The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare/Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso/shakes/text/34/02_02

Text File | 1991-04-10 | 29KB | 803 lines

A Room in the Castle.
 Flourish.
 Enter KING and QUEEN, ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, with OTHERS.

King    Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
    Moreover that we much did long to see you,
    The need we have to use you did provoke
    Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
    Of Hamlet's transformation; so I call it,
    Since nor th' exterior nor the inward man
    Resembles that it was. What it should be,
    More than his father's death, that thus hath put him
    So much from th' understanding of himself,
    I cannot dream of. I entreat you both
    That, being of so young days brought up with him
    And since so neighboured to his youth and haviour,
    That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
    Some little time, so by your companies
    To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather,
    So much as from occasion you may glean,
    Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus
    That, opened, lies within our remedy.

Queen    Good gentlemen, he hath much talked of you,
    And sure I am two men there is not living
    To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
    To show us so much gentry and good will
    As to expend your time with us a while
    For the supply and profit of our hope,
    Your visitation shall receive such thanks
    As fits a king's remembrance.

Rosencrantz                                        Both your majesties
    Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
    Put your dread pleasures more into command
    Than to entreaty.

Guildenstern                            But we both obey,
    And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,
    To lay our service freely at your feet
    To be commanded.

King    Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

Queen    Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
    And I beseech you instantly to visit
    My too much changd son. Go, some of you,
    And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

Guildenstern    Heavens make our presence and our practices
    Pleasant and helpful to him!

Queen                                        Ay, amen!
              [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and some OTHERS.

                             Enter POLONIUS.

Polonius    Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
    Are joyfully returned.

King    Thou still hast been the father of good news.

Polonius    Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,
    I hold my duty as I hold my soul,
    Both to my God and to my gracious king;
    And I do think, or else this brain of mine
    Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
    As it hath used to do, that I have found
    The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

King    O speak of that; that do I long to hear.

Polonius    Give first admittance to th' ambassadors;
    My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

King    Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.
                                                [Exit POLONIUS.
    He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
    The head and source of all your son's distemper.

Queen    I doubt it is no other but the main,
    His father's death and our o'erhasty marriage.

King    Well, we shall sift him.

             Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTEMAND and CORNELIUS.

                                Welcome, my good friends.
    Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?

Voltemand    Most fair return of greetings and desires.
    Upon our first he sent out to suppress
    His nephew's levies, which to him appeared
    To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
    But better looked into, he truly found
    It was against your highness; whereat grieved
    That so his sickness, age, and impotence
    Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
    On Fortinbras, which he, in brief, obeys,
    Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine,
    Makes vow before his uncle never more
    To give th' assay of arms against your majesty.
    Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
    Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee
    And his commission to employ those soldiers
    So levied as before, against the Polack,
    With an entreaty, herein further shown,
                                                [Giving a paper.
    That it might please you to give quiet pass
    Through your dominions for this enterprise,
    On such regards of safety and allowance
    As therein are set down.

King                                    It likes us well,
    And at our more considered time we'll read,
    Answer, and think upon this business.
    Meantime, we thank you for your well-took labour.
    Go to your rest, at night we'll feast together.
    Most welcome home.
                                 [Exeunt VOLTEMAND and CORNELIUS.

Polonius                        This business is well ended.
    My liege, and madam, to expostulate
    What majesty should be, what duty is,
    Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
    Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
    Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
    And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
    I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
    Mad call I it, for, to define true madness,
    What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
    But let that go.

Queen                        More matter with less art.

Polonius    Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
    That he is mad 'tis true; 'tis true 'tis pity,
    And pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure;
    But farewell it, for I will use no art.
    Mad let us grant him then; and now remains
    That we find out the cause of this effect,
    Or rather say the cause of this defect,
    For this effect defective comes by cause.
    Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
    Perpend.
    I have a daughter, have while she is mine,
    Who in her duty and obedience, mark,
    Hath given me this. Now gather and surmise.

    [Reads.]    "To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most
            beautified Ophelia"-

    That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase, 'beautified' is a vile
    phrase. But you shall hear-

                "These in her excellent white bosom, these".

Queen    Came this from Hamlet to her?

Polonius    Good madam, stay awhile, I will be faithful.

    [Reads.]"Doubt thou the stars are fire,
            Doubt that the sun doth move,
            Doubt truth to be a liar,
            But never doubt I love."

            "O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have
            not art to reckon my groans; but that I love thee
            best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
                    Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this
            machine is to him,
                                        HAMLET."

    This in obedience hath my daughter shown me,
    And, more above, hath his solicitings,
    As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
    All given to mine ear.

King                                But how hath she
    Received his love?

Polonius                            What do you think of me?

King    As of a man faithful and honourable.

Polonius    I would fain prove so; but what might you think,
    When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
    As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
    Before my daughter told me, what might you,
    Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
    If I had played the desk or table-book,
    Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
    Or looked upon this love with idle sight,
    What might you think? No, I went round to work,
    And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
    'Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star;
    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,
    And he, repelled - 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 like.

Polonius    Hath there been such a time - I'd fain know that-
    That I have positively said "'Tis so"
    When it proved otherwise?

King                                    Not that I know.

Polonius    Take this from this [Indicating his head and shoulder.]
                                if this be otherwise.
    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?

Polonius    You know sometimes he walks for hours together
    Here in the lobby.

Queen                            So he does indeed.

Polonius    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 fall'n thereon,
    Let me be no assistant for a state,
    But keep a farm and carters.

King                                        We will try it.

                      Enter HAMLET, reading a book.

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

Polonius    Away, I do beseech you both, away.
    I'll board him presently. O, give me leave.
                                                [Exeunt KING and QUEEN.

    How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Hamlet    Well, God-a-mercy.

Polonius    Do you know me, my lord?

Hamlet    Excellent well, you are a fishmonger.

Polonius    Not I, my lord.

Hamlet    Then I would you were so honest a man.

Polonius    Honest, my lord?

Hamlet    Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man
    picked out of ten thousand.

Polonius    That's very true, my lord.

Hamlet    For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good
    kissing carrion - Have you a daughter?

Polonius    I have, my lord.

Hamlet    Let her not walk i'th' sun. Conception is a blessing, but
    as your daughter may conceive - friend, look to't.

Polonius    [Aside.] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter.
    Yet he knew me not at first, a' said I was a fishmonger. A'
    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?

Hamlet    Words, words, words.

Polonius    What is the matter, my lord?

Hamlet    Between who?

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

Hamlet    Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here 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 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 old as I am, if, like a
    crab, you could go backward.

Polonius    [Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.
    [To HAMLET.] Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Hamlet    Into my grave.

Polonius    Indeed, that's out of the air.
    [Aside.] How pregnant sometimes his replies are! A
    happiness that often madness 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.
    [To HAMLET.] My lord, I will take my leave of you.

Hamlet    You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will not more
    willingly part withal-except my life, except my life, my
    life.

Polonius    Fare you well, my lord.
                                                [Going.
Hamlet    These tedious old fools!

                  Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Polonius    You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

Rosencrantz    [To POLONIUS.] God save you, sir.
                                                [Exit POLONIUS.

Guildenstern    Mine honoured lord!

Rosencrantz    My most dear lord!

Hamlet    My excellent good friends. How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,
    Rosencrantz.-Good lads, how do you both?

Rosencrantz    As the indifferent children of the earth.

Guildenstern    Happy, in that we are not overhappy;
    On Fortune's cap we are not the very button.

Hamlet    Nor the soles of her shoe?

Rosencrantz    Neither, my lord.

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

Guildenstern    Faith, her privates we.

Hamlet    In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true, she is a
    strumpet. What news?

Rosencrantz    None, my lord, but the world's grown honest.

Hamlet    Then is doomsday 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?

Guildenstern    Prison, my lord?

Hamlet    Denmark's a prison.

Rosencrantz    Then is the world one.

Hamlet    A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and
    dungeons; Denmark being one o'th' worst.

Rosencrantz    We think not so, my lord.

Hamlet    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.

Rosencrantz    Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for
    your mind.

Hamlet    O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a
    king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

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

Hamlet    A dream itself is but a shadow.

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

Hamlet    Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and
    outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to th'
    court? For, by my fay, I cannot reason.

Rosencrantz &
Guildenstern    We'll wait upon you.

Hamlet    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?

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

Hamlet    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.

Guildenstern    What should we say, my lord?

Hamlet    Why, anything-but to th' 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.

Rosencrantz    To what end, my lord?

Hamlet    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.

Rosencrantz    [Aside to GUILDENSTERN.] What say you?

Hamlet    [Aside.] Nay then, I have an eye of you. If you love me,
    hold not off.

Guildenstern    My lord, we were sent for.

Hamlet    I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your
    discovery, and your secrecy to the king 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 sterile promontory, this
    most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
    o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with
    golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me but a
    foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What piece of
    work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in
    faculty, 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, no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem
    to say so.

Rosencrantz    My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

Hamlet    Why did ye laugh then, when I said 'man delights not me'?

Rosencrantz    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.

Hamlet    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 tickle a'th' sere; and the
    lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall
    halt for't. What players are they?

Rosencrantz    Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the
    tragedians of the city.

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

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

Hamlet    Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the
    city? Are they so followed?

Rosencrantz    No, indeed, are they not.

Hamlet    How comes it? Do they grow rusty?

Rosencrantz    Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there
    is, sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out
    on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapped
    for't. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the
    common stages - so they call them - that many wearing
    rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come
    thither.

Hamlet    What, are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they
    escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they
    can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow
    themselves to common players - as it is most like, if their
    means are no better - their writers do them wrong to make
    them exclaim against their own succession?

Rosencrantz    Faith, there has been much to-do on both sides, and the
    nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy. There
    was for a while no money bid for argument unless the poet
    and the player went to cuffs in the question.

Hamlet    Is't possible?

Guildenstern    O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

Hamlet    Do the boys carry it away?

Rosencrantz    Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.

Hamlet    It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark,
    and those that would make mouths at him while my father
    lived give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece
    for his picture in little. 'Sblood, there is something in
    this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.
                                     [Flourish of trumpets within.

Guildenstern    There are the players.

Hamlet    Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come
    then. The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony.
    Let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the
    players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward,
    should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are
    welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

Guildenstern    In what, my dear lord?

Hamlet    I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly I
    know a hawk from a handsaw.

                            Re-enter POLONIUS.

Polonius    Well be with you, gentlemen.

Hamlet    Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too - at each ear a hearer
    - that great baby you see there is not yet out of his
    swaddling clouts.

Rosencrantz    Haply he's the second time come to them, for they say an
    old man is twice a child.

Hamlet    I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark
    it. - You say right, sir, a' Monday morning; 'twas then
    indeed.

Polonius    My lord, I have news to tell you.

Hamlet    My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor
    in Rome-

Polonius    The actors are come hither, my lord.

Hamlet    Buzz, buzz.

Polonius    Upon my honour.

Hamlet    Then came each actor on his ass.

Polonius    The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,
    history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,
    tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral,
    scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too
    heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the
    liberty, these are the only men.

Hamlet    O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

Polonius    What a treasure had he, my lord?

Hamlet    Why,
            'One fair daughter, and no more,
            The which he lovd passing well'.

Polonius    [Aside.] Still on my daughter.

Hamlet    Am I not i'th' right, old Jephthah?

Polonius    If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I
    love passing well.

Hamlet    Nay, that follows not.

Polonius    What follows then, my lord?

Hamlet    Why,
            'As by lot, God wot,'

    and then you know,

            'It came to pass as most like it was'-

    The first row of the pious chanson will show you more, for
    look where my abridgement comes.

                            Enter THE PLAYERS.

    You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see
    thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! Thy
    face is valanced since I saw thee last; com'st thou to
    beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady and mistress!
    By'rlady, your ladyship is nearer heaven than when I saw
    you last by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice,
    like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the
    ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to't like
    French falconers, fly at anything we see. We'll have a
    speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality.
    Come, a passionate speech.

1st Player    What speech, my good lord?

Hamlet    I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never
    acted, or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I
    remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the
    general. But it was - as I received it, and others whose
    judgements in such matters cried in the top of mine - an
    excellent play, 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 savoury, nor no
    matter in the phrase that 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 when 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"-

    'tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus-

        "The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
        Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
        When he lay couchd in the ominous horse,
        Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared
        With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
        Now is he total gules, horridly tricked
        With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
        Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
        That lend a tyrannous and a damnd light
        To their lord's murder. Roasted in wrath and fire,
        And thus o'ersizd with coagulate gore,
        With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
        Old grandsire Priam seeks."

    So, proceed you.

Polonius    Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good
    discretion.

1st Player                                    "Anon he finds him
        Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
        Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
        Repugnant to command. Unequal matched,
        Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;
        But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
        Th' unnervd father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
        Seeming to feel this 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 rousd vengeance sets him new a-work;
        And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
        On Mars's armour, 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!"

Polonius    This is too long.

Hamlet    It shall to th' 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.

1st Player        "But who, O who had seen the mobled queen-"

Hamlet    'The mobled queen?'

Polonius    That's good, 'mobled queen' is good.

1st Player        "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'erteemd loins,
        A blanket, in th' 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 clamour 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."

Polonius    Look, whe'er he has not turned his colour, and has tears
    in's eyes. Prithee no more.

Hamlet    'Tis well; I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.
    [To POLONIUS.] 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.

Polonius    My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Hamlet    God's bodykins, man, much better. Use every man after his
    desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your
    own honour and dignity; the less they deserve, the more
    merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Polonius    Come, sirs.
                                                [Exit.

Hamlet    Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play tomorrow.
    [To 1st PLAYER.] Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you
    play the Murder of Gonzago?

1st Player    Ay, my lord.

Hamlet    We'll ha't tomorrow night. You could, for a need, study a
    speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set
    down and insert in't, could you not?

1st Player    Ay, my lord.

Hamlet    Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.
                                                [Exeunt PLAYERS.
    My good friends, I'll leave you till night. You are welcome
    to Elsinore.

Rosencrantz    Good my lord!
                           [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Hamlet    Ay, so, God-buy to you. 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 this visage wanned,
    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 appal the free,
    Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
    The very faculties 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?
    Ha! '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-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 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 brains. Hum, 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, will speak
    With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
    Play something like the murder of my father
    Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks,
    I'll tent him to the quick. If he do blench,
    I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
    May be a devil, and the devil hath power
    T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
    Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
    As he is very potent with such spirits,
    Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
    More relative than this. The play's the thing
    Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
                                                [Exit.