Select Plays: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

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Clarendon Press, 1880 - 231 pages

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Page 44 - What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba That he should weep for her? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears, And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Page 16 - By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens The form of plausive manners ; that these men, Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, Their virtues else, be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may undergo, Shall in the general censure take corruption From that particular fault : the dram of eale Doth all the noble substance of a doubt To his own scandal.
Page 45 - I have heard That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul that presently They have proclaim'd their malefactions; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ.
Page 16 - What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, : . Making night hideous ; and we fools of nature So horridly to shake our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ? Say, why is this ? wherefore ? what should we do ? [Ghost beckons Hamlet.
Page 45 - I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be the devil : and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, — As he is very potent with such spirits, — Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds More relative than this: — the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Page 111 - Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me ! If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story.
Page 12 - I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whilst, like a puffd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And recks not his own rede.
Page 61 - 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.
Page 51 - ... twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form, and pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others.
Page 20 - With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of mine ears did pour The leperous distilment; whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man, That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body ; And, with a sudden vigour, it doth posset And curd, like eager droppings into milk, The thin and wholesome blood...

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