Hamlet Page #6

---

"lies where it falls,

repugnant to command.

"Unequal match'd, Pyrrhus at Priam

drives, in rage strikes wide.

"But with the whiff and wind

of his fell sword

"the unnerved father falls.

"Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune!

"All you gods in general synod

take aware her power;

"break all the spokes and fellies

from her wheel,

"and bowl the round knave down the hill

of heaven, as low as to the fiends."

This is too long.

Then it shall to the barbers

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, ah,

who had seen the mobled queen...?"

That's good; "mobled 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.

"But if the gods themselves

did see her then,

"the instant burst of clamour

that she made

"would have made milch

the burning eyes of heaven

"and passion in the gods."

Look, my lord,

whether he has not turned his colour,

and has tears in's eyes.

Prithee no more.

'Tis well, 'tis well;

I'll have thee speak out

the rest of this soon.

Good my lord, 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 bodykins, man, much better.

Use every man after his desert

and who shall scape whipping?

Use them after your own honour

and dignity. Take them in.

- Come, sirs.

- We'll hear a play tomorrow.

Dost thou hear me, old friend?

My friends, I'll leave you till night.

You are welcome to Elsinore.

Good my lord.

- 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 sixteen lines

that I would set down and insert in't,

could you not?

Ay, my lord.

Very well. Follow that lord;

and look you mock him not.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am l!

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 his working

all his visaged wann'd;

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 air with horrid speech;

make mad the guilty, and appal the free,

confound the ignorant,

and amaze indeed

the very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet l, a dull and muddy-mettI'd 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 damn'd defeat was made.

Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain, plucks off

my beard and blows it in my face,

tweaks me by the nose and gives me the

lie i' th' throat as deep as to the lungs?

Who does me this? Ha!

'Swounds, I should take it;

for it cannot be that I am pigeon-livered

and lack gall to make oppression bitter,

or ere this I should 'a fatted all

the region kites with this slave's offal.

Bloody, bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous,

lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am l!

This is most brave,

that l, the son of a dear father murder'd,

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 brains.

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 hath no tongue,

will speak with most miraculous organ.

I'll have these players

play something like

the murder of my father

before my uncle.

I'll observe his looks:

I'll tent him to the quick.

If he but blench, I know my course.

The play's the thing

wherein I'll catch the conscience

of the King.

Speak the speech, I pray you,

as I pronounced it to you,

trippingly on the tongue;

but if you mouth it,

as many of our players do,

I had as lief the town-crier

spoke my lines.

Nor do not saw the air too much

with your hand, 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.

- I warrant your honour.

- 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 a mirror up to nature.

Now, this overdone or come tardy off,

whiles it makes the unskilful laugh,

cannot but make the judicious grieve;

the censure of which one must,

in your opinion,

o'erweigh a whole theatre of others.

I hope we have reform'd

that indifferently with us, sir.

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 meantime 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?

Ay, my good lord. And the Queen too,

and that presently.

Bid the players make haste.

- What, ho, Horatio!

- Here, sweet lord.

At your service.

Will you two help hasten them?

- Ay, my lord.

- We will, my lord.

Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man

as e'er my conversation cop'd withal.

- O my dear lord!

- Nay, do not think I flatter;

for what advancement

may I hope from thee

that no revenue hath but thy good

spirits to feed and clothe thee?

For thou hast been as one

in suff'ring all that suffers nothing;

a man that Fortune's buffets

and rewards hast ta'en with equal thanks;

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 tonight a play before the King;

one scene of it

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.

Well, my lord:
if a steal aught while this

play is playing and scape detecting,

I will pay the theft.

How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Excellent, i'faith;

of the chameleon's dish.

I eat the air, promise-cramm'd;

you cannot feed capons so.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes