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To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,
(As he is very potent with such spirits,)
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

HAMLET EXPRESSES HIS CONFIDENCE IN HORATIO.

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 my choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
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

Has 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
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. Something too much of this.—
There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death.
I prithee, when thou seest that act a-foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note:
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;
And, after, we will both our judgments join
To censure of his seeming.

HAMLET'S PASSIONATE ADDRESS TO HIS MOTHER. Look here, upon this picture, and on this; The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on his brow: Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten or command; A station like the herald Mercury, New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination, and a form, indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man:

This was your husband.-Look you now, what follows: Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,

Blasting his wholesome brother.

Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love: for, at your age,

The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: And what judgment
Would step from this to this?

O shame! where is thy blush?

Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax;
And melt in her own fire.

Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
While rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past: avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost o'er the weeds,
To make them rank. Forgive me this
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;
Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good.

my

virtue :

HAMLET CHIDES HIS OWN WANT OF RESOLUTION.

How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good, and market of his time,

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, He, that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before, and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unused.

Now, whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on the event,

A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom,
And, ever, three parts coward,—I do not know
Why yet I live to say, "This thing 's to do;"
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means,
To do 't. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me:
Witness, this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince;
Whose spirit, with Divine ambition puff'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal, and unsure,
To all that fortune, death, and danger, dare,
Even for an egg-shell.

Rightly to be great,

Is, not to stir without great argument;

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,

When honour 's at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason, and my blood,
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds; fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough, and continent,
To hide the slain ?-O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

THE QUEEN DESCRIBES THE DEATH OF OPHELIA.

THERE is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come,
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, an envious sliver broke;
When down the 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 her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

MACBETH.

DESCRIPTION OF MACBETH'S CASTLE.

THIS castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses. This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle :
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate.

MACBETH'S SOLILOQUY BEFORE THE MURDER OF DUNCAN.
If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well
It were done quickly: If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all, here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time;
We'd jump the life to come.-But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.

He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed: then, as his host,
Who should against his murtherer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off:

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other side.

OTHELLO.

OTHELLO, WRONGLY THINKING DESDEMONA FALSE TO HIM,

LOSES ALL PLEASURE IN WARLIKE EXERCISES.

O NOW, for ever,

Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troops, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner; and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation 's gone!

OTHELLO RESOLVES NEVER MORE TO LOVE.

NEVER, Iago. Like to the Pontick sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontick and the Hellespont:
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge

Swallow them up.-Now, by yond' marble heaven,

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