Pol. Away! I do beseech you, both away. I'll board him presently. O! give me leave. 79 80 Ham. Pol. Do you know me, my lord? Excellent well; you are a fishmonger. | Not I, my lord. Then, I would you were so honest a man. 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 good kissing carrion, Pol. I have, my lord. Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun. blessing, but as your daughter may look to 't. Conception is a conceive friend, Pol. [Aside.] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger. He is 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 which, Sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, Sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. Pol. Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't. [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. lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. Ham. You cannot, Sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life. Pol. Fare you well, my lord. Ham. Pol. Ros. Guil. These tedious old fools! Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. You go to seek the lord Hamlet? there he is. Mine honour'd lord! Ros. My most dear lord! | [TO POLONIUS. [Exit POLONIUS. Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guil- 81 denstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. Guil. Happy, in that we are not overhappy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. 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 dooms-day 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. Ros. Denmark's a prison. 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 't is 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 nut-shell, and 82 83 84 85 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 beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you. 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. Why any thing, 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. Ros. To what end, my lord? Ham. That you must teach me. But let 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. | Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secresy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late, (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, foregone 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 appeareth nothing to me, but 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; no, 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. | 86 Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I 87 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 eyry 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 88 89 their means are not 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 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. 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 mowes at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little. 'Sblood, 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 Elsinore. Your 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 show fairly outward) should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome; but my uncle-father, and aunt - mother, are deceived. 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 handsaw. Pol. Enter POLONIUS. 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 swathing-clouts. Ros. Haply, he 's the second time come to them; for, they say, an old man is twice a child. | 90 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! |