Hamlet eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 125 pages of information about Hamlet.

Hamlet eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 125 pages of information about Hamlet.

So, proceed you.

Pol. 
’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good
discretion.

I Play. 
   Anon he finds him,
   Striking too short at Greeks:  his antique sword,
   Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
   Repugnant to command:  unequal match’d,
   Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
   But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
   The unnerved father falls.  Then senseless Ilium,
   Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
   Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash
   Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear:  for lo! his sword,
   Which was declining on the milky head
   Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ the air to stick: 
   So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood;
   And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
   Did nothing. 
   But as we often see, against some storm,
   A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
   The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
   As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
   Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,
   A roused vengeance sets him new a-work;
   And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall
   On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne,
   With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword
   Now falls on Priam.—­
   Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune!  All you gods,
   In general synod, take away her power;
   Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
   And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
   As low as to the fiends!

Pol. 
This is too long.

Ham. 
It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.—­Pr’ythee say on.—­
He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:—­say on; come
to Hecuba.

I Play. 
   But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,—­

Ham. 
‘The mobled queen’?

Pol. 
That’s good!  ‘Mobled queen’ is good.

I Play. 
   Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
   With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
   Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
   About her lank and all o’erteemed loins,
   A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;—­
   Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,
   ’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d: 
   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,—­
   Unless things mortal move them not at all,—­
   Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
   And passion in the gods.

Pol. 
Look, whether he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s
eyes.—­Pray you, no more!

Ham.  ’Tis well.  I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.—­ Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed?  Do you hear?  Let them be well used; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Hamlet from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.