Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,·
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

HAMLET ON HORATIO'S FORTITUDE.

Hamlet. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.

Horatio. O, my dear lord.

Hamlet. Nay, do not think I flatter:

For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,

To feed and clothe thee? why should the poor be flatter'd?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee

Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my
dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish her election,

She hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;

A man that fortune's buffets and rewards

Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and bless'd are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger

To sound what stop she please: Give me that man,

In

That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.

OPHELIA'S DESCRIPTION OF HAMLET'S

MAD ADDRESS.

Ophelia. My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle,
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosed out of hell,

To speak of horrors,—he comes before me.

Polonius. Mad for thy love?

Ophelia. My lord, I do not know;

But, truly, I do fear it.

Polonius. What said he?

Ophelia. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard;

Then goes he to the length of all his arm,

And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,

He falls to such perusal of my face,

As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so;
At last, a little shaking of mine arm,

And thrice his head thus waving up and down,

He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,
And end his being: That done, he lets me go;
And with his head over his shoulder turn'd,
He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;
For out o' doors he went without their help,
And, to the last, bended their light on me.

The above is taken from the Second Act in the Play of Hamlet. In the Third Act is presented an interview between Hamlet and Ophelia, after which, the latter, in relation to Hamlet's state of mind, utters those beautiful lines which we shall next produce.

OPHELIA ON HAMLET'S MENTAL CONDITION.

O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers! quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows;
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy!

OPHELIA'S DEATH.

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,

That show his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, and envious silver broke;
When down her weedy trophies, and herself,
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And, mermaid-like, a while they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that garment, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

HAMLET'S SPEECH TO THE PLAYERS.

Ham. 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 your 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'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods. Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

1 Player. I warrant your honour.

Iam. 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 any thing 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 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 madə them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.