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all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at

anything 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 savoury,

nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of

affectation; 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 where 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 the ominous horse,

Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd

With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot

Now is be 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'ersized 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 reverend 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,

Aroused vengeance sets him new awork;

And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall

On Mars's armour, 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, O who, 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'erteemed 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 clamour 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'r he has not turn'd his