Pol. Fare you well, my Lord. Pol. You go to seek Lord Hamlet; there he is. [Exit. : Enter ROSINCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Rof. God fave you, Sir. Rof. My most dear Lord! Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Oh, Rofincrantz, good lads! how do you both? Fortune's cap we are not the very button. Rof Neither, my Lord. Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours ? Guil. 'Faith, in her privates we. Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? oh, most true; the is a strumpet. What news? Rof. None, my Lord, but that the world's grown honest. Ham. 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 prifon hither? Guil. Prifon, my Lord? Ham. Denmark's a prifon. Rof. Then is the world one. Ham. A goodły one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst. Ham. Why, then it is none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it fo: to me it is a prison. Rof. Why, then your ambition makes it one: 'tis too narrow for your mind. Ham. Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutfhell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very fubstance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow. Rof. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow. Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs and out-stretched heroes, the beggars' shadows. Shall we to th' Court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. Both. We'll wait upon you. Ham. No fuch matter. I will not fort you with the rest of my fervants; 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 Elfinoor? Rof. To vifit you, my Lord; no other occafion. Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you; and fure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear of a half-penny. Were you not fent for? is it your own inclining? is it a free vifitation? come, deal justly with me; come, come; nay, fpeak. Guil. What should we say, my Lord? Ham. Any thing, but to the purpose. You were fent for: and there is a kind of confeffion in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour. I know, the good King and Queen have fent for you. : Rof. To what end, my Lord ? Ham. That you must teach me; but let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the confonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear, a better propofer could charge you withal; be even and direct with me, whether you were fent for or no? Rof. What say you? [To Guilden. Ham. Nay, then I have an eye of you: if you love me, hold not off. Guil. My Lord, we were fent for. Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your fecrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather. I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercise; and, indeed, it goes fo heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a steril promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'er-hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and peftilent congregation of vapours. 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 apprehenfion 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, nor woman neither; though by your fsmiling you feem to fay fo. Rof. My Lord, there was no fuch stuff in my thoughts. Ham. Why did you laugh, when I faid, man delights not me? Rof. To think, my Lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shalk receive from you; we accosted them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service. Ham. He that plays the King shall be welcome; his Majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foyle and target; the lover thall not figh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace; and the lady shall fay her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't. What players are they? Rof. Even those you were wont to take delight in, the tragedians of the city. Ham. How chances it they travel? their refidence both in reputation and profit was better, both ways. Rof. I think their inhibition comes by the means. of the late innovation. Ham. Do they hold the fame estimation they did when I was in the city? are they fo followed! Rof. No, indeed, they are not. : Ham. How comes it? do they grow rusty? Rof. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is, Sir, an aiery of children, little eyafes, (30) that cry out on the top of question; and are most tyrannically clapt for't; these are now (30) But there is, Sir, an aiery of children, little yases, that cry out on the top of question;] The Poet here steps out of his fubject to give a lash at home, and sneer at the prevailing fathion of following plays performed by the children of the chapel, and abandoning the established theatres. But why are they called little you fes? I wish fome of the editors would have expounded this fine new word to us; or, at leaft, told us where we might meet with it. Till then, I thall make bold to fufpect it; and, without overstraining fagacity, attempt to retrieve the true word. As he first calls them an diery of children, (now, an aiery or every is a hawk's. or cagle's neft) there is not the least question but we ought the fashion, and fo berattle the common ftages, (fo they call them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goofe-quills, and dare scarce come thither. Ham. What, are they children? who maintains 'em? how are they escorted? will they purtue the quality no longer than they can fing? 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 fucceflion? Rof. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both fides; and the nation holds it no fin to tarre them on to controverfy. There was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question. Ham. Is't poffible ? Guil. Oh, there has been much throwing about of brains. Ham. Do the boys carry it away? Rof. Ay, that they do, my Lord, Hercules and his load too. Ham. It is not strange; for mine uncle is King of Denmark; and those, that would make mowes at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little. There is fomething in this more than natural, if philofophy could find it out. [Flourish for the Players. Guil. There are the players. Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elfmoor; jun to restore-little eyafes; i. e. young nealings, creatures out of the egg. (An eyaas or wys hawk, un niais, a cipi.ermai Skinner.) So Mrs Ford fays darius, qui recens ex ovo emerfit. to Falstaff's dwarf page: How now, my eyas-musket? what news with you? Merry Wines of Windfor. |