The play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.

Scene 2.

Act 11.

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-ach 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,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the 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,
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will ;

a

And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? VThus 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.

Scene 1.

Act II.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

Ibid.

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The obsery'd of all observers.

Ibid.

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

Ibid.

Hamlet. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced 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 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 ears of the groundlings ; who, for the most part, are capable of

a

nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise : I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant ; it out-herods Herod : Pray you avoid it.

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 any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 't were, 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'eiweigh 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

Act III.

Scene 2.

Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay,

Here's metal more attractive. Act III.

Scene 2.

OPHELIA. 'Tis brief, my lord,
HAMLET. As woman's love.

Ibid.

Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.

Ibid.

O, wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother !

Ibid.

Very like a whale.

Ibid.

They fool me to the top of my bent.

Ibid.

'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world.

Ibid.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

Ibid.

My offence is rank, it smells to heaven.

Look here, upon this picture, and on this ;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow :
Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself ;

An

eye like Mars, to threaten and command ;
A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.

Act 111.

Scene +

O, shame! where is thy blush ?

Ibid.

A king of shreds and patches.

Ibid.

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music : It is not madness,
That I have utter'd : bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass

but
my
madness speaks.

Ibid.