ACT II. SCENE II. Line 447–569.
(Enter four or five players.)
You are welcome, masters! welcome all. I am glad to see thee well: welcome, good friends.—O, my old friends! Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last; comest thou to beard me in Denmark?—What, my young lady and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.—Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to ’t like French falconers, fly at anything we see: We’ll have a speech straight; come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.
FIRST PLAY.
What speech, my good lord?
HAM.
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; ’twas caviare to the general; but it was—as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried on the top of mine—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affection; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved; ’twas Æneas’ tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line; let me see, let me see:
THE
Tragedie of Dido