Perfectionism

“It's an interesting peculiarity of The Doctor's prose style that he almost always refers to himself in the third person. He rarely says 'I', he tends to use 'he'. It's almost never 'me', it's 'The Doctor'.

There are many theories about this. My personal favourite, is that "The Doctor' — the title he chose, rather than the name he was born with — is more of an idea in his head, than a statement of his identity. The Doctor is the man he aspires to be, not the man he believes he is. 

What, then, are we to make of his occasional lapses, because there are many times — some purposeful, some seemingly accidental - when 'The Doctor' becomes 'me'. Are these moments, perhaps, of personal weakness or even fear, when he has failed to live up to the standards he long ago set him-self?”

Also, you will notice, he is happy to invent interior monologues for other people, which betrays the arrogance so characteristic of him. In fairness he is blessed with exceptional levels of empathy, and even low-level telepathy, so we should not assume they are entirely fictional.”

Cancel Barcelona

Cancel Barcelona;  Change, to :

London, The Powell Estate --

Ah - Let’s Say, The 24th of December :

make it A Christmas Present.

A Communications-Disruption 

can mean only one thing :

INVASION.

Well, I woke-up, Today.

And The World seemed ….

A Rest-less place.

It could have been 

that way, for Me —

….and I wandered around —

And I Thought of : Your Face.

That Christmas, 

Looking back, at Me…

I wish Today, was just-like 

•every• other day;

Yes, today has been The Best Day —

Every Thing I •ever• Dreamed…!

And I Started to Walk; 

Pretty soon, I will run —

And I’ll come running, back to You!

So, I followed My Star :

and That’s What You ARE.

I’ve had a Merry time with You!

Harvey Keitel on The Well-educated

Harvey Keitel on The Well-educated

Charlie Rose : 

I said this to you before we started 

and I wanna explore it now : the notion of -- 

I was struck by your own.... 

In reading a lot about you, 

before this conversation, 

uh, yesterday and this morning, 

this journey, this exploration, 

this constant sense of being able to 

descend into The Darkness, where 

you don't know what's the next move, 

and you mentioned, you said to me : 

You're struck by how few people do that, 

and especially people who've 

had um -- Superior education, 

who've had much more education --

The Wolf :

.....yes, well, you know, um -- 

I'm not well-educated, um --

Therein, lies the rub, in a sense : 

I'm not well-educated, uh --

I left school when I was 16. 

Um -- I hardly --

....joined The Marine Corps. 

-- joined the Marines. I had hardly 

picked a book up until that time --

I didn't begin my reading until 

I was into in the Marine Corps, and 

one of the first books I read was 

on mythology, interestingly..... 

enough um people like myself from lower middle class I have a tendency to worship people from the upper middle class upper class and I'm speaking in terms of Education not only wealth although wealth for the underclass is something to uh to worship so yes I was surprised um as I began to educate myself into these um this mythology this this journey this necessary Journey on the raises Edge in order to um uh be to evolve I was surprised about the reaction from a lot of uh well educated people like yourself you know um um who I was surprised were struck by who was really withdrawn to your journey yes something that was fulfilling for you yes and and it just um let me on enter upon a new area here which I have not thought about but your question is prompting I guess so I might stutter a bit here but let me let me try um we We the People have to um take more responsibility for what exists in our social structures we cannot Advocate responsibility by turning it over to the formerly educated all the wisdom is not necessarily the um the uh the uh the land the playground of the superior to use your word educated experience could perhaps be the best educator I'm reminded [Music] um uh politics now seems to me to have center stage in everything it seems to me to be a circus the world revolves around politics I was Politics caught up in it myself watching these political debates all the time this and that and having been going back and forth and I said to myself who is behind all the wars that are going on today behind all the killing maiming burning of poverty that's being committed today people who have a superior education formally that is right formally and I said to myself if politics is the business of the people then theater must be the soul of the people and enough with politics I might like to see Bill Clinton and the uh the uh the leaders of the Nations involved in the war in Bosnia get up and do a piece from a play rather than talk so much about peace and that experience of the theater that experience of being perhaps is the area we really have to go not up but in what is relevant what is really relevant in your experience as a human being I mean what what is one supposed to say you know I was in Sarajevo recently with Vanessa Redgrave through the auspices of the U.N and um uh I'm there and I'm looking around I'm saying my God we went to every Community a Muslim Serbian Croatian Jewish well the members of these communities want to be together they want to be together and they want the same things they want the same family that's right shelter job communication to create they want the same things who is hurling the bullets and the bombs the leaders of the nations are ordering this to be done so you asked me what experience might they have one other than the ability to say fire Experience as acting for you been an expert an exploration into self totally there's no other reason to uh to be be enacted but may I come back for a moment to what we're talking about because I'm a little concerned that I'm sounding like everyone else that's ever appeared and talked about the uh the uh subject I mean it when I say I rather see them create a scene from some great play do some great theater they even have an experience there they might bring them closer to some reality they might that might make them more hospitable to one another instead of worshiping their local gods and saying I'm a servant you're a Croatian you're a Muslim instead of worshiping their their their local gods they might discover that there is one Creator and one God and therefore we all do have something in common but I think as long as they talk as long as they want another they will go no further than they have gone already I'm saying this pointedly in the experience of of trying to get along together in the experience and theater provides an experience creation provides an experience that is at best at its best unspeakable I'm reminded of one of the prophets which I researched but we did The Last Temptation Of Christ either Jeremiah or Isaiah uh brilliant Brilliant Minds who exclaimed at one point uh in his writings I don't have the words to express my experience I think it's that experience that I'm talking about in the experience something else would Art happen if they if they experience them I think if I hear you correctly no you are but let me tell you if I'm hearing you goodness and that's what art does yes art is a capacity of an artist to say through his or her art the experience that others feel yes yes can show the common experience to come in elements that bind us right coming Universe we all come from that were all made of star stuff listen uh I'm sorry again I say this because I come from the other side as a young Marine I was more than willing to kill from my country and die from my country and at times I believe that's very worthwhile to stand up for what you believe in back then I was a young ignorant ignorant young man and um don't stop there because I wanted to you came coming back on the boat from Lebanon on the ship is where you became you introduced yourself to reading maybe you began to I I recall some women there yes I read this book on mythology on on on Greek gods I don't know I mean today it's interesting to me that I came up with that book back then when I was 18 years old and 19. I don't know where I got the book from even but you don't want to talk about Korea but I do just for a second um because you've made 45 films or 46 I mean I don't know right over 40 films their people how many do you know all that all that really indicates is that I didn't have leads a lot of leads because if you do you can't do that many films there is somehow now people will look at you and there's a celebration of you talking about people writing about you and they're talking about you and I get a sense you feel that too that somehow there is an acceptance um and when you look at what what it took to get where you are now any reservations any regrets any you know or do you look at that as the unfolding of a life um and it and you're just happy with it if I can quote one of the one of the great talents that I admire regrets I have a few um who was that Frank Sinatra yeah oh Frank Sinatra yes um no everything that has occurred appears to me to be right everything that occurs because everything that occurred has provided an opportunity for me to see where I'm going to run this way or run that way um luckily enough I've chosen the path where I ran into myself and locked myself over many times but I got up I had great friends along the way because you can't do it without support Martin Scorsese Robert De Niro and me that I don't know many of you don't know you know yes I've certainly arrived from some other place to where I am now yes um we're out of time I want to do this again as you know I've been trying to do it for a while me too and it's a pleasure to have you I've enjoyed your show really thank you great to have you

Enter HAMLET and Players

 

SCENE II. A hall in the castle.

 Enter HAMLET and Players 

HAMLET

 Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to

 you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,

 as many of your players do, I had as lief the

 town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air

 too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;

 for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,

 the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget

 a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it

 offends me to the soul to hear a robustious

 periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to

 very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who

 for the most part are capable of nothing but

 inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such

 a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it

 out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

First Player

 I warrant your honour.

HAMLET

 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 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 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 the which one must in your allowance

 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,

 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.

First Player

 I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us,

 sir.

HAMLET

 O, reform it altogether. And let those that play

 your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;

 for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to

 set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh

 too; though, in the mean time, some necessary

 question of the play be then to be considered:

 that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition

 in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.

 Exeunt Players

 Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

 How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?

LORD POLONIUS

 And the queen too, and that presently.

HAMLET

 Bid the players make haste.

 Exit POLONIUS

 Will you two help to hasten them?

ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN

 We will, my lord.

 Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

HAMLET

 What ho! Horