William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

ACT II. 2. Scene II. A room in the Castle. (continued)

Pol.
This is too long.

Ham.
It shall to the barber's, with your beard.--Pr'ythee say on.--
He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps:--say on; come
to Hecuba.

I Play.
   But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,--

Ham.
'The mobled queen'?

Pol.
That's good! 'Mobled queen' is good.

I Play.
   Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
   With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
   Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
   About her lank and all o'erteemed loins,
   A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;--
   Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,
   'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd:
   But if the gods themselves did see her then,
   When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
   In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
   The instant burst of clamour that she made,--
   Unless things mortal move them not at all,--
   Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
   And passion in the gods.

Pol.
Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's
eyes.--Pray you, no more!

Ham.
'Tis well. I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.--
Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you
hear? Let them be well used; for they are the abstracts and brief
chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a
bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Pol.
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Ham.
Odd's bodikin, man, better: use every man after his
desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own
honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in
your bounty. Take them in.

Pol.
Come, sirs.