?
I thought what lenten entertainment
the players shall receive from you.
We coted them on the way.
And hither are they coming,
to offer you service.
What players are they?
The tragedians of the city. Those you
were wont to take such delight in.
He that plays the king shall be
welcome.
The appurtenance of welcome
is fashion and ceremony.
Let me comply with you in this garb,
lest my extent to the players
should more appear like
entertainment than yours.
You are welcome to Elsinore,
gentlemen.
But my uncle-father and
aunt-mother are deceived.
In what, my dear lord?
I am but mad north-north-west.
When the wind is southerly I know
a hawk from a hand-saw.
You are welcome, masters.
Welcome, all!
O, my old friend!
Why, thy face is valanced
since I saw thee last!
Comest thou
to beard me in Denmark?
I am glad to see thee well!
Your ladyship
is nearer to heaven
than when I saw you last
by the altitude of a chopine.
Pray your voice, like a piece of
uncurrent gold, be not cracked.
Masters, you are all welcome.
Welcome, good friends.
We'll even to it like French falconers,
fly at any thing we see.
Give us a taste of your quality.
Come, a passionate speech.
What speech, my good lord?
I heard thee speak me a speech once,
'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido.
And especially where he speaks of
Priam's slaughter.
If it live in your memory,
begin at this line:
The rugged Pyrrhus, like
the Hyrcanian beast...
It is not so.
It begins with Pyrrhus.
...Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, black
As his purpose, did the night resemble...
That's good!
So, proceed you.
Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks, his
antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where
it falls,
Repugnant to command. Unequal matcht,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage
strikes wide,
But with the whiff and wind of his
fell sword
The unnerved father falls.
This is too long.
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.
But who, O, who had seen the mobled
queen...
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
Over-teemed loins, a blanket.
Who this had seen,
With tongue in venom steeped,
'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
Would have made milch the burning
eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous,
that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of
passion,
Could force his soul so to his own
Conceit, that all his visage waned,
Tears in his eyes,
a broken voice,
And his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit?
And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him,
Or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?
What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for
Passion that I have?
Fie upon it! Foe! About, my brain!
It is well.
- Dost thou hear me, old friend...
- Ay, my lord.
Can you play
the Murder of Gonzago?
- Ay, my lord.
- We'll have it tomorrow night.
You could, for a need, study a speech
of some 12 or 16 lines
which I would set down and insert
in it, could you not?
Ay, my lord.
Very well.
Good my lord, will you see
the players well bestowed?
Take them in.
We'll hear a play tomorrow!
To be, or not to be,
that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to
suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune,
Or to take arms
Against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing
end them?
To die,
To sleep,
And by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand
Natural shocks that flesh is heir to.
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be
wished.
To die,
To sleep.
To sleep!
Perchance to