King.
Love! his affections do not that way tend,
Nor what he spake, tho' it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. Something's in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger, which, how to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down. He shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected Tribute:
Haply, the Seas and Countries different,

With variable objects, shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?

Pol.
It shall do well. But yet do I believe,
The origin and commencement of this grief
Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,
We heard it all. [Exit Ophelia.
My Lord, do as you please.
But if you hold it fit, after the Play
Let his Queen-mother all alone intreat him
To shew his griefs; let her be round with him,
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conf'rence. If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him, where
Your wisdom best shall think.

King.
It shall be so.
Madness in Great ones must not unwatch'd go. [Exeunt. Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players.

Ham.

Speak the speech, I pray you; as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our Players do, I had as lieve, the town-crier had spoke my lines. And do not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirl-wind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of ^{6 note}the groundlings: who for

the most part are capable of nothing but ^{7 note}inexplicable dumb shews, and noise: I could have such a fellow whipt for o'er doing ^{8 note}Termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

Play.

I warrant your Honour.

Ham.

Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'er-step not the modesty of Nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing; whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to shew virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very ^{9 note}age and body of the time, his form and ^{1 note}pressure. Now this over-done, or come tardy of, tho' it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must in your allowance o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. Oh, there be Players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, ^{2 note}not to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of christian, nor the gait of christian, pagan, or man, have so strutted and bellow'd, that I have thought some of nature's journey men had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity so abominably.

Play.

I hope, we have reform'd that indifferently with us.

Ham.

Oh, reform it altogether. And let those, that play your Clowns, speak no more than is set down for them: For there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the Play be then to be considered. That's villainous; and shews a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.