DESCRIPTION OF OPHELIA'S DEATH.
Queen. There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she make Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long pur¡ les,* That liberalf shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke: When down her weedy trophies, and herself, Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: Which time, she chanted snatches of old tunes; As s one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indu'd Unto that element: but long it could not be, Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death.
ACT V.
HAMLET'S REFLECTIONS ON YORICK'S SCULL.
Grave-digger. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once, this same scull, sir, was Yorick's scull, the king's jester.
Ham. This?
[Takes the scull.
Grave-digger. E'en that.
now,
Ham. Alas! poor Yorick!-I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips, that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
Orchis morio mas. + I icentious. + Insensible.
her paint an inch thick, to this favour* she must come; make her laugh at that.
OPHELIA'S INTERMENT.
Lay her i' the earth;
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh,
May violets spring'—I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.
This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him.
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclos'd,1
His silence will sit drooping.
PROVIDENCE DIRECTS OUR ACTIONS.
And that should teach us,
There's a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough-hew them how we will.
A HEALTH.
Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth.
Now the king drinks to Hamlet.
ACT I.
PATRIOTISM.
WHAT is that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye, and death i' the other,
And I will look on both indifferently:
For, let the gods so speed me, as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.
CONTEMPT OF CASSIUS FOR CESAR.
I was born free as Cesar; so were you. • Countenance, complexion. † Hatched.
We both have fed as well; and we can both
Endure the winter's cold, as well as he.
For once, upon a raw and gusty* day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Cesar said to me, Dar'st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point? Upon the word,
Accouter'd as I was, I plunged in,
And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did.
The torrent roar'd; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point propos'd,
Cesar cry'd, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.
I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so, from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Cesar: And this man
Is now become a god; And Cassius is
A wretehed creature, and must bend his body,
If Cesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And, when the fit was on him, I did mark,
How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their colour fly;
And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:
Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books;
Alas! it cried, Give me some drink, 'Titinius,
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble tempert should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone.
[Shout. Flourish.
Bru. Another general shout!
I do believe, that these applauses are
For some new honours that are heap'd on Cesar. Cas. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world,
* Windy.
+ Temperament, constitution.
Like a Colossus: and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus, and Cesar: What should be in that Cesar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure them,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cesar. [Shout.
Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cesar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd:
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was fam'd with more than with one man?
When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walks encompassed but one man?
CESAR'S DISLIKE OF CASSIUS.
'Would he were fatter:-But I fear him not: Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads murh:
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no pla
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music:
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort.
As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spi
That could be mov'd to smile at any thing;
Such men as he be never at heart's ease,
Whiles they behold a greater than themselvei
And therefore are they very dangerous.
I-rather tell thee what is to be fear'd,
Than what I fear, for always I am Cesar.
SPIRIT OF LIBERTY.
I know where I will wear this dagger then: Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius: Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong. Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat:
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit:
But life, being weary of these worldly ars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
If I know this, know all the world besides,
That part of tyranny, that I do bear,
can shake off at pleasure.
ACT II.
AMBITION CLOTHED IN SPECIOUS HUMILITY.
But 'tis a common proof,*
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face:
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degreest
By which he did ascend.
CONSPIRACY DREADFUL TILL EXECUTED
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma,‡ or a hideous dream:
The genius, and the mortal instruments,
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
BRUTUS'S APOSTROPHE TO CONSPIRACY.
O conspiracy!
Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, When evils are most free! O, then, by day, Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspi
racy;
Hide in it smiles, and affability:
For if thou path thy native semblance§ on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.
* Experience.
Walk in thy true form.
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