[Footnote 13: 'his whole operative nature providing fit forms for the embodiment of his imagined idea'—of which forms he has already mentioned his warmed visage, his tears, his distracted look, his broken voice.
In this passage we have the true idea of the operation of the genuine acting faculty. Actor as well as dramatist, the Poet gives us here his own notion of his second calling.]
[Page 110]
For Hecuba?
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,[1]
[Sidenote: or he to her,]
That he should weepe for her? What would he doe,
Had he the Motiue and the Cue[2] for passion
[Sidenote: , and that for]
That I haue? He would drowne the Stage with teares,
And cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech:
Make mad the guilty, and apale[3] the free,[4]
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,
The very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I, [Sidenote: faculties]
A dull and muddy-metled[5] Rascall, peake
Like Iohn a-dreames, vnpregnant of my cause,[6]
And can say nothing: No, not for a King,
Vpon whose property,[7] and most deere life,
A damn'd defeate[8] was made. Am I a Coward?[9]
Who calles me Villaine? breakes my pate a-crosse?
Pluckes off my Beard, and blowes it in my face?
Tweakes me by'th'Nose?[10] giues me the Lye i'th' Throate,
[Sidenote: by the]
As deepe as to the Lungs? Who does me this?
Ha? Why I should take it: for it cannot be,
[Sidenote: Hah, s'wounds I]
But I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke Gall[11]
To make Oppression bitter, or ere this,
[Sidenote: 104] I should haue fatted all the Region Kites
[Sidenote: should a fatted]
With this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine,
[Sidenote: bloody, baudy]
Remorselesse,[12] Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles[13] villaine!
Oh Vengeance![14]
Who? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue,
[Sidenote: Why what an Asse am I, this]
That I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered, [Sidenote: a deere]
Prompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell,
Must (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with words,
And fall a Cursing like a very Drab,[15]
A Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine.[16]
[Sidenote: a stallyon, | braines; hum,]
[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1st Q.
What would he do and if he had my losse?
His father murdred, and a Crowne bereft him,
[Sidenote: 174] He would turne all his teares to droppes of blood,
Amaze the standers by with his laments,
&c. &c.]
[Footnote 2: Speaking of the Player, he uses the player-word.]
[Footnote 3: make pale—appal.]
[Footnote 4: the innocent.]