When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death, -
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,--puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.-Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia ;-Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Oph.

Good my lord, How does your honor for this many a day? Ham. I humbly thank you; well.

Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours

That I have longed long to re-deliver;

I pray you, now receive them.

Ham.

I never gave you aught.

No, not I;

Oph. My honor'd lord, you know right well, you did And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd As made the things more rich: their perfume lost, Take these again; for to the noble mind, Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind. There, my lord.

Hamlet falls into a wild extravagance of speech, and then

Enter HAMLET, and certain Players.
Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you as I pronounced it to

ad as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in corrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your u must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it 5. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious perifellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the e groundlings; who, for the most part are capable of noinexplicable dumb shows, and noise: I would have such a pped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray it.

1. I warrant, your honor.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be : suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with 1 observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; ng so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, - first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror re; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, ry age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now one, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, t make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, our allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, ghly,-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the Christians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have 1, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's n had made men, and not made them well, they imitated 30 abominably.

1. I hope, we have reformed that indifferently with us. ), reform it altogether. And let those, that play your eak no more than is set down for them; for there be of will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary the play be then to be considered: that's villanous; and nost pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make [Exeunt Players.

sity, you say? Pol. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor. Ham. And what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i'the Capitol; Brutus killed me.

Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there.-
Be the players ready?

Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.
Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attracti...

Upn. Dut what is me argumem of me play:

Enter Prologue.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow.
Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

The play selected by Hamlet is performed before the court; in whi murder of his father is exhibited.

The player Queen protests to her husband-that

-Both here, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,

f, once a widow, ever I be wife!

Ham. If she should break it now,

P. King. 'Tis deeply swora.

[

Sweet, leave me here a

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

P. Queen.

Sleep rock thy brain,

And never come mischance between us twain!

Ham. Madam, how like you this play?

Queen. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Ham. O, but she'll keep her word.

King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest no

world.

King. What do you call the play?

Ham. The mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago i name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 'tis a k of work: But what of that? your majesty, and we th