Pol. Give first admittance to the ambassadors; My news shall be the fruit to that great feast. King.Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in. [Exit POLONIUS. He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found The head and source of all your son's distemper.

Queen. I doubt it is no other but the main; His father's death, and our o'er-hasty marriage.

Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and COR

NELIUS.

King. Well, we shall sift him.-Welcome, my
good friends!

Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?
Volt. Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew's levies; which to him appeared
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
But, better looked into, he truly found
It was against your highness: whereat grieved,
That so his sickness, age, and impotence,
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway; and, in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle, never more
To give th' assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,

Pol.

[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS. This business is well ended.My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief:-Your noble son is mad: Mad call I it; for to define true madness, What is 't but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go. Queen.

More matter, with less art.
Pol. Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 't is true: 't is true, 't is pity;
And pity 't is, 't is true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.

Mad let us grant him, then and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect;
Or rather say, the cause of this defect;
For this effect, defective, comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Perpend:

I have a daughter; have, while she is mine;
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.

Pol.

What do you think of me?
King. As of a man faithful and honourable.
Pol. I would fain prove so. But what might you
think,

When I had seen this hot love on the wing
(As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me), what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had played the desk or table-book ;
Or given my heart a working mute and dumb;
Or looked upon this love with idle sight;
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus did I bespeak :
"Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy sphere;
This must not be:" and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens:
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulséd (a short tale to make),
Fell into a sadness; then into a fast;
Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness;
Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we mourn for.

Reads.

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.

Ham. 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 : conception is

a blessing; but as your daughter may conceive,friend, look to 't.

Pol. How say you by that? [Aside.] 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 who? 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 as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it [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 anything that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life.

lord.

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

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDenstern.
Pol. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there he is.
Ros. God save you, sir! [TO POLONIUS.
[Exit POLONIUS.

Guil. My honoured lord!
Ros. My most dear lord!

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

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. Guil. Happy in that we are not over-happy; On Fortune's cap we are not the very button. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe? Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

Guil. 'Faith, her privates we.

Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet.-What news?

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

Ham. Then is doomsday near: but your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: what have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guil. Prison, my lord?
Ham. Denmark's a prison.

Ros. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 't is too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.

Ros. Truly; and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow.

Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggar's shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.

Ham. No such matter: I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. 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: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear, a halfpenny. 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. Anything-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.

But let me

Ros. To what end, my lord? Ham. That you must teach 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 for or no?

Ros. What say you? [To GUILDENStern. Ham. Nay, then, I have an eye of you; [Aside.] -If you love me, hold not off.

Guil. My lord, we were sent for.

antici

Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my pation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy

161

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 appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.-What a piece of work is a man! How noble in 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, nor woman neither; though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.

Ros. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

Ham. Why did you laugh then, when I said, "Man delights not me!"

Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service.

Ham. He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o'the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for 't.-What players are they?

Ros. Even those you were wont to take such delight in; the tragedians of the city.

Ham. How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

Ros. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?

Ros. No, indeed, they are not.

Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty? Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace but there is, sir, an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages (so they call them), that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.

Ham. What, are they children? who maintains them? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing?

will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players (as it is most like, if their means are no better), their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession?

Ros. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them on to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

Ham. Is it possible?

Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

Ham. Do the boys carry it away?

Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.

Ham. It is not very strange for my uncle is King of Denmark; and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little. There is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. [Flourish of trumpets within. Guil. There are the players. Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to ElsiYour hands. Come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb; lest my extent to the players, which I tell you must shew fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome; but my unclefather and aunt-mother are deceived.

nore.

Guil. In what, my dear lord?

Ham. I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hand-saw.

Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen! Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern; and you, too; at each ear a hearer: that great baby you see there, is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts.

Ros. Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an old man is twice a child.

Ham. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it.-You say right, sir: o' Monday morning; 't was then, indeed.

Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you.

Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome,Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord. Ham. Buz, buz!

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-comi