Hamlet Part 12

Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Oph.

Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

Ham.

You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.

Oph.

I was the more deceived.

Ham.

Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

Oph.

At home, my lord.

Ham.

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.

Oph.

O, help him, you sweet heavens!

Ham.

If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry,-- be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

Oph.

O heavenly powers, restore him!

Ham.

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; G.o.d hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname G.o.d's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no moe marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.

[Exit.]

Oph.

O, what a n.o.ble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword, The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The gla.s.s of fashion and the mould of form, The observ'd of all observers,--quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched That suck'd the honey of his music vows, Now see that n.o.ble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

[Re-enter King and Polonius.]

King.

Love! his affections do not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's something in his soul O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose Will be some danger: which for to prevent, I have in quick determination Thus set it down:--he shall with speed to England For the demand of our neglected tribute: Haply the seas, and countries different, With variable objects, shall expel This something-settled matter in his heart; Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus From fashion of himself. What think you on't?

Pol.

It shall do well: but yet do I believe The origin and commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love.--How now, Ophelia!

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said; We heard it all.--My lord, do as you please; But if you hold it fit, after the play, Let his queen mother all alone entreat him To show his grief: let her be round with him; And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear Of all their conference. If she find him not, To England send him; or confine him where Your wisdom best shall think.

King.

It shall be so: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

[Exeunt.]

Scene II. A hall in the Castle.

[Enter Hamlet and cartain Players.]

Ham.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I p.r.o.nounced 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 torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of pa.s.sion, 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 pa.s.sion to tatters, to very rags, to split the cars 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.

I Player.

I warrant your honour.

Ham.

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 overdone 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 own image, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make 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 others praise, and that highly,--not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the 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 them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

I Player.

I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us, sir.

Ham.

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 quant.i.ty of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.

[Exeunt Players.]

[Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.]

How now, my lord! will the king hear this piece of work?

Pol.

And the queen too, and that presently.

Ham.

Bid the players make haste.

[Exit Polonius.]

Will you two help to hasten them?

Ros. and Guil.

We will, my lord.

[Exeunt Ros. and Guil.]

Ham.

What, ho, Horatio!

[Enter Horatio.]

Hor.

Here, sweet lord, at your service.

Ham.

Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.

Hor.

O, my dear lord,-- Ham.

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?

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 Hath seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing; A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and bles'd are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger To sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not pa.s.sion'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 a play to-night before the king; One scene of it comes near the circ.u.mstance, Which I have told thee, of my father's death: I pr'ythee, when thou see'st that act a-foot, Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech, It is a d.a.m.ned ghost that we have seen; And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan's st.i.thy. Give him heedful note; For I mine eyes will rivet to his face; And, after, we will both our judgments join In censure of his seeming.

Hor.

Well, my lord: If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing, And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Ham.

They are coming to the play. I must be idle: Get you a place.

[Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others.]

King.

How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Ham.

Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

King.

I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

Ham.

No, nor mine now. My lord, you play'd once i' the university, you say? [To Polonius.]

Pol.

That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

Ham.

What did you enact?

Pol.

I did enact Julius Caesar; I was kill'd 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.