1st Play. 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 feature, 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 which one, must, in your allowance, o'er-weigh 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.

us.

1st Play. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with

Ham. O! reform it altogether. And let those that play your clown, speak no more than is set down for them: for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too! though in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered; that's villainous, and shows a most pitiable ambition in the fool that uses it. [Exit.

Hamlet.

ACT II., SCENE II.

Enter HAMLET, reading.

Pol. How does my good lord Hamlet?

Ham. Well, heav'n-'a-mercy.

Pol. Do you know me, my

lord?

Ham. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

Pol. Not I, my lord.

Ham. Then, I would you were so honest a man.

Pol. Honest, my lord?

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

Pol. That's very true, my lord.

IIam. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion,-Have you a daughter?

Pol. I have, my lord.

Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun: friend, look to't.

Pol. [Aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter:-yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He 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?

Ham. Words, words, words.

Pol. What is the matter, my lord?

Ham. Between whom?

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

Ham. 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 of which, sir, (though I most powerfully and potently believe,) yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab, you could go backward.

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

Ham. Into my grave.

Pol. Indeed, that is out o' the air. 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. My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life.

Pol. Fare you well, my lord.
Ham. These tedious old fools!

[Exit.

Pol. [Without] You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there

he is.

Ros. Heav'n save you, sir!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Guil. Mine honor'd lord!

Ros. My most dear lord!

Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both? What news?

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

Ham. Then is dooms-day near; but your news is not true. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

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

Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: 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.

Guil. What should we say, my lord?

Ham. Why, any thing, but to the 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.

Ros. To what end, my lord?

Ham. 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 or no? Ros. [Aside to Guildenstern] What say you?

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

Guil. My lord, we were sent for.

Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secresy 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 appeareth nothing to me, but a foul and pestilent congrega tion of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble his reason! how infinite in faculties ! 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.

Richard III.

ACT IV., SCENE II.—A ROOM OF STATE IN THE PALACE.
RICHARD, as King, upon his throne; BUCKINGHAM,
CATESBY, a Page, and others.

K. Rich. Stand all apart. Cousin of Buckingham!
Buck. My gracious sovereign?

K. Rich. Give me thy hand. Thus high, by thy advice,
And thy assistance, is King Richard seated:

But shall we wear these glories for a day?

Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?

Buck. Still live they, and for ever let them last!

K. Rich. Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
To try if thou be current gold indeed :

Young Edward lives;-think now what I would speak.
Buck. Say on, my loving lord.

K. Rich. Why, Buckingham, I say, I would be king.
Buck. Why, so you are, my thrice-renowned liege.

K. Rich. Ha! am I king? 'Tis so :-but Edward lives.
Buck. True, noble prince.

O bitter consequence,

K. Rich.
That Edward still should live-'true, noble prince ! '—
Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull :

Shall I be plain? I wish the princes dead;
And I would have it suddenly perform'd.

What say'st thou now? speak suddenly; be brief.
Buck. Your grace may do your pleasure.

K. Rich. Tut, tut, thou art all ice, thy kindness freezes : Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?

D

Buck. Give me some little breath, some pause, dear lord, Before I positively speak in this :

[Exit BUCKINGHAM.

I will resolve you herein presently.
Cates. The king is angry, see, he gnaws his lip.
K. Rich. I will converse with iron-witted fools,

[Aside.

[Descends from his throne.

And unrespective boys: none are for me
That look into me with considerate eyes :
High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.
Boy!

Page. My lord?

K. Rich. Know'st thou not any whom corrupting gold Would tempt into a close exploit of death?

Page. I know a discontented gentleman,

Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit:
Gold were as good as twenty orators,

And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything.

K. Rich. What is his name?

His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.

Page.
K. Rich. I partly know the man: go, call him hither, boy.

The deep-revolving witty Buckingham

No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels :
Hath he so long held out with me untir'd,

And stops he now for breath ?—well, be it so.

Enter STANLEY.

How now, Lord Stanley! what's the news?
Stan. Know, my loving lord,

The Marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled

To Richmond, in the parts where he abides.

[Exit Page.

K. Rich. Come hither, Catesby: rumour it abroad
That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick ;

I will take order for her keeping close.
Inquire me out some mean, poor gentleman,

Whom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter;
The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.

Look, how thou dream'st !—I say again, give out
That Anne my queen is sick, and like to die :
About it; for it stands me much upon,

To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.

[Exit CATESBY.