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
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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
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ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are
capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and
noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for
o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you
avoid it.
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1 PLAYER I warrant your honour.
HAMLET 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
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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 feature, scorn her own image, and the very age
and body of the time his form and pressure. Now
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this overdone or come tardy off, though it makes the
unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious
grieve, the censure of the which one must in your
allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O,
there be players that I have seen play – and heard
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others praise, and that highly – not to speak it
profanely, that neither having th’accent of Christians,
nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of
Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made
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them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
1 PLAYER I hope we have reformed that indifferently
with us.
HAMLET O reform it altogether. And let those that play
your clowns speak no more than is set down for them
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– 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
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it. Go make you ready. Exeunt Players.
Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of
work?
POLONIUS And the Queen too, and that presently.
HAMLET Bid the players make haste. Exit Polonius.
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Will you two help to hasten them?
ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord.
Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
HAMLET What ho, Horatio!
Enter HORATIO.
HORATIO Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man
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As e’er my conversation cop’d withal.
HORATIO O my dear lord.
HAMLET 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 flatter’d?
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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,
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Sh’ath seal’d thee for herself; 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; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled
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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.
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There is a play tonight 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
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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;
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For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.
HORATIO Well, my lord.
If a steal aught the whilst this play is playing
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
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Enter trumpets and kettle-drums and sound a flourish.
HAMLET They are coming to the play. I must be idle.
Get you a place.
Enter KING, QUEEN, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ,
GUILDENSTERN and other lords attendant, with the King’s guard carrying torches.
KING How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET Excellent, i’faith, of the chameleon’s dish. I
eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed capons
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so.
KING I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These
words are not mine.
HAMLET No, nor mine now. – [to Polonius] My lord, you
played once i’th’ university, you say?
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POLONIUS That did I, my lord, and was accounted a
good actor.
HAMLET What did you enact?
POLONIUS I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i’th’
Capitol. Brutus killed me.
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HAMLET It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a
calf there. Be the players ready?
ROSENCRANTZ Ay, my lord, they stay upon your
patience.
QUEEN Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
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HAMLET No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.
[Turns to Ophelia.]
POLONIUS [aside to the King] O ho! do you mark that?
HAMLET [lying down at Ophelia’s feet] Lady, shall I lie in
your lap?
OPHELIA No, my lord.
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HAMLET I mean, my head upon your lap.
OPHELIA Ay, my lord.
HAMLET Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’
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legs.
OPHELIA What is, my lord?
HAMLET Nothing.
OPHELIA You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET Who, I?
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OPHELIA Ay, my lord.
HAMLET O God, your only jig-maker. What should a
man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my
mother looks a
nd my father died within’s two hours.
OPHELIA Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.
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HAMLET So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for
I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens, die two months
ago and not forgotten yet! Then there’s hope a great
man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. But by’r
lady a must build churches then, or else shall a suffer
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not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose
epitaph is ‘For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot’.
[The trumpets sound. A dumb-show follows.]
Enter a KING and a QUEEN, the Queen embracing him and
he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him.
He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck. He lies
him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing him asleep,
leaves him. Anon comes in another Man, takes off his crown,
kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper’s ears, and leaves him.
The QUEEN returns, finds the King dead, makes passionate
action. The Poisoner with some three or four comes in again.
They seem to condole with her. The dead body is carried
away. The Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts. She
seems harsh awhile, but in the end accepts his love.
Exeunt.
OPHELIA What means this, my lord?
HAMLET Marry, this is miching malicho. It means mischief.
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OPHELIA Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
Enter PROLOGUE.
HAMLET We shall know by this fellow. The players
cannot keep counsel: they’ll tell all.
OPHELIA Will a tell us what this show meant?
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HAMLET Ay, or any show that you will show him. Be not
you ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what
it means.
OPHELIA You are naught, you are naught. I’ll mark the
play.
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PROLOGUE For us and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently. Exit.
HAMLET Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA ’Tis brief, my lord.
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HAMLET As woman’s love.
Enter the PLAYER KING and QUEEN.
PLAYER KING
Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow’d sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been
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Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
PLAYER QUEEN So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o’er ere love be done.
But woe is me, you are so sick of late,
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So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;
For women’s fear and love hold quantity,
In neither aught, or in extremity.
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Now what my love is, proof hath made you know,
And as my love is siz’d, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
PLAYER KING
Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too:
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My operant powers their functions leave to do;
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour’d, belov’d; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou –
PLAYER QUEEN O confound the rest.
Such love must needs be treason in my breast.
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In second husband let me be accurst;
None wed the second but who kill’d the first.
HAMLET [aside] That’s wormwood.
PLAYER QUEEN The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
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A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
PLAYER KING I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine, oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
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Of violent birth but poor validity,
Which now, the fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.
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What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 130
