FROM "HAMLET." [1602.] ACT III. SCENE II. A hall in the castle. Two Characters.-HAMLET and First Player. 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, the 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. First Play. I warrant your honour. Ham. 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 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. First Play. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir. Ham. 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 mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready [Exeunt. FROM "OTHELLO." [1604.] ACT I. SCENE III. A Council-chamber. Oth. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, The very head and front of my offending Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech, And little of this great world can I speak, More than pertains to feats of broil and battle, And therefore little shall I grace my cause In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, What conjuration and what mighty magic, Her father loved me: oft invited me; I ran it through, even from my boyish days, Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence And portance in my travels' history: Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak,-such was the process; And of the Cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear But still the house-affairs would draw her thence: And often did beguile her of her tears, That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs: She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful: She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me, And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake : And I loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used. FROM "KING LEAR." [1605.] ACT II. SCENE IV. Before Gloucester's castle. KENT in the stocks. Lear. Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope Thou didst not know on't. If Who comes here? O heavens, Enter GONERIL. you do love old men, if your sweet sway Allow obedience, if yourselves are old, Make it your cause; send down, and take my part! Gon. Why not by the hand, sir? And dotage terms so. Lear. Will you yet hold? How have I offended? O sides, you are too tough; How came my man i' the stocks? Corn. I set him there, sir: but his own disorders Deserved much less advancement. Lear. You! did you? Reg. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so. You will return and sojourn with my sister, Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd? Gon. [Pointing at Oswald. At your choice, sir. Lear. I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad : Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil, Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove: I and my hundred knights. Reg. Not altogether so: I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided |