[Footnote 15: Speech that is little but rant, and scarce related to the
sense, is hardly better than a noise; it might, for the purposes of art,
as well be a sound inarticulate.]
[Page 132]
Termagant[1]: it out-Herod's Herod[2] Pray you
auoid it.
_Player._ I warrant your Honor.
_Ham._ Be not too tame neyther: but let your
owne Discretion be your Tutor. Sute the Action
to the Word, the Word to the Action, with this
speciall obseruance: That you ore-stop not the [Sidenote: ore-steppe]
modestie of Nature; for any thing so ouer-done, [Sidenote ore-doone]
is fro[3] the purpose of Playing, whose end both at
the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twer the
Mirrour vp to Nature; to shew Vertue her owne [Sidenote: her feature;]
Feature, Scorne[4] her owne Image, and the verie
Age and Bodie of the Time, his forme and pressure.[5]
Now, this ouer-done, or come tardie off,[6] though it
make the vnskilfull laugh, cannot but make the [Sidenote: it makes]
Iudicious greeue; The censure of the which One,[7]
[Sidenote: of which one]
must in your allowance[8] o're-way a whole Theater
of Others. Oh, there bee Players that I haue
scene Play, and heard others praise, and that highly
[Sidenote: praysd,]
(not to speake it prophanely) that neyther hauing
the accent of Christians, nor the gate of Christian,
Pagan, or Norman, haue so strutted and bellowed,
[Sidenote: Pagan, nor man, haue]
that I haue thought some of Natures Iouerney-men
had made men, and not made them well, they
imitated Humanity so abhominably.[9]
[Sidenote: 126] _Play._ I hope we haue reform'd that indifferently[10]
with vs, Sir.
_Ham._ O reforme it altogether. And let those
that play your Clownes, speake no more then is set
downe for them.[12] For there be of them, that will
themselues laugh, to set on some quantitie of
barren Spectators to laugh too, though in the
meane time, some necessary Question of the Play
be then to be considered:[12] that's Villanous, and
shewes a most pittifull Ambition in the Fool that
vses it.[13] Go make you readie. _Exit Players_
[Footnote 1: 'An imaginary God of the Mahometans, represented as a most
violent character in the old Miracle-plays and Moralities.'--_Sh. Lex._]
[Footnote 2: 'represented as a swaggering tyrant in the old dramatic
performances.'--_Sh. Lex._]
[Footnote 3: _away from_: inconsistent with.]
[Footnote 4: --that which is deserving of scorn.]
[Footnote 5: _impression_, as on wax. Some would persuade us that
Shakspere's own plays do not do this; but such critics take the
_accidents_ or circumstances of a time for the _body_ of it--the clothes
for the person. _Human_ nature is 'Nature,' however _dressed_.