فصل 7

Flourish. Enter King and Queen, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern [with others].

KING

Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Moreover that we much did long to see you, The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty sending. Something have you heard Of Hamlet’s transformation—so call it, Sith nor th’exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be, More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him So much from th’understanding of himself, I cannot dream of. I entreat you both That, being of so young days brought up with him, And sith so neighbored to his youth and havior, That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court Some little time, so by your companies To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather So much as from occasion you may glean, Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus That, opened, lies within our remedy.

QUEEN

Good gentlemen, he hath much talked of you, And sure I am two men there is not living To whom he more adheres. If it will please you To show us so much gentry and good will As to expend your time with us awhile For the supply and profit of our hope, Your visitation shall receive such thanks As fits a king’s remembrance. ROSENCRANTZ Both Your Majesties Might, by the sovereign power you have of us, Put your dread pleasures more into command Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERN But we both obey, And here give up ourselves in the full bent To lay our service freely at your feet, To be commanded.

KING

Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

QUEEN

Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.

And I beseech you instantly to visit My too much changèd son.—Go, some of you, And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

GUILDENSTERN

Heavens make our presence and our practices Pleasant and helpful to him!

QUEEN Ay, amen!

Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern [with some attendants].

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS

Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, Are joyfully returned.

KING

Thou still hast been the father of good news.

POLONIUS

Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, Both to my God and to my gracious king; And I do think, or else this brain of mine Hunts not the trail of policy so sure As it hath used to do, that I have found The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.

KING

Oh, speak of that! That do I long to hear.

POLONIUS

Give first admittance to th’ambassadors.

My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

KING

Thyself do grace to them and bring them in.

[Exit Polonius.]

He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found The head and source of all your son’s distemper.

QUEEN

I doubt it is no other but the main, His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.

Enter Ambassadors [Voltimand and Cornelius, with Polonius].

KING

Well, we shall sift him.—Welcome, my good friends!

Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?

VOLTIMAND

Most fair return of greetings and desires.

Upon our first, he sent out to suppress His nephew’s levies, which to him appeared To be a preparation ‘gainst the Polack, But, better looked into, he truly found It was against Your Highness. Whereat grieved That so his sickness, age, and impotence Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests On Fortinbras, which he, in brief, obeys, Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine Makes vow before his uncle never more To give th’assay of arms against Your Majesty.

Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy, Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee And his commission to employ those soldiers, So levied as before, against the Polack, With an entreaty, herein further shown, [giving a paper]

That it might please you to give quiet pass Through your dominions for this enterprise On such regards of safety and allowance As therein are set down.

KING It likes us well, And at our more considered time we’ll read, Answer, and think upon this business.

Meantime we thank you for your well-took labor.

Go to your rest; at night we’ll feast together.

Most welcome home

Exeunt Ambassadors.

POLONIUS This business is well ended.

My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time, Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.

Mad call I it, for, to define true madness, What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?

But let that go.

QUEEN More matter, with less art.

POLONIUS

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

That he’s mad, ‘tis true; ‘tis true ‘tis pity, And pity ‘tis ‘tis true—a foolish figure, But farewell it, for I will use no art.

Mad let us grant him, then, and now remains That we find out the cause of this effect, Or rather say, the cause of this defect, For this effect defective comes by cause.

Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.

Perpend.

I have a daughter—have while she is mine— Who, in her duty and obedience, mark, Hath given me this. Now gather and surmise.

[He reads the letter.] “To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia”— That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; “beautified” is a vile phrase. But you shall hear. Thus: [He reads.]

“In her excellent white bosom, these, etc.” QUEEN Came this from Hamlet to her?

POLONIUS

Good madam, stay awhile, I will be faithful .

[He reads.]

“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my groans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, Hamlet.” This in obedience hath my daughter shown me, And, more above, hath his solicitings, As they fell out by time, by means, and place, All given to mine ear.

KING But how hath she Received his love?

POLONIUS What do you think of me?

KING

As of a man faithful and honorable.

POLONIUS

I would fain prove so. But what might you think, When I had seen this hot love on the wing— As I perceived it, I must tell you that, Before my daughter told me—what might you, Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think, If I had played the desk or table book, Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb, Or looked upon this love with idle sight?

What might you think? No, I went round to work, And my young mistress thus I did bespeak: “Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star; This must not be.” And then I prescripts gave her, That she should lock herself from his resort, Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.

Which done, she took the fruits of my advice; And he, repellèd—a short tale to make— Fell into a sadness, then into a fast, Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, Thence to a lightness, and by this declension Into the madness wherein now he raves, And all we mourn for.

KING [to the Queen] Do you think ‘tis this?

QUEEN It may be, very like.

