Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

I warrant your honour.

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 anything so overdone 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 own 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 make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the 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 the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

I hope we have reform’d that indifferently with us, sir.

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 meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. That’s villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.

And the Queen too, and that presently.

Bid the players make haste.

What ho, Horatio!

Here, sweet lord, at your service.

O my dear lord.

How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

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

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

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

What did you enact?

I did enact Julius Caesar. I was kill’d i’ th’ Capitol. Brutus killed me.

It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the players ready?

Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.

[To the King.] O ho! do you mark that?

Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

No, my lord.

I mean, my head upon your lap?

Ay, my lord.

Do you think I meant country matters?

I think nothing, my lord.

That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.

What is, my lord?

Nothing.

You are merry, my lord.

Who, I?

Ay, my lord.

O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within’s two hours.

Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.

So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. But by’r lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For, O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!’

What means this, my lord?

Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they’ll tell all.

Will they tell us what this show meant?

Ay, or any show that you’ll show him. Be not you ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means.

You are naught, you are naught: I’ll mark the play.

Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

’Tis brief, my lord.

As woman’s love.

[Aside.] Wormwood, wormwood.

[To Ophelia.] If she should break it now.

Madam, how like you this play?

The lady protests too much, methinks.

O, but she’ll keep her word.

Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?

No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ th’ world.

What do you call the play?

The Mousetrap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the Duke’s name, his wife Baptista: you shall see anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work: but what o’ that? Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gall’d jade wince; our withers are unwrung.

You are a good chorus, my lord.

I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

Still better, and worse.

So you mistake your husbands.—Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

He poisons him i’ th’garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

The King rises.

What, frighted with false fire?

How fares my lord?

Give o’er the play.

Give me some light. Away.

Half a share.

You might have rhymed.

O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?

Very well, my lord.

Upon the talk of the poisoning?

I did very well note him.

Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

Sir, a whole history.

The King, sir—

Ay, sir, what of him?

Is in his retirement, marvellous distempered.

With drink, sir?

No, my lord; rather with choler.

Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.

Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

I am tame, sir, pronounce.

The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

You are welcome.

Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

Sir, I cannot.

What, my lord?

Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,—

Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration?

She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

My lord, you once did love me.

And so I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Sir, I lack advancement.

How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark?

Ay, sir, but while the grass grows—the proverb is something musty.

O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

My lord, I cannot.

I pray you.

Believe me, I cannot.

I do beseech you.

I know no touch of it, my lord.

’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill.

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

By the mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.

Methinks it is like a weasel.

It is backed like a weasel.

Or like a whale.

Very like a whale.

Then will I come to my mother by and by.—They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will come by and by.

I will say so.

By and by is easily said. Leave me, friends.