Ham.
Ay so, God b' w' ye: now I am alone.

Oh 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,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That from her working, all his visage warm'd:
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms, to his conceit? and all for nothing?
For Hecuba?
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? what would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? he would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the gen'ral ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty, and appall the free,
Confound the ign'rant, and amaze indeed
The very faculty of eyes and ears.—
^{h note}



Yet I say nothing; no, not for a King,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain, breaks my pate a-cross,
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by th' nose, gives me the lye i'th' throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
^{i note}Yet I should take it—for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, letcherous, kindless villain!

Why what an ass am I? this is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murthered,
Prompted to my revenge by heav'n and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a cursing like a very drab—
A ^{k note}stallion!—fye upon't! foh! about my brain—
I've heard, that guilty creatures, at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions.
For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll observe his looks,
Play something like the murther of my father,
Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks,
I'll tent him to the quick; if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
T'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,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King. [Exit.

Previous section