To a Player
Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play
The Murder of Gonzago?
A PLAYER Ay, my lord.
HAMLET We'll ha't tomorrow night. You could, for a need525,
study526 a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would
set down and insert in't, could ye not?
A 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 remains
HAMLET Ay, so, God buy ye.-- Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not
monstrous that this player here,
But537 in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his whole conceit538
That from her working all his visage wanned539,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect540,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting541
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 motive546 and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears