Page images
PDF
EPUB

I thank you. By yon bush?-Pray, how far thi

ther?

'Ods pittikins*!-can it be six miles yet? (sleep.
I have gone all night:-'Faith, I'll lie down and
But, soft! no bedfellow:-O, gods and goddesses!
[Seeing the body.
These flowers are like the pleasures of the world;
This bloody man, the care on't. I hope, I dream;
For, so, I thought I was a cave keeper,
And cook to honest creatures: But 'tis not so;
'Twas but a bolt† of nothing, shot at nothing,
Which the brain makes of fumes: Our very eyes
Are sometimes like our judgments, blind. Good
I tremble still with fear: But if there be
[faith,
Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it!
The dream's here still: even when I wake, it is
Without me, as within me; not imagin'd, felt.

ACT V.

A ROUTED ARMY.

No blame be to you, sir; for all was lost, But that the heavens fought: The king himself Of his wings destitute, the army broken, And but the backs of Britons seen, all flying Through a straight lane; the enemy full-hearted, Lolling the tongue with slaughtering, having work More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling Merely thro' fear; that the strait pass was damm'd With dead men, hurt behind, and cowards living To die with lengthen'd shame.

* This diminutive adjuration is derived from God's my pity. † An arrow. + Blocked up.

DEATH.

I, in mine own woe charm'd,

Could not find death, where I did hear him groan; Nor feel him, where he struck: Being an ugly

monster,

'Tis strange, he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds, Sweet words; or hath more ministers than we That draw his knives i' the war.

HAMLET.

ACT I.

PRODIGIES.

In the most high and palmy* state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist start,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

GHOSTS VANISH AT THE CROWING OF A COCK.

Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

* Victorious.

+ The moon.

The extravagant and erring* spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation†.

THE REVERENCE PAID TO CHRISTMAS TIME.

It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes, Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholsome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

MORNING.

But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

REAL GRIEF.

Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems. 'Tis not alone, my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage, Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, That can denote me truly: These, indeed, seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within, which passeth show; These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.

IMMODERATE GRIEF DISCOMMENDED.

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,

Hamlet,
* Wandering.

+ Proof.

To give these mourning duties to your father;
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: But to perséver
In obstinate condolement, is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, or mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what, we know, must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse, till he that died to-day,
This must be so.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON HIS MOTHER'S MARRIAGE.

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve* itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canont 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, [ture,
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in na-
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead! - Nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperions to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem|| the winds of heaven
* Dissolve. + Law. Entirely. § Apollo. || Suffer.

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,-
Let me not think on't;-Frailty, thy name is wo-
A little month; orere those shoes were old, [man!-
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,—
O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer, married with my

uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules: Within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married:-O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good.

THE EXTENT OF HUMAN PERFECTION.

He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

CAUTIONS TO YOUNG FEMALES.

For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood:
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute:
No more.

[blocks in formation]

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent* ear you list† his songs:
Or lose your heart: or your chaste treasure open

* Believing.

+ Listen to.

« PreviousContinue »