SCENES FROM SHAKESPEARE.

HAMLET, ACT III., SC. 2.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, to HAMLET. GUIL. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. HAM. Sir, a whole history.

GUIL. The king, sir,—

HAM. Ay, sir, what of him?

GUIL. Is, in his retirement, marvellously distempered.

HAM. With drink, sir?

GUIL. No, my lord, rather with choler.

HAM. Your wisdom should shew itself more richer, to signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation, would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler.

GUIL. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

HAM. I am tame, sir :

:-pronounce.

GUIL. The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

HAM. You are welcome.

GUIL. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

HAM. Sir, I cannot.

GUIL. What, my lord?

HAM. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: But sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: My mother, you say—

Ros. Then, thus she says: Your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

HAM. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!— But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? impart.

Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.

HAM. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any farther trade with us?

Ros. My lord, you once did love me.

HAM. And do still, by these pickers and stealers.

Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.

HAM. Sir, I lack advancement.

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?

HAM. Ay, sir, but, While the grass grows-the proverb is something musty.

Enter Players with recorders.

O, the recorders: let me see one.-To withdraw with you :Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUIL. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAM. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

GUIL. My lord, I cannot.

HAM. I pray you.

GUIL. Believe me, I cannot.

HAM. I do beseech you.

GUIL. I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAM. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. GUIL. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

HAM. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. Why! do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon

me.

Enter POLONIUS.

God bless you, sir!

POL. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.

HAM. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

POL. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

HAM. Methinks it is like a weasel.

POL. It is back'd like a weasel.

HAM. Or, like a whale ?

POL. Very like a whale.

HAM. Then will I come to my mother by and by-They fool me to the top of my bent.-I will come by and by. POL. I will say so.

HAM. By and by is easily said. (Exit Polonius.)-Leave me, friends.

(Exeunt Ros. Guil. &c.)

'Tis now the very witching time of night;

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world.

Now could I drink hot blood,

And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.-
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom ;
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:

I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites,-
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals, never, my soul, consent!

(Exit.)

KING HENRY VIII., ACT III., Sc. 2.

Enter the DUKES OF NORFOLK, and SUFFOLK, the EARL of SURREY, and the LORD CHAMBERLAIN, to CARDINAL WOLSEY.

NOR. Hear the king's pleasure, cardinal; who commands you

To render up the great seal presently

Into our hands; and to confine yourself

To Asher-house, my lord of Winchester's,
Till you hear farther from his highness.

Stay,

WOL.
Where's your commission, lords? words cannot carry
Authority so weighty.

SUF.
Who dare cross them?
Bearing the king's will from his mouth expressly?
WOL. Till I find more than will, or words, to do it,
(I mean, your malice), know, officious lords,
I dare, and must deny it. Now I feel
Of what coarse metal ye are moulded,―envy.
How eagerly ye follow my disgraces,

As if it fed ye! and how sleek and wanton
Ye appear in every thing may bring my ruin!
Follow your envious courses, men of malice;
You have Christian warrant for them, and, no doubt,
In time will find their fit rewards. That seal,
You ask with such a violence, the king,

(Mine and your master), with his own hand gave me:
Bade me enjoy it, with the place and honours,
During my life; and, to confirm his goodness,
Tied it by letters-patents: Now, who'll take it?
SUR. The king, that gave it.
WOL.

It must be himself then.

SUR. Thou art a proud traitor, priest.
WOL.

Proud lord, thou liest;

Thy ambition,

Within these forty hours Surrey durst better
Have burnt that tongue, than said so.

SUR.

Thou scarlet sin, robb'd this bewailing land
Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law:
The heads of all thy brother cardinals,

(With thee, and all thy best parts bound together),
Weigh'd not a hair of his. Plague of your policy!
You sent me deputy for Ireland;

Far from his succour, from the king, from all

That might have mercy on the fault thou gav'st him:
Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,
Absolved him with an axe.

WOL.

This, and all else

This talking lord can lay upon my credit,
I answer, is most false. The duke by law

Found his deserts: how innocent I was
From any private malice in his end,

His noble jury and foul cause can witness.

If I loved many words, lord, I should tell you,
You have as little honesty as honour;
That I, in the way of loyalty and truth
Toward the king, my ever royal master,

Dare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be,
And all that love his follies.

SUR. Your long coat, priest, protects you; thou shouldst feel

My sword i' the life-blood of thee else.-My lords,

Can ye endure to hear this arrogance?

And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely,
To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,
Farewell nobility; let his grace go forward,
And dare us with his cap, like larks.
WOL.

Is poison to thy stomach.

SUR.

All goodness

Yes, that goodness

Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one,

Into your own hands, cardinal, by extortion;
The goodness of your intercepted packets,

You writ to the pope, against the king: your goodness,
Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious.—

My lord of Norfolk,-as you are truly noble,

As you respect the common good, the state
Of our despised nobility, our issues,—
Who, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen,-
Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles
Collected from his life.

WOL. How much, methinks, I could despise this man,
But that I am bound in charity against it!

NOR. Those articles, my lord, are in the king's hand; But, thus much, they are foul ones.

So much fairer

WOL.
And spotless shall mine innocence arise,
When the king knows my truth.

SUR.

This cannot save you:

I thank my memory, I yet remember

Some of these articles; and out they shall.

Now, if you can blush, and cry "guilty," cardinal,

You'll shew a little honesty.