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Ham.

First
Player

Ham.

lord.

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

Ay, very easily, my lord.

'Tis well, I thank you. Follow that lord; and look you, [Exit First Player]

mock him not.

My good friends, I'll leave you till night; you are welcome to Elsinore.

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Oh, 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 wann'd ;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his 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 her,

with tears,

That he should weep for her? What would he do
Had he the motive, and that for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage
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 damn'd 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 the nose! gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs! Who does me this!
Hah! s'wounds !-I should take it for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd, 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!
Why, what an ass am I ! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear 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 ;—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 proclaim'd 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 Hamlet]

END OF THE SECOND ACT

King

Ros.

Guil.

Queen

Ros.

Guil.

Ros.

Queen

Third Act

SCENE I-ELSINORE

A GALLERY WITH CURTAINED ALCOVES
IN THE CASTLE

Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRAntz, and GUILDENSTERN

And can you, by no drift of conference

Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

You being so near in love, even from his youth,
Me thinks should gain more than a stranger should.

My lord, we have done all the best we could,
To wring from him the cause of all his grief.
He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause, he will by no means speak.
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

Did he receive you well?

Most like a gentleman.

But with much forcing of his disposition.

Niggard of question, but of our demands
Most free in his reply.

Did you assay him to any pastime ?

Ros.

Pol.

King

Ros.

King

Queen

Oph.

Pol.

Madam, it so fell out that certain players
We o'er-raught on the way of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: they are about the court,
And (as I think) they have already order
This night to play before him.

"Tis most true;

And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.

With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclin'd,

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose into these delights.
Spare for no cost, our coffers shall be open,
And we unto your selves will still be thankful.
In all we can, be sure you shall command.

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]
Sweet Gertrude, leave us two;
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia; her father and myself,
Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
If't be th'affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.

I shall obey you :

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness; so shall I hope your virtues,

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit Queen]

Ophelia, walk you here.-Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves. [To Ophelia] Read on this

book,

King

Pol.

Ham.

That show of such an exercise may colour

Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,-
'Tis too much proved, that with devotion's visage
And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

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How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience.
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burthen!

I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord.

[Exeunt King and Polonius]

Enter HAMLET

To be, or not to be that is the question,
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them, to die, to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep! perchance to dream! ay, there's the rub ;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life :

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispiz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin; who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,

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