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 the Players, [four or five].

 

You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, 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' 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] falc'ners – fly at any thing 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 savory, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affection, 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 when 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 th' ominous horse,

Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd

With heraldy 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 lord's murther. Roasted in wrath and fire,

And thus o'er-sized 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 reverent 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,

A roused vengeance sets him new a-work,

And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall

On Mars's armor 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, ah woe, 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'er-teemed 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 clamor 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'er he has not turn'd his color 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 bodkin, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity – the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.