Ham. Pronounce me this speech trippingly a the tongue
as I taught thee,
Mary and you mouth it, as a many of your players do
I'de rather heare a towne bull bellow,
Then such a fellow speake my lines. 5
Nor do not saw the aire thus with your hands,
But giue euery thing his action with temperance.
O it offends mee to the soule, to heare a rebustious periwig fellow,
To teare a passion in totters, into very ragges,
To split the eares of the ignoraut, who for the
Most parte are capable of nothing but dumbe shewes and noises,
I would haue such a fellow whipt, for o're doing, tarmagant
It out, Herodes Herod.
players My Lorde, wee haue indifferently reformed that
among vs. 15
Ham. The better, the better, mend it all together:
There be fellowes that I haue seene play,
And heard others commend them, and that highly too,
That hauing neither the gate of Christian, Pagan,
Nor Turke, haue so strutted and bellowed, 20
That you would a thought, some of Natures journeymen
Had made men, and not made them well,
They imitated humanitie, so abhominable:
Take heede, auoyde it.
players I warrant you my Lord. 25
Ham. And doe you heare? let not your Clowne speake
More then is set downe, there be of them I can tell you
That will laugh themselues, to set on some
Quantitie of barren spectators to laugh with them,
Albeit there is some necessary point in the Play 30
Then to be obserued: O t'is vile, and shewes
A pittifull ambition in the foole that vseth it.
And then you haue some agen, that keepes one sute
Of ieasts, as a man is knowne by one sute of
Apparell, and Gentlemen quotes his ieasts downe 35
In their tables, before they come to the play, as thus:
Cannot you stay till I eate my porrige? and, you owe me
A quarters wages: and, my coate wants a cullison:
And, your beere is sowre: and, blabbering with his lips,
And thus keeping in his cinkapase of ieasts, 40
When, God knows, the warme Clowne cannot make a iest
Vnlesse by chance, as the blinde man catcheth a hare:
Maisters tell him of it.
players We will my Lord.
Ham. Well, goe make you ready. exeunt players. 45
Horatio. Heere my Lord.
Ham. Horatio, thou art euen as iust a man,
As e're my conuersation cop'd withall.
Hor. O my lord!