POLONIUS

Hath there been such a time—I would fain know that— That I have positively said “ ‘Tis so,” When it proved otherwise?

KING Not that I know.

POLONIUS

Take this from this, if this be otherwise.

If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the center.

KING How may we try it further?

POLONIUS

You know sometimes he walks four hours together Here in the lobby.

QUEEN So he does indeed.

POLONIUS

At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.

Be you and I behind an arras then.

Mark the encounter. If he love her not And be not from his reason fall’n thereon, Let me be no assistant for a state, But keep a farm and carters.

KING We will try it.

Enter Hamlet [reading a book].

QUEEN

But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

POLONIUS

Away, I do beseech you both, away.

I’ll board him presently. Oh, give me leave.

Exeunt King and Queen [with attendants].

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET Well, God-a-mercy.

POLONIUS Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET Excellent well. You are a fishmonger .

POLONIUS Not I, my lord.

HAMLET Then I would you were so honest a man.

POLONIUS Honest, my lord?

HAMLET Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

POLONIUS That’s very true, my lord.

HAMLET For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion —Have you a daughter?

POLONIUS I have, my lord.

HAMLET Let her not walk i’th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but as your daughter may conceive, friend, look to’t.

POLONIUS [aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; ‘a said I was a fishmonger. ‘A is far gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love, very near this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET Words, words, words.

POLONIUS What is the matter , my lord?

HAMLET Between who?

POLONIUS I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

HAMLET Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit , together with most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down, for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.

POLONIUS [aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.—Will you walk out of the air , my lord?

HAMLET Into my grave.

POLONIUS Indeed, that’s out of the air. [Aside] How pregnant sometimes his replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.—My honorable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

HAMLET You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal —except my life, except my life, except my life.

Enter Guildenstern and Rosencrantz.

POLONIUS Fare you well, my lord.

HAMLET These tedious old fools!

POLONIUS You go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is.

ROSENCRANTZ [to Polonius] God save you, sir!

[Exit Polonius.]

GUILDENSTERN My honored lord!

ROSENCRANTZ My most dear lord!

HAMLET My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do you both?

ROSENCRANTZ

As the indifferent children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN

Happy in that we are not overhappy.

On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.

HAMLET Nor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZ Neither, my lord.

HAMLET Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favors?

GUILDENSTERN Faith, her privates we .

HAMLET In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh, most true, she is a strumpet . What news?

ROSENCRANTZ None, my lord, but the world’s grown honest.

HAMLET Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN Prison, my lord?

HAMLET Denmark’s a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ Then is the world one.

HAMLET A goodly one, in which there are many confines , wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’th’ worst.

ROSENCRANTZ We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET Why then ‘tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ Why then, your ambition makes it one.

‘Tis too narrow for your mind.

HAMLET Oh, God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

GUILDENSTERN Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLET A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

HAMLET Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars’ shadows.

Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay , I cannot reason.

ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN We’ll wait upon you.

HAMLET No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended . But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZ To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

HAMLET Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you, and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny . Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come, deal justly with me. Come, come. Nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERN What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET Anything but to th’ purpose . You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to color .

I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ To what end, my lord?

HAMLET That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me whether you were sent for or no.

ROSENCRANTZ [aside to Guildenstern] What say you?

HAMLET [aside] Nay, then, I have an eye of you.—If you love me, hold not off .

GUILDENSTERN My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen molt no feather . I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Man delights not me—no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLET Why did you laugh, then, when I said man delights not me?

ROSENCRANTZ To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.

HAMLET He that plays the king shall be welcome; His Majesty shall have tribute of me. The adventurous knight shall use his foil and target , the lover shall not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end his part in peace, the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o’th’ sear , and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for’t. What players are they?

ROSENCRANTZ Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.

HAMLET How chances it they travel? Their residence , both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

ROSENCRANTZ I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation .

HAMLET Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZ No, indeed are they not.

HAMLET How does it? Do they grow rusty ?

ROSENCRANTZ Nay, their endeavor keeps in the wonted pace. But there is, sir, an aerie of children, little eyases , that cry out on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapped for’t. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages —so they call them— that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose quills and dare scarce come thither.

HAMLET What, are they children? Who maintains ‘em?

How are they escotted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players—as it is most like, if their means are no better—their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession ?

ROSENCRANTZ Faith, there has been much to-do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tar them to controversy. There was for a while no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

HAMLET Is’t possible?

GUILDENSTERN Oh, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAMLET Do the boys carry it away ?

ROSENCRANTZ Ay, that they do, my lord—Hercules and his load too.

HAMLET It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little. ‘Sblood , there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

A flourish [of trumpets within].

GUILDENSTERN There are the players.

