ness 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. My honourable 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. These tedious old fools!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Pol. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there he is. Ros. God save you, sir! [TO POLONIUS. Ex. PoL. Guil. My honour'd lord

Ros. My most dear lord!

Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern ?—Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both ?

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. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ros. 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. Denmark's a prison.

Ros. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one o'the

worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

Ham. Why, then 'tis 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: 'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and 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 outstretch'd heroes, the beggars' shadows:4 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. 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 GUILD. Ham. Nay, then I have an eye of you :5 [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 secrecy to the king

[4] Shakspeare seems here to design a ridicule of those declamations against wealth and greatness, that seem to make happiness consist in poverty. JOHNS. [5] I have a glimpse of your meaning. STEEY.

(but,

and queen moult no feather. I have of late wherefore, I know not,) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a steril promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'er-hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me, than 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 admi rable 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, nor woman neither ;. though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.

Ros. My lord, there is 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:9 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.

Ham, Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so follow'd?

[6] This is an admirable description of a rooted melancholy sprung from thickness of blood; and artfully imagined to hide the true cause of his disorder from the penetration of these two friends, who were set over him as spies. WARBURTON. STEEVENS.

[7] Sparing; like the entertainments given in Lent.

[8] To cote is to overtake.

STEEVENS.

19 Those who are asthmatical, and to whom laughter is most uneasy This is the case, as I am told, with those whose lungs are tickled by the sere or serum. STEEVENS.

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 aiery 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?2 Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing 3 will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players, (as it is most like, if their means are no better) their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession?

Kos. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre them on to controversy :4 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. Ham. Do the boys carry it away?

Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. 5

Ham. It is not very strange: for my uncle is king of Denmark; and those, that would make mouths 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

[1] See Illustrations, Vol. IX.

[2] Paid. From the French escot; a shot or reckoning.

JOHNSON.

[3] Quality-profession. Will they follow the profession of players no longer than they keep the voices of boys? JOHNSON.

[4] To provoke any animal to rage, is to tarre him. JOHNSON. [5] They not only carry away the world, but the world-bearer too: Alluding to the story of Hercules's relieving Atlas. WARBURTON.

The allusion may be to the Globe playhouse on the Bankside, the sign of which was Hercules carrying the Globe. STEEVENS.

[6] I do not wonder that the new players have so suddenly risen to repu tation, my uncle supplies another example of the facility with which honour is conferred upon new claimants. JOHNSON.

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.

Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. 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 swaddling-clouts.

Ros. Happily, he's the second time come to them; for, they say, an old man is twice a child.

Ham. I will prophecy, he comes to tell me of the players; Mark it. You say right, sir: o'Monday morning; 'twas 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!

Pol. Upon mine honour,

Ham. Then came each actor on his ass,·

Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historicalpastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historicalpastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited : Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ, and the liberty, these are the only men.

Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel,—what a treasure

hadst thou !

Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord ?

Ham. Why-One fair daughter, and no more,
The which he loved passing well.

Pol. Still on my daughter.

Ham. Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?

[Aside.

Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daugh

ter, that I love passing well.

Ham. Nay, that follows not.

Pol. What follows then, my lord?

[7] The tragedies of Seneca were translated into English by Thomas Newton. One comedy of Plautus, the Menachmi, was likewise translated and published in 1595

STEEVENS.