Ros. Good my lord![970]
Ham. Ay, so, God be wi' ye! [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.] Now I am alone.[971]
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,[972] 525
Could force his soul so to his own conceit[973]
That from her working all his visage wann'd;[974]
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,[975]
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting[976]
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing![977] 530
For Hecuba![978]
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,[979]
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion[980]
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears 535
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,[981]
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.[982][983]
Yet I,[982][984][985] 540
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,[984][985][986]
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,[985][987]
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,[985]
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?[988] 545
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?[988]
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?[988]
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,[988]
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?[988]
Ha![989] 550
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be[990]
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this[991]
I should have fatted all the region kites[992]
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain![993] 555
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain![994]
O, vengeance![995]
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,[996]
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,[997]
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, 560
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,[998][999]
A scullion![998][999]
Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! Hum, I have heard[998][1000]
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,[998][1001] 565
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently[1002]
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players[1003] 570
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,[1004]
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen[1005]
May be the devil; and the devil hath power[1006] 575
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 580
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. [Exit.
FOOTNOTES:
[560] Act ii. Scene i.] Q (1676) and Rowe. Actus Secundus. Ff.
A room ...] An Apartment ... Rowe.
Enter ... Reynaldo.] Capell. Enter old Polonius, with his man or two. Qq. Enter ... Reynoldo. Ff.
[561] this] Qq. his Ff.
these] Q2 Q3 F1. these two Q4 Q5 Q6. those F2 F3 F4.
[562] Reynaldo] Qq. Reynoldo Ff.
[563] marvellous] Q5 Q6. meruiles Q2 Q3. maruelous Q4. maruels F1. marvels F2 F3 F4.]