HAMLET Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come then. Th’appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outwards , should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET I am but mad north-north-west . When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw .

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS Well be with you, gentlemen!

HAMLET Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too; at each ear a hearer. That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts .

ROSENCRANTZ Haply he is the second time come to them, for they say an old man is twice a child.

HAMLET I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.—You say right, sir, o’ Monday morning, ‘twas then indeed.

POLONIUS My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome— POLONIUS The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET Buzz , buzz!

POLONIUS Upon my honor— HAMLET Then came each actor on his ass.

POLONIUS The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comicalhistorical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited .

Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

HAMLET O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

POLONIUS What a treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET Why,

“One fair daughter, and no more, The which he lovèd passing well.” POLONIUS [aside] Still on my daughter.

HAMLET Am I not i’th’ right, old Jephthah?

POLONIUS If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.

HAMLET Nay, that follows not .

POLONIUS What follows then, my lord ?

HAMLET Why,

“As by lot, God wot ,” and then, you know, “It came to pass, as most like it was”— the first row of the pious chanson will show you more , for look where my abridgment comes.

Enter the Players.

You are welcome, masters ; welcome, all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. Oh, old friend!

Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady and mistress! By’r Lady, Your Ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring . Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anything we see. We’ll have a speech straight .

Come, give us a taste of your quality . Come, a passionate speech.

FIRST PLAYER What speech, my good lord?

HAMLET I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or if it was, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; ‘twas caviar to the general. But it was—as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning . I remember one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savory, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine . One speech in’t I chiefly loved: ‘twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially when he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line: let me see, let me see— “The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’Hyrcanian beast ”— ‘Tis not so. It begins with Pyrrhus: “The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, Black as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couchèd in th’ominous horse , Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared With heraldry more dismal . Head to foot Now is he total gules, horridly tricked With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, Baked and impasted with the parching streets , That lend a tyrannous and a damnèd light To their lord’s murder. Roasted in wrath and fire, And thus o’ersizèd with coagulate gore, With eyes like carbuncles , the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Priam seeks.” So proceed you.

POLONIUS ‘Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

FIRST PLAYER “Anon he finds him Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Repugnant to command. Unequal matched, Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide, But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword Th’unnervèd father falls. Then senseless Ilium , Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For, lo! His sword, Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seemed i’th’air to stick.

So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood, And, like a neutral to his will and matter , Did nothing.

But as we often see against some storm A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still, The bold winds speechless, and the orb below As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder Doth rend the region , so, after Pyrrhus’ pause, A rousèd vengeance sets him new a-work, And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall On Mars’s armor forged for proof eterne With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword Now falls on Priam.

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods In general synod take away her power!

Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven As low as to the fiends!” POLONIUS This is too long.

HAMLET It shall to the barber’s with your beard.—Prithee, say on. He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on; come to Hecuba .

FIRST PLAYER

“But who, ah woe! had seen the moblèd queen”— HAMLET “The moblèd queen”?

POLONIUS That’s good. “Moblèd queen” is good.

FIRST PLAYER

“Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames With bisson rheum, a clout upon that head Where late the diadem stood, and, for a robe, About her lank and all o’erteemèd loins A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up— Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped, ‘Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounced .

But if the gods themselves did see her then When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs, The instant burst of clamor that she made, Unless things mortal move them not at all, Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven , And passion in the gods.” POLONIUS Look whe’er he has not turned his color and has tears in ‘s eyes. Prithee, no more.

HAMLET ‘Tis well; I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.—Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed ? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

POLONIUS My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET God’s bodikin , man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping?

Use them after your own honor and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

POLONIUS Come, sirs.

[Exit.]

HAMLET Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.

[As they start to leave, Hamlet detains the First Player.] Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play The Murder of Gonzago?

FIRST PLAYER Ay, my lord.

HAMLET We’ll ha ‘t tomorrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in’t, could you not?

FIRST PLAYER Ay, my lord.

HAMLET Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.

Exeunt players.

My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord!

Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].

HAMLET

Ay, so, goodbye to you.—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 wanned , 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 general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty and appall the free , Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing—no, not for a king Upon whose property and most dear life A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate across?

Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i’th’ throat As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?

Ha, ‘swounds , I should take it; for it cannot be But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall To make oppression bitter , or ere this I should ha’ fatted all the region kites With this slave’s offal . Bloody, bawdy villain!

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

Oh, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave , That I, the son of a dear father murdered, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must like a whore unpack my heart with words And fall a-cursing, like a very drab , A scullion! Fie upon’t, foh! About , my brains!

Hum, I have heard

That guilty creatures sitting at a play Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul that presently They have proclaimed their malefactions; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks; I’ll tent him to the quick. If ‘a do 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.