Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Not Peer Reviewed

Hamlet (Quarto 1, 1603)

Prince of Denmarke.
Enter Hamlet and the Players.
Ham. Pronounce me this speech trippingly a the tongue
as I taught thee,
1850Mary and you mouth it, as a many of your players do
I'de rather heare a towne bull bellow,
Then such a fellow speake my lines.
Nor do not saw the aire thus with your hands,
But giue euery thing his action with temperance.
O it offends mee to the soule, to heare a rebustious periwig (fellow,
To teare a passion in totters, into very ragges,
To split the eares of the ignoraut, who for the
Most parte are capable of nothing but dumbe shewes and (noises,
1860I would haue such a fellow whipt, for o're doing, tarmagant
It out, Herodes Herod.
players My Lorde, wee haue indifferently reformed that
1885among vs.
Ham. The better, the better, mend it all together:
There be fellowes that I haue seene play,
And heard others commend them, and that highly too,
That hauing neither the gate of Christian, Pagan,
1880Nor Turke, haue so strutted and bellowed,
That you would a thought, some of Natures journeymen
Had made men, and not made them well,
They imitated humanitie, so abhominable:
Take heede, auoyde it.
players I warrant you my Lord.
Ham. And doe you heare? let not your Clowne speake
More then is set downe, there be of them I can tell you
That will laugh themselues, to set on some
Quantitie of barren spectators to laugh with them,
1890Albeit there is some necessary point in the Play
Then to be obserued: O t'is vile, and shewes
A pittifull ambition in the foole the vseth it.
1892.1And then you haue some agen, that keepes one sute
Os ieasts, as a man is knowne by one sute of
Apparell, and Gentlemen quotes his ieasts downe
F2 In