What might you think? no, I went round to work, Do you think, 'tis this? that,) Not that I know. [Pointing to his Head ard Shoulder. King. How may we try it further ? together, Here in the lobby. Queen. So he does, indeed. How him : • Roundly, without reserve. King. We will try it. Enter Hamlet, reading: Queen. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away ; I'll board him presently:-0, give me leave. [Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants. How does my good lord Hamlet? Ham. Weil, god-'a-mercy. lord? lord ? Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man. Pol. Honest, my lord ? Ham. Ay, sir ; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. Pol. That's very true, my lord, Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing carrion, -Have you a daughter? Pol. I have, my lord. to 't. Pol. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harping on my daughter :- yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger: He is far gone, far gone: and, truly in my youth I suífered much extremity for love: very near this. I 'll speak to him again. What do you read, my lord ? Ham. Words, words, words! Ham. Slanders, sir : for the satirical rogue says here, that old men have grey beards.; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, and plumb-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit: all of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down ; for yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward. Pal. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. [ Aside. ] Will you walk out of the air, my lord ? Ham. Into my grave? Pol. Indeed, that is out o’ the air. - How pregnant sometimes his replies are ! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter. - My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life. Pol. Fare you well, my lord. of you. Enter RosENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Pol. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there she is. Ros. God save you, sir ! [To POLONIUS. [Exit POLONIUS. Guil. My honour'd lord ! Ros. My most dear lord ! Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz ! Good lads, how do ye both ? Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth, Ready, apt. Guil. Happy, in that we are not over happy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe? Ros. Neither, my lord. Ham. Then you live in the middle of her favoura? Well, what news? Ros. None, my lord; but that the world is grown honest. Ham. Then is dooms-day near: But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular : What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither ? Guil. Prison, my lord ! Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst. Ros. We think not so, my lord. Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so : to me it is a prison. Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind. Ham. O heaven! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams. Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition ; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow. Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light. a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow. Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs, and outstretched heroes, the beggars' shadows : Shall we to the court ? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. Ros. Guil. We 'll wait upon you. Ham. No such matter : I will not sort you with the rest of my servants ; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore ? Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion. · Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks ; but I thank you : and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear at a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation ? Come, come; deal justly with me : come, come; nay, speak. Guil. What should we say, my lord ? Ham. Any thing — but to the purpose. You were sent for ; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour : I know, the good king and queen have sent for you. Lan. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our everpreserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no? Ros. What say you? [T, GUILDENSTERN. Ham. Nay, then I have an eye of you ; [Aside.] - if you love me, hold not off. Guil. My lord, we were sent for. : Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late, (but, wherefore, I know not,) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises : and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, secms to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears |