I chiefly loved: '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,--

   itis 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 he 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 vile murders: 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.

I 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

   The 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' the 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,

   A roused vengeance sets him new a-work;

   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.--Pr'ythee say on.--

He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:--say on; come to Hecuba.

I Play.

   But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,--

Ham.

'The mobled queen'?

Pol.

That's good! 'Mobled queen' is good.

I Play.

   Run barefoot up and down, threatening 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, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's eyes.--Pray you, 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 bestowed? Do you hear? Let them be well used; for they are the abstracts 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.

Odd's bodikin, man, 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 to-morrow.

[Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First.]

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play 'The Murder of

Gonzago'?

I Play.

Ay, my lord.

Ham.

We'll ha't to-morrow 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?

I Play.

Ay, my lord.

Ham.

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

[Exit First Player.]

--My good friends [to Ros. and Guild.], I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore.

Ros.

Good my lord!

[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

Ham.

Ay, so, God b' wi' ye!

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 wan'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 the nose? gives me the lie i' the 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 murder'd,