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  • Title: Hamlet (Quarto 1, 1603)
  • Textual editor: Eric Rasmussen
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-434-9

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Hamlet (Quarto 1, 1603)

    The Tragedy of Hamlet
    In their tables, before they come to the play, as thus:
    1892.5Cannot you stay till I eate my porrige? and, you owe me
    A quarters wages: and, my coate wants a cullison:
    And your beere is sowre: and, blabbering with his lips,
    And thus keeping in his cinkapase of ieasts,
    When, God knows, the warme Clowne cannot make a iest
    1892.10Vnlesse by chance, as the blinde man catcheth a hare:
    Maisters tell him of it.
    1900players We will my Lord.
    Ham. Well, goe make you ready. exeunt players.
    Horatio. Heere my Lord.
    Ham. Horatio, thou art euen as iust a man,
    1905As e're my conuersation cop'd withall.
    Hor. O my lord!
    Ham. Nay why should I flatter thee?
    1910Why should the poore be flattered?
    What gaine should I receiue by flattering thee,
    That nothing hath but thy good minde?
    Let flattery sit on those time-pleasing tongs,
    To glose with them that loues to heare their praise,
    1912.1And not with such as thou Horatio.
    There is a play to night, wherein one Sceane they haue
    Comes very neere the murder of my father,
    When thou shalt see that Act afoote,
    Marke thou the King, doe but obserue his lookes,
    For I mine eies will riuet to his face:
    And if he doe not bleach, and change at that,
    It is a damned ghost that we haue seene.
    Horatio, haue a care, obserue him well.
    Hor. My lord, mine eies shall still be on his face,
    1940And not the smallest alteration
    That shall appeare in him, but I shall note it.
    Ham. Harke, they come.
    Enter King, Queene, Corambis, and other Lords.
    King How now son Hamlet, how fare you, shall we haue (a play?
    Ham. Yfaith the Camelions dish, not capon cramm'd,
    feede