongue, sword...

...the expectancy and rose

of the fair state...

...the glass of fashion

and the mold of form...

...th' 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,

t' have seen what I have seen...

...see what I see.

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 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?

It shall do well.

But yet do I believe

the origin and commencement of his grief...

...sprung from neglected love.

How now, Ophelia?

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 griefs.

Let her be round with him...

...and Ill be placed

in the ear of all their conference.

If she find him not,

to England send him...

...or confine him where

your wisdom best shall think.

It shall be so.

Madness in great ones

must not unwatch'd go.

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 your hand, thus...

...but use all gently.

For in the very torrent, tempest, and

as I may say 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.

-My lord.

I would have such a fellow whipped

for o'erdoing Termagant.

-It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

-I warrant your honor.

And be not too tame, neither,

but let your own discretion be your tutor.

Suit the action to the word,

the word to the action...

...with this special observance:

That you o'erstep

not the modesty of nature.

For anything so o'erdone

is from the purpose of playing...

...whose end, both at the first and now...

...was and is to hold as 'twere

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 makes the unskilIful laugh...

...cannot but make the judicious grieve.

The censure of the which one

must in your allowance...

...o'erweigh a whole theater 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 gaits of Christian,

pagan, nor man...

...have so strutted and bellowed...

...that I have thought some

of nature's journeymen had made men...

...and had not made them well,

they imitated humanity so abominably.

I hope we have reformed that

indifferently with us.

O, reform it altogether.

And let those 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 question of the play...

...be then to be considered.

That's villainous...

...and shows a most pitiful ambition

in the fool that uses it.

Go make you ready.

How now, my lord?

Will the king hear this piece of work?

-And the queen too, and that presently.

-Bid the players make haste.

Will you two help to hasten them?

-We will, my lord.

-We will, my lord.

-What ho, Horatio.

-Here, sweet lord, at your service.

Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man

as e'er my conversation coped withal.

-O my dear lord--

-Nay, do not think I flatter.

For what advancement

may I hope from thee...

...that no revenue hast but thy good spirits

to feed and clothe thee?

Why should the poor be flattered?

No, let the candied tongue

lick absurd pomp...

...and crook the pregnant hinges

of the knee...

...where thrift may follow fawning.

Dost thou hear?

Since my dear soul

was mistress of her choice...

...and could of men distinguish, her election

she hath sealed thee for herself.

For thou hast been as one,

in suffering all, that suffers nothing...

...a man that fortune's buffets and rewards

has ta'en with equal thanks.

And blest are those whose blood

and judgment are so well commingled...

...that they are not a pipe

for Fortune's finger...

...to sound what stop she please.

Give me that man

that is not passion's slave...

...and I will wear him

in my heart's core...

...ay, in my heart of heart...

...as I do thee.

Something too much of this.

There is a play tonight before the king.

One scene comes near the circumstance

which I have told thee of my father's death.

I prithee, when thou seest

that act afoot...

...even with the very comment of thy soul

observe my uncle.

If his occulted guilt

do not itself unkennel in one speech...

...it is a damned ghost

that we have seen...

...and my imaginations are as foul

as Vulcan's stithy.

Give him heedful note,

for I mine eyes will rivet to his face...

...and after, we will both our judgments join

in censure of his seeming.

Well, my lord.

If he steal aught

the whilst this play is playing...

...and scape detecting...

... I will pay the theft.

They are coming to the play.

I must be idle. Get you a place.

[APPLAUDING]

How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Excellent, i' faith,

of the chameleon's dish.

I eat the air, promise-crammed.

-You cannot feed capons so.

-I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet.

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