nt;[46] it
out-herods Herod:[47] Pray you, avoid it.

_1st Play._ (R.) I warrant your honour.

_Ham._ Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your
tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for
any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both
at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as '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 its form and pressure.[48] Now,
this overdone, or come tardy off,[49] though it make the unskilful
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which
one[50] must, in your allowance,[51] o'erweigh a whole theatre of
others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others
praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,[52] that, neither
having the accent of christians, nor the gait of christian, pagan,
nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of
nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they
imitated humanity so abominably.

[_Crosses to_ R.]

_1st Play._ (L.) I hope we have reformed that indifferently[53] with
us.

_Ham._ O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns
speak no more than is set down for them:[54] for there be of them
that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren
spectators[55] to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary
question[56] of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous,
and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make
you ready.

[_Exit_ Player, L.H.]

_Ham._ What, ho, Horatio!

_Enter_ HORATIO (R.H.)

_Hor._ Here, sweet lord, at your service.

_Ham._ Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.[57]

_Hor._ O, my dear lord.

_Ham._ Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,[58]
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul[59] was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothi