CHAPTER XVI.

"Art thou content, Jew, what dost thou say?"

And poor old Shylock gasps:

"I am content."

Thus ends one of the most barefaced swindles of the ages; and my friend William is responsible for the nefarious and systematic machinery of roguery and persecution injected into the play to satisfy Christian hate against the wandering Jew.

In looking around the world even to-day, we might truthfully exclaim:

"O, Christianity! Christianity! how many crimes are committed in thy name!"

The fifth act of the "Merchant of Venice" winds up with harmonious love and prosperity for all concerned.

At the beautiful home of "Belmont," Bassanio, Portia, Lorenzo and Jessica, as well as Gratiano and Nerissa are married and living in blissful association.

In the moonlit, lovelit conversation between Lorenzo and his Jewish wife, Jessica, Shakspere wings in some of his finest classical allusions, a word banquet for all passion struck lovers.

Lorenzo seated amid waving trees, trailing vines and perfumed flowers illuminated by the mystic rays of Luna, says to Jessica:

"The moon shines bright; in such a night as this,When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,And they did make no noise; in such a night,Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls,And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tentsWhere Cressid lay that night."

Jessica replies:

"In such a nightDid Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew;And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,And ran dismayed away."

Then Lorenzo talks:

"In such a nightStood Dido with a willow in her handUpon the wild sea banks, and waved her loveTo come again to Carthage."

And Jessica:

"In such a nightMedea gathered the enchanted herbsThat did renew old Aeson."

Lorenzo then triumphant speaks:

"In such a nightDid Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew;And with an unthrifty love did run from Venice,As far as Belmont."

Jessica satirically replies:

"In such a nightDid young Lorenzo swear he loved her well;Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,And ne'er a true one."

Lorenzo fires back this answer:

"And in such a nightDid pretty Jessica, like a little shrewSlander her love, and he forgave it her."

Jessica gets in the last word, and says:

"I would outnight you, did nobody come;But hark, I hear the footing of a man."

Lorenzo declines to enter the house for rest or sleep, but still discourses of love and music:

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!Here will we sit and let the sounds of musicCreep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,Become the touches of sweet harmony.Sit, Jessica; look, how the floor of heavenIs thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;There's not the smallest orb, which thou beholdestBut in his motion like an angel sings.Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins;Such harmony is in immortal souls;But, whil'st this muddy vesture of decayDoth grossly close it in, we cannot have it!By the sweet power of music; therefore, the poetDid feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods.Since naught so stockish, hard and full of rageBut music for the time doth change his nature,The man that hath no music in himselfNor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;The motions of his spirit are dull as nightAnd his affections dark as Erebus;Let no such man be trusted."

Portia, Bassanio and friends arrive from the trial of Antonio at Venice, and at the brilliant home of Belmont all is peace and love.

Bassanio discovers that the young lawyer in disguise was Portia, and she twits him for giving away his ring to the young advocate, as a recompense for clearing Antonio from the toils of Shylock; and then she discourses to her friends about music by night:

"Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day;The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,When neither is attuned; and I thinkThe nightingale, if she should sing by dayWhen every goose is cackling, would be thoughtNo better a musician than the wren.How many things by season, seasoned areTo their right praise and true perfection!Peace, there, the moon sleeps with EndymionAnd would not be awaked."(Music ceases and all retire.)Music murmurs through the soulHopes of a sweat heavenly goal,And enchants from pole to poleWhile the planets round us roll!

Music murmurs through the soulHopes of a sweat heavenly goal,And enchants from pole to poleWhile the planets round us roll!

"The time is out of joint; O cursed spite,That ever I was born to set it right.""Had all his hairs been lives, my great revengeHad stomach for them all."

"The time is out of joint; O cursed spite,That ever I was born to set it right."

"Had all his hairs been lives, my great revengeHad stomach for them all."

Shakspere, in January, 1600, was at the height of his dramatic renown, and at the age of thirty-six was the ripest philosopher in the world, knowing more about the secret impulses of the human heart than any other man.

I could see a great change in his life and thought; for a shade of settled melancholy characterized his action, since the death and burial of Spenser, and the downfall of Essex and Southampton, through the vengeance of Cecil and Bacon, jealous courtiers, who poisoned Queen Elizabeth against the most noted Lords of her court.

Shakspere's theatrical company became involved in the conspiracy of Essex, and an edict was issued against the Blackfriars and Globe playhouses performing their dramatic satires. Children players took their places.

Through the particular vengeance of LordBacon, charges of treason were trumped up against Essex, the former benefactor of Bacon, and in due course the head of Essex went to the block in February, 1601.

Thus perished one of the brightest, bravest and loftiest peers of England, a victim to the spleen, hate and tyranny of the ugly Elizabeth, a woman without conscience or morality, when her personal interest was involved. She shines out as one of the greatest and most infamous queens of history, and so long as lofty crime is remembered she will remain on the top pedestal of royal iniquity.

In the course of our classical and historical readings, William had become very much interested in the tragic story of Amleth or Hamlet as told by the Danish writer,Saxo—andSeneca, the great Roman, in his story ofCorneliagives the same tragic tale, while Garnier, the French dramatist, as well as Kyd, the friend of Shakspere, made plays out of the tragic history of the Prince ofDenmark.

But it was left for my friend William to gather up the historical bones of the ancient story, and articulate them into a breathing, living, passionate, divine being, whose lofty words and phrases should go sounding down the centuries, thrilling and reverberating in the soul-lit memory of mankind.

The supernatural or spiritual part of creation had ever a fascinating influence upon the Bard of Avon, and all the outward manifestations of nature were infallible hints to him of the inward sources of the Divine, and an absolute belief in the immortality of the soul! His own mind was the best evidence of divinity!

Night after night in the winter of 1600, Williamwould read over, and ponder upon "scraps of thought," that he had at various times put into the mouth of Hamlet, and in our new quarters, near Temple Bar, I assisted him in composing the dramatic story of the melancholy Dane.

That is, I blew the bellows, and when his thought was heated to a red rose hue he hammered out the play on the anvil of his genius, and made the sparks fly in a shower of pristine glory.

His literary blacksmith shop was richly furnished with all the rough iron bars and crude ingots of vanished centuries; and all the best dramatic writers of London filled his thought factory with contributions of their inventions. He worked many of their rough pieces of thought into his dramatic plots; but when the phrase, scene and act were finished and placed before the footlights for rendition, it sailed away, a full rigged ship of dramatic grandeur, showing nothing but the royal workmanship of a master builder, the Homer, Phidias and Angelo of artistic perfection.

Mankind cares but little for the various kinds of wheat that compose the loaf, the wool or cotton that's in the garment, the timber or stone in the house, or the kind of steel in the battleship or guns; all they look for is the perfect structure, as they may see to-day in Shakspere's greatest play—"Hamlet."

While Hamlet is the central figure of the play, old Polonius, the diplomatic double dealer, Laertes, his son, and Ophelia, his daughter, act prominently, while Horatio and the ghost of Hamlet's father express words of lasting remembrance.

Cruel Claudius, the king who murdered Hamlet's father, stole his throne and seduced his wife, isshown up as a first-class criminal villain, while Gertrude, the mother of the young prince, is one of the most sneaking, mild, incestuous queens in history. Such she devils, with heaven in their eyes and face, honeyed words on their lips, and gall and hell in their hearts, are the real seducers of infatuated, willing, ambitious man; and each should dangle at the end of the same rope or hemlock together!

Contrast Gertrude with Ophelia, and you have a fiend of chicanery and crime, with a sweet angel of innocence: "Too good, too fair to be cast among the briers of this working day world and fall and bleed upon the thorns of life. Like a strain of sad, sweet music which comes floating by us on the wings of night and silence, like the exhalation of the violet dying even upon the sense it charms, like the snowflake dissolved in air before it has caught a stain of earth; like the light surf, severed from the billow, which a breath disperses, such is the character of the delicate and sanctified Ophelia."

In December, 1601, the ban of disgrace was taken from the Globe Theatre, and Burbage and William were permitted to continue their dramatic exhibitions.

"Hamlet" was played the night before Christmas. The house was packed closer than grass on an English lawn, and the applause was almost continuous, like the moan or roar of a distant sea.

Shakspere played the Ghost, Burbage acted Hamlet, Jo Taylor played Horatio, Heminge played Ophelia, Peele played Polonius, Condell acted Claudius, Kempt played Gertrude, Cooke actedLaertes, and the other parts were taken by the best stock actors.

The play opens up on a platform before the castle at "Elsinore," Copenhagen, Denmark.

Bernardo and Francisco are soldiers on night duty. Bernardo says: "Who's there?" Francisco says: "Nay, answer me; stand and unfold yourself."

The ghost of Hamlet's father appears to the night officers, and also to Horatio and Marcellus, but will not speak. They reveal the wonderful story to Hamlet, who makes ready to see and talk to the Ghost the next night at twelve o'clock.

In the meantime, the king, queen and courtiers gather at the grand throne of the castle and talk of the late king.

Hamlet is moody and sad, and will not be comforted, although persuaded by King Claudius and his mother.

Claudius addressing Hamlet, says:

"But, now my nephew Hamlet, and my sonHow is it that the clouds still hang on you?"

Hamlet says (aside):

"A little more than kin and less than kind.Not so, my lord; I am too much in the sun."

Hamlet's mother rebukes him about grieving for his father, and says:

"Do not forever with thy veiled lidsSeek for thy noble father in the dust;Thou knowest 'tis common, all that live must die,Passing through nature to eternity!"

Hamlet says:

"Ay, madam, it is common."

Queen says:

"If it be,Why seems it so particular with thee?"

And then surcharged with suspicion of her secret villainy Hamlet exclaims:

"Seems, madam! Nay it is; I know not 'seems;''Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,Nor customary suits of solemn black,Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,Together with all forms, moods, shapes of griefThat can denote me truly; these indeed seem,For they are actions that a man might play;But I have that within which passeth show,These but the trappings and the suits of woe."

Then, after the exit of the old murder-king and hisparticeps criminisqueen—Hamlet ponders to himself on life and death in these lofty lines:

"O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fixedHis canon against self slaughter! O God! O God!How weary, stale, flat and unprofitableSeem to me all the uses of this world!Fye on't! O Fye! 'tis an unweeded garden,That grows to seed; things rank and gross in naturePossess it merely. That it should come to this!But two months dead! nay, not so much, not two;So excellent a King, that was, to thisHyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,That he might not beteem the wind of heavenVisit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him,As if increase of appetite had grownBy what it fed on; and yet, within a month—Let me not think on it—frailty, thy name is woman!A little month, or ere those shoes were oldWith which she followed my poor father's body,Like Niobe all tears; why, she, even she—O God! a beast that wants discourse of reasonWould have mourned longer,—married with my uncle,My father's brother, but no more like my fatherThan I to Hercules; within a month;Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tearsHad left the flushing of her galled eyes,She married. O, most wicked speed to postWith such dexterity to incestuous sheets!It is not, nor can it come to good;But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!"

Laertes before his departure for France gives his sister Ophelia some advice and warns her against the blandishments of Hamlet. He says:

"Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,And keep you in the rear of your affection,Out of the shot and danger of desire;Be wary then; best safety lies in fear,Youth to itself rebels, though none else near."

This innocent, beautiful girl gave this wise reply to her brother:

"I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,As watchman to my heart. But, good my brotherDo not as some ungracious pastors do,Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,Whilst, like a puffed and wreckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treadsAnd recks not his own read!"

Then Polonius, the wise old father, comes in to hasten Laertes off to France, with this great advice:

"There, my blessing with thee!And these few precepts in thy memoryLook thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue.Nor any unproportioned thought his act.Be thou familiar, butbyno means vulgar.Those friends thou hast and their adoption tried,Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.But do not dull thy palm with entertainmentOf each new hatched, unfledged comrade. BewareOf entrance to a quarrel; but being in,Bear it that the opposed may beware of thee.Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;For the apparel oft proclaims the man.And they in France of the best rank and stationAre of a most select and generous chief in that.Neither a borrower nor a lender be;For loan oft loses both itself and friend,And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.This above all; to thine own self be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man!"Good advice is very fine,From those who think and make it;Only one in ninety-nineWill ever stop to take it!

Good advice is very fine,From those who think and make it;Only one in ninety-nineWill ever stop to take it!

Hamlet and his friends, Horatio and Marcellus, go to the passing place of the Ghost at midnight, and there, to the amazement of Hamlet, he sees the apparition of his father, and exclaims:

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,Be thy intents wicked or charitable,Thou comest in such a questionable shapeThat I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,King, father, royal Dane; O, answer me!Let me not burst in ignorance; but tellWhy thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,Have burst their cerements; why thy sepulchre,Wherein we saw thee quietly inurnedHath opened his ponderous and marble jaws,To cast thee up again. What may this mean,That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,Revisit thus the glimpses of the moon,Making night hideous; and we fools of natureSo horridly to shake our dispositionWith thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?"

The Ghost passes across the stage and beckons Hamlet to follow, who frantically rushes after the apparition and says:

"Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, I'll go no farther."

Ghost utters in sepulchral voice:

"Mark me!I am thy father's spirit;Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,And for the day confined to fast in firesTill the foul crimes done in my days of natureAre burnt and purged away. But that I am forbidTo tell the secrets of my prison house,I could a tale unfold whose lightest wordsWould harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,Thy knotted and confined locks to partAnd each particular hair to stand on endLike quills upon the fretful porcupine.But this eternal blazon must not beTo ears of flesh and blood. List! list, O list!If thou did'st ever thy dear father love,—'Tis given out that sleeping in my orchardA serpent stung me. So the whole ear of DenmarkIs by a forged process of my deathRankly abused; but know thou, noble youth,The serpent that did sting thy father's lifeNow wears his crown!"

Hamlet exclaims:

"O my prophetic soul! My uncle!"

The Ghost then makes this remarkable speech:

"Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,O wicked wit and gifts, that have the powerSo to seduce! won to his shameful lustThe will of my most seeming-virtuous queen;O, Hamlet, what a falling off was there!From me, whose love was of that dignityThat it went hand in hand even with the vowI made to her in marriage; and to declineUpon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poorTo those of mine!But virtue, as it never will be moved,Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,So lust, though to a radiant angel linkedWill sate itself in a celestial bedAnd prey on garbage.But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,My custom always of the afternoon,Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,And in the porches on my ears did pourThe leperous distilment; whose effectHolds such an enmity with blood of man,That quick as quicksilver it courses throughThe natural gates and alleys of the body;And with a sudden vigour, it doth possetAnd curd, like eager droppings into milk,The thin and wholesome blood: So did it mine;And a most instant tetter barked about,Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,All my smooth body.Thus was I sleeping, by a brother's hand,Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched;Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,Unhoused, disappointed, unaneled;No reckoning made, but sent to my accountWith all my imperfections on my head;O, horrible! most horrible!If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;Let not the royal bed of Denmark beA couch for luxury and damned incest.But, howsoever, thou pursuest this act,Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contriveAgainst thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,And begins to pale his ineffectual fire!Adieu! adieu! adieu! remember me!"

As the Ghost ceased and passed off the stage a peculiar shivering cheer passed over the great audience, and revealed for the first time in London dramatic art, a supernatural being seemingly clothed in the habiliments of flesh, blood and bones, resurrected from the tomb.

Do spirits revisit this world againWhen they're released from this body of pain,And do they inhabit a realm afarBeyond the bright sun and sparkling star?

King Claudius, his queen and Polonius were anxious to get at the real cause of Hamlet's lunacy, and send him away from the castle to prevent future trouble. The guilty conscience of the king daily feared detection.

Hamlet brooded so intently upon the cruel murder of his father that he was constantly on the verge of insanity, devising plans to either slaughter himself or wreak a terrible vengeance upon his uncle and mother.

Treading the halls of his ancestral palace he uttered this transcendent soliloquy that has puzzled the ages:

"To be or not to be; that is the question;Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep;No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummationDevoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;To sleep, perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause; there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,The insolence of office, and the spurns—That patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But the dread of something after deathThe undiscovered country from whose bournNo traveler returns, puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pitch and momentWith this regard their currents turns awryAnd lose the name of action!"

Ophelia at the suggestion of her father and the other conspirators, comes in at this juncture and sounds Hamlet as to plighted love and gives back the gifts he gave her.

Hamlet pretending to madness still talks double and asks Ophelia if she be honest, fair and beautiful.

She says: "Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than withhonesty?"

Hamlet replies: "Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness; this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once."

Ophelia says: "Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so."

And then the fickle Hamlet says: "I loved you not," and with supercilious advice, exclaims:

"Get thee to a nunnery!Why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners?I am myself indifferent honest;But yet I could accuse me of such thingsThat it were better my mother had not borne me.I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious;With more offenses at my backThan I have thoughts to put them in;Imagination to give them shape,Or time to act them in.What should such fellows as I doCrawling between heaven and earth?We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us—Go thy ways to a nunnery!If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry.—Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow!Thou shall not escape calumny!If thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool;For wise men know well enough what monsters women make of them!Go! get thee to a nunnery!"

Hamlet thus plays the madman to the eye and mind of Ophelia, that she may report his lunacy; and believing her former lover deranged, after his exit utters this wail of grief:

"O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword;The expectancy and rose of the fair state,The glass of fashion and the mould of form,The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,That sucked the honey of his music vows,Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;That unmatched form and feature of blown youth,Blasted with ecstacy: O, woe is me,To have seen what I have seen, see what I see."

The instruction of Hamlet to the players is the most conclusive evidence that William Shakspere was not only the greatest dramatic author, but an actor and orator of matchless mould.

There was no character that his soul conceived in any of his plays, fool or philosopher, that he could not act better than any man in his company.

In the first rehearsal of his plays he usually read the lines to his men and gave them the cue and philosophy of the character to be enacted.

A few days before the play of Hamlet I heard him deliver this speech for the edification of the whole troupe, that they might know how to render their lines in an effective and oratorical manner:

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronouncedIt to you, trippingly on the tongue;But if you mouth it, as many of yourPlayers do, I had as lief the town-crier,Spoke my lines. Now do not saw the air tooMuch with your hand, thus; but use all gently;For in the very torrent, tempest, and,As I may say, whirlwind of your passion,You must acquire and beget a temperance,That may give it smoothness. O, it offendsMe to the soul to hear a robustiousPeriwig-pated fellow, tear a passionTo tatters, to very rags, to split theEars of the groundlings, who for the most partAre capable of nothing, but inexplicableDumb-showsand noise, I would have such a fellowWhipped for overdoing Termagant;It out-herods Herod; pray you avoid it.Be not too tame neither, but let your ownDiscretion be your tutor: suit the actionTo the word, the word to the action;With this special observance, that you o'erstepNot the modesty of nature; for anythingSo 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 show virtue her own feature, scorn herOwn image, and the very age and bodyOf the time his form and pressure.Now this, overdone, or come tardy off,Though it make the unskilled laugh, cannot butMake the judicious grieve; the censure ofThe which one must in your allowanceOverweigh a whole theatre of others.O, there be players that I have seen play,And heard others praise, and that highly,Not to speak it profanely, that neitherHaving the accent of Christians nor theGait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have soStrutted and bellowed, that I have thoughtSome of nature's journeymen had made men,And not made them well, they imitatedHumanity so abominably!"

In all the troubles and vicissitudes of Hamlet's life, young Lord Horatio remained his unfaltering friend; and this tribute to friendship is one of the best in Shakspere. Hamlet says:

"Horatio, thou art even as just a manAs e'er my conversation coped withal,Nay, do not think I flatter;For what advancement may I hope from thee,That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,And crook the pregnant hinges of the kneeWhere thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?Since my dear soul was mistress of its choiceAnd could of men distinguish, her electionHath sealed thee for herself; for thou hast beenAs one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing;A man that fortune's buffets and rewardsHast taken with equal composure; and blest are thoseWhose blood and judgment are so well commingledThat they are not a pipe for fortune's fingerTo sound what stop she pleases. Give me that manThat is not passion's slave, and I will wear himIn my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heartAs I do thee!"

In the dumb show murder play, before the King and Queen Shakspere puts these phrases in the mouths of the players and Hamlet:

"The great man down, you mark his favorite flies;The poor advanced makes friends of enemies;And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;For who not needs, shall never lack a friend.""But what's that, your Majesty;And we that have free souls, it touches us not;Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung!"

"The great man down, you mark his favorite flies;The poor advanced makes friends of enemies;And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;For who not needs, shall never lack a friend."

"But what's that, your Majesty;And we that have free souls, it touches us not;Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung!"

King Claudius frightened at the mock play runs away, and Hamlet says to Horatio:

"Why let the stricken deer go weep,The hart ungalled play;For some must watch, while some must sleepThus runs the world away.""'Tis now the very witching time of night,When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes outContagion to this world; now could I drink hot blood,And do such bitter business as the dayWould quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother;I will speak daggers to her, but use none!"

"Why let the stricken deer go weep,The hart ungalled play;For some must watch, while some must sleepThus runs the world away."

"'Tis now the very witching time of night,When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes outContagion to this world; now could I drink hot blood,And do such bitter business as the dayWould quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother;I will speak daggers to her, but use none!"

King Claudius the night before his death, after conspiring with Polonius for the exile of Hamlet utters this self-accusing, remorseful soliloquy:

"O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;It hath the primal, eldest curse upon it—A brother's murder. Pray can I not,Though inclination be as sharp as will;My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,And like a man to double business bound,I stand in pause where I shall first begin,And both neglect. What if this cursed handWere thicker than itself with brother's blood?Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavensTo wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercyBut to confront the visage of offense?And what's in prayer but this twofold force,To be forestalled ere we come to fall,Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up;My fault is past. But O, what form of prayerCan serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder?That cannot be, since I am still possessedOf those effects for which I did the murder,My crown, mine own ambition and my queen,May one be pardoned and retain the offense?In the corrupted currents of this worldOffense's gilded hand may shove by justice,And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itselfBuys out the law; but 'tis not so above;There, is no shuffling, there, the action liesIn his true nature, and we ourselves compelledEven to the teeth and forehead of our faultsTo give in evidence!"

In the midnight interview of Hamlet with his mother, Polonius hides behind a curtain to spy upon the words of the "melancholy Dane," and is killed by a sword thrust of Hamlet, who exclaims:

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