The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare [book recommendations based on other books txt] 📗

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Pol. Upon my honour—

Ham. Then came each actor on his ass—

Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral; scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

Pol. What treasure had he, my lord?

Ham. Why,

 

‘One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved passing well.’

 

Pol. [aside] Still on my daughter.

Ham. Am I not i’ th’ right, old Jephthah?

Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.

Ham. Nay, that follows not.

Pol. What follows then, my lord?

Ham. Why,

 

‘As by lot, God wot,’

 

and then, you know,

 

‘It came to pass, as most like it was.’

 

The first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look where my abridgment comes.

 

Enter four or five Players.

 

You are welcome, masters; welcome, all.- I am glad to see thee well.- Welcome, good friends.- O, my old friend? Why, thy face is valanc’d since I saw thee last. Com’st’ thou to’ beard me in Denmark?- What, my young lady and mistress? By’r Lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not crack’d within the ring.- Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anything we see. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.

1. Play. What speech, my good lord?

Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleas’d not the million, ‘twas caviary to the general; but it was (as I receiv’d it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine) an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation; but call’d it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in’t I chiefly lov’d. ‘Twas AEneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line-let me see, let me see: ‘The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast-‘

 

‘Tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:

 

‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, Black as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in the ominous horse, Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot Now is be total gules, horridly trick’d With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrannous and a damned light To their lord’s murther. Roasted in wrath and fire, And thus o’ersized with coagulate gore, With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Priam seeks.’

 

So, proceed you.

Pol. Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

 

1. Play. ‘Anon he finds him,

Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Repugnant to command. Unequal match’d, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide; But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword Th’ unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo! his sword, Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ th’ air to stick.

So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood, And, like a neutral to his will and matter, Did nothing.

But, as we often see, against some storm, A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, The bold winds speechless, and the orb below As hush as death-anon the dreadful thunder Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’ pause, Aroused vengeance sets him new awork; And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne, With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword Now falls on Priam.

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods, In general synod take away her power; Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven, As low as to the fiends!

 

Pol. This is too long.

Ham. It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.- Prithee say on.

He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on; come to Hecuba.

 

1. Play. ‘But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen-‘

 

Ham. ‘The mobled queen’?

Pol. That’s good! ‘Mobled queen’ is good.

 

1. Play. ‘Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe, About her lank and all o’erteemed loins, A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up-Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d ‘Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d.

But if the gods themselves did see her then, When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport In Mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs, The instant burst of clamour that she made (Unless things mortal move them not at all) Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven And passion in the gods.’

 

Pol. Look, whe’r he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s eyes. Prithee no more!

Ham. ‘Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.-

Good my lord, will you see the players well bestow’d? Do you hear? Let them be well us’d; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Ham. God’s bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Pol. Come, sirs.

Ham. Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.

Exeunt Polonius and Players [except the First].

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play ‘The Murther of Gonzago’?

1. Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?

1. Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Very well. Follow that lord-and look you mock him not.

[Exit First Player.]

My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

Ros. Good my lord!

Ham. Ay, so, God b’ wi’ ye!

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Now I am alone.

O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit That, from her working, all his visage wann’d, Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!

For Hecuba!

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would he do, Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing! No, not for a king, Upon whose property and most dear life A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?

Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by th’ nose? gives me the lie i’ th’ throat As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this, ha?

‘Swounds, I should take it! for it cannot be But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall To make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave’s offal. Bloody bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murther’d, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must (like a whore) unpack my heart with words And fall a-cursing like a very drab,

A scullion!

Fie upon’t! foh! About, my brain! Hum, I have heard That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul that presently They have proclaim’d their malefactions; For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ, I’ll have these Players Play something like the murther of my father Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks; I’ll tent him to the quick. If he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be a devil; and the devil hath power T’ assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds More relative than this. The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King. Exit.

 

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ACT III. Scene I.

Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

 

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Lords.

 

King. And can you by no drift of circumstance Get from him why he puts on this confusion, Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted, But from what cause he will by no means speak.

Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty madness keeps aloof When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state.

Queen. Did he receive you well?

Ros. Most like a gentleman.

Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition.

Ros. Niggard of question, but of our demands Most free in his reply.

Queen. Did you assay him

To any pastime?

Ros. Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o’erraught on the way. Of these we told him, And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it. They are here about the court, And, as I think, they have already order This night to play before him.

Pol. ‘Tis most true;

And he beseech’d me to entreat your Majesties To hear and see the matter.

King. With all my heart, and it doth much content me To hear him so inclin’d.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge And drive his purpose on to these delights.

Ros. We shall, my lord.

Exeunt Rosencrantz