Hamlet

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