First Play.[a 1] I warrant your honour.
Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own
discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the 20
word, the word to the action; with this special
observance, that you o'erstep[a 2] not the modesty
of nature; for any thing so overdone[a 3] is from[b 1]
the purpose of playing, whose end, both at
the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 25
'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show
virtue her own feature,[a 4] scorn her own image,
and the very age[b 2] and body of the time his
form and pressure.[b 3] Now this overdone, or
come tardy off,[a 5][b 4] though it make[a 6] the unskilful 30
laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve;
the censure[b 5] of the which one[a 7] must in your
allowance o'erweigh[a 8] a whole theatre of others.
Oh, there be players that I have seen play,
and heard others praise,[a 9] and that highly, not 35
to speak it profanely, that neither having
the accent of Christians nor the gait of.
- ↑ 18, 43. First Player] Capell; Player Q, F.
- ↑ 22. o'erstep] Q, ore-stop F,
- ↑ 23. overdone] F, ore-doone Q.
- ↑ 27. her own feature] F, her feature Q.
- ↑ 30. off] F, of Q 6, Theobald, Furness.
- ↑ 30. make] F, makes Q.
- ↑ 32. the which one] F, which one Q.
- ↑ 33. o'erweigh] Q, F; ore-sway Ff 2-4.
- ↑ 35. praise] F, praysd Q.
- ↑ 23. from] away from, contrary to. as in Julius Cæsar, I. iii. 35.
- ↑ 28. very age] actual generation. Bailey proposes "visage," comparing 2 Henry IV. II. iii. 3: "visage of the times."
- ↑ 29. pressure] impress. Compare I. v. 100.
- ↑ 30. come tardy off] as we say "hanging fire"; coming to an issue slowly and ineffectively. Compare Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, i. 116: "it came hardly off"; Timon of Athens, I. i. 29: "this comes off well and excellent."
- ↑ 32. censure] judgment, as in I. iii. 69. 36. profanely] refers to what follows about the creation of men, not by God, but by nature's journeymen.
