I warrant your honor.

HAM. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play – and heard others [praise], and that highly – not to speak it profanely, that, neither having th' accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellow'd that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

[1.] PLAY. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us, [sir].

HAM. O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves laugh to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be consider'd. That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.

 

[Exeunt Players.]

 

Enter Polonius, Guildenstern, and Rosencrantz.

 

How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work?

POL. And the Queen too, and that presently.

HAM. Bid the players make haste. [Exit Polonius.] Will you two help to hasten them?

ROS. Ay, my lord.

 

Exeunt they two.

 

HAM. What ho, Horatio!

 

Enter Horatio.

 

HOR.

Here, sweet lord, at your service.

HAM.

Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man

As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.

HOR.

O my dear lord –

HAM.

Nay, do not think I flatter,

For what advancement may I hope from thee

That no revenue hast but thy good spirits

To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,

And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee

Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice

And could of men distinguish her election,

Sh' hath seal'd thee for herself, for thou hast been

As one in suff'ring all that suffers nothing,

A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards

Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those

Whose blood and judgment are so well co-meddled,

That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger

To sound what stop she please. Give me that man

That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him

In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,

As I do thee. Something too much of this.

There is a play to-night before the King,

One scene of it comes near the circumstance

Which I have told thee of my father's death.

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,

Even with the very comment of thy soul

Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt

Do not itself unkennel in one speech,

It is a damned ghost that we have seen,

And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note,

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,

And after we will both our judgments join

In censure of his seeming.

HOR.

Well, my lord.

If 'a steal aught the whilst this play is playing,

And scape [detecting], I will pay the theft.

 

[Sound a flourish. Danish march.] Enter Trumpets and Kettle-drums, King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, [Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and other Lords attendant, with his Guard carrying torches].

 

HAM. They are coming to the play. I must be idle; Get you a place.

KING. How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAM. Excellent, i' faith, of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-cramm'd – you cannot feed capons so.

KING. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet, these words are not mine.

HAM. No, nor mine now. [To Polonius.] My lord, you play'd once i' th' university, you say?

POL. That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

HAM.