Hamlet 7

⁷KingThanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

¹¹Enter Polonius.

¹⁵KingO, speak of that; that do I long to hear.

¹⁹KingWell, we shall sift him.

²³KingIt likes us well;
And at our more consider’d time well read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour:
Go to your rest; at night we’ll feast together:
Most welcome home! Exeunt Voltimand and Cornelius.

²⁷QueenCame this from Hamlet to her?

³¹KingAs of a man faithful and honourable.

³⁵PoloniusHath there been such a time⁠—I’d fain know that⁠—
That I have positively said “ ’Tis so,”
When it proved otherwise?

³⁹PoloniusYou know, sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.

¹³¹Reenter Polonius.

¹³⁵HamletI will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it. You say right, sir: o’ Monday morning; ’twas so indeed.

¹³⁹HamletBuz, buz!

¹⁴³HamletO Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

¹⁴⁷HamletAm I not i’ the right, old Jephthah?

¹⁵¹HamletWhy, “As by lot, God wot,” and then, you know, “It came to pass, as most like it was,”⁠— the first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look, where my abridgement comes.

¹⁵⁵HamletI heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; ’twas caviare to the general: but it was⁠—as I received 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 called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved: ’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 the Hyrcanian beast,” —it is 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 he total gules; horridly trick’d
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and damned light
To their lord’s murder: roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o’er-sized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.”

¹⁵⁹HamletIt 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.

¹⁶³First Player

“Run barefoot up and down, threatening 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’er-teemed 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 pronounced:
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.”

¹⁶⁷HamletGod’s bodykins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.