Fye upon't! foh! About, my brains! I have heard,
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,(66)
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father,
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick; if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit, that I have seen,
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,
(As he is very potent with such spirits,)
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

[Exit.

a about, my brains] i. e. wits, to work. Steevens points out the phrase in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632.

b blench] i. e. shrink, start aside. See M. for M. V. 5. Duke, and Wint. T. I. 2. Camil.

с

more relative than this] i. e. directly applicable.

ACT III. SCENE I.

A Room in the Castle.

Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSEN-
CRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

KING. And can you, by no drift of *circumstance** conferGet from him, why he puts on this confusion;

Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted; But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUIL. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded;
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,

When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

QUEEN.

Did he receive you well?

Ros. Most like a gentleman.

GUIL. But with much forcing of his disposition.

Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply.

QUEEN.
To any pastime?

Did you assay hima

Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players

a drift of circumstance] i. e. "introduction and shaping of topics and facts."

b forward] i. e. disposed, inclinable.

c niggard of question,] i. e. “ rarely started any topic, but to our questions most frank and open in answering."

d

assay him to] i. e. try his disposition towards." See II. 1.

Polon. and 2 Volt.

ence. 4tos.

* two. 4tos.

We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him ;
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: They are about the court;
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

POL.

"Tis most true:

And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties,
To hear and see the matter.

KING. With all my heart; and it doth much
content me

To hear him so inclin❜d.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros. We shall, my lord.

KING.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too :* For we have closely (1) sent for Hamlet hither; † So 4tos. That he, as 'twere by accident, may here+ Affront Ophelia :(2)

there,

1623, 32.

Her father, and myself (lawful espials,)"

Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
If't be the affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.

QUEEN.

I shall obey you:

And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish,

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope, your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

ОРН.

Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit Queen.

"Was

a o'er-raught on the way] i. e. reached or overtook. not the samyn misfortoun me over-raucht ?" Gaw. Dougl. Æn. STEEVENS.

b lawful espials] i. e. " spies justifiably inquisitive." See I. H. VI. I. 4. Master Gunner.

Poz. Ophelia, walk you here: Gracious, so please

you,

We will bestow ourselves: Read on this book;

[TO OPHELIA. That show of such an exercise may colour a Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,'Tis too much prov'd," that, with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar* o'er

The devil himself.

KING.
O, 'tis too true! how smart
A lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burden!

[Aside. POL. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord. [Exeunt King and POLONIUS.

Enter HAMLET.

HAM. To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer(3)
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,(4)
And, by opposing, end them ?-To die,-to sleep,
No more ;(5)—and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ach, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die ;-to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream ;-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

* So 4tos. surge. 1623, 32.

b too much prov'd] i. e. found by too frequent experience.

JOHNSON.

c More ugly to the thing that helps it, Than is my deed to my most painted word.] To is, in comparison, with. See All's well &c. III. 5. Hel. coloured.

Painted is falsely

d when we have shuffled off this mortal coil] Coil is here used

proude. 4tos.

+ despised. 4tos.

I would fardels. 4tos.

Must give us pause." There's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life :

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the poor man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd+ love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the

spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin?(6) who would these fardels!

bear,

To grunt(7) and sweat under a weary

life;

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,(8) puzzles the will;

in each of its senses, that of turmoil or bustle, and that which entwines or wraps round. "This muddy vesture of decay," M. of V. V. 1. Lor. Those folds of mortality that encircle and entangle us. Snakes generally lie in folds like the coils of ropes: and, it is conceived, that an allusion is here had to the struggle which that animal is obliged to make in casting his slough, or extricating himself from the skin, that forms the exterior of this coil. And this he throws off annually.

a must give us pause] i. e. stop our career, occasion reflection. There's the respect,

b

That makes calamity of so long life] i. e. the reflection or consideration that makes the evils of life so long submitted to, lived under.

c The whips and scorns of time] i. e. those sufferings of body and mind, those stripes and mortifications to which, in its course, the life of man is subjected. Of the " whips of heaven," he speaks in Timon, V. 1. Poet. Boswell points out an enumeration of the evils inseparable from human life as well as a similar phraseology in Bedingfield's Cardanus Comfort, 1576: "Hunger, thurste, sleape not so plentiful or quiet as deade me have, heate in sommer, colde in winter, disorder of tyme, terrour of warres, controlement of parentes, cares of wedlocke, studye for children, slouthe of servauntes, contention of sutes, and that (whiche is the moste of all) the condicion of tyme wherein honestye is disdaynd, as folye and crafte is honoured as wisdome."

d The poor man's contumely] i. e. the slight, the spurnings, to which that condition subjects him. "Ridiculos homines facit, says Juvenal, III. 153. The reading of the 4tos. is proud: and certainly that which the one, the proud man, offers, is more in the course of the idea, and a more natural form of speaking, than that which the other, the poor man, suffers.