Rural Simplicity. I was not much afeard: for once or twice I was about to speak; and tell him plainly, The self-same sun, that shines upon his court, Hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on alike. Love cemented by Prosperity, but loosened by Adversity. Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together ACT V. A Statue. LEONTES. What was he that did make it ?-See, my lord, Would you not deem it breath'd?—and that those veins Did verily bear blood? POLIXENES. Masterly done: The very life seems warm upon her lip. LEONTES. The fixure of her eye hath motion in't There is an air comes from her. What fine chisel. Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me, For I will kiss her. -000 HAMLET. Claudius, the reigning king of Denmark, has killed his brother, the former king, and placed himself on the throne, marrying * As if. at the same time the widow of the murdered monarch, whose ghost appears to his son Hamlet, urging him to avenge his death. In order the better to effect this object, Hamlet feigns madness, and causes a play to be acted before the king and queen which represents a scene similar to the murder of his father. The agitation of the king and queen at witnessing this representation, convinces Hamlet of their guilt, and he eventually avenges his father's death by killing the guilty Claudius; the queen drinks poison which is intended by the king for Hamlet, who, in a fencing bout with Laertes, son of Polonius, a foolish old lord, is wounded by a rapier anointed with poison and dies. Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, goes mad, and drowns herself in a distraught state, whilst Polonius himself is stabbed by Hamlet. The play, perhaps more than any other of Shakspere's, abounds in tragic incidents. "If,” says Dr. Johnson, speaking of this play, "the dramas of Shakspere were to be characterized each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety; the incidents are so numerous that the argument of the play would make a long tale." ACT I. Ghosts vanish at the Crowing of a Cock. BERNARDO. It was about to speak when the cock crew. HORATIO. And then it started, like a guilty thing The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn, The Reverence paid to Christmas Time. Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, Morning. But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill. Real Grief. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, Immoderate Grief reproved. "Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father: But, you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost his, and the survivor bound In filial obligation, for some term To do obsequious sorrow: But to persevere An understanding simple and unschool'd: Hamlet's Soliloquy on his Mother's Marriage. Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon† 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother, By what it fed on: and yet, within a month,— With which she follow'd my poor father's body, * Dissolve. + Law. A name for Apollo. Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,— O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, The Extent of Human Perfection. He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again. Cautions to young Women, For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour, Satire on ungracious Pastors. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven Advice to a Son going to Travel. Give thy thoughts no tongue, * Regards not his own lessons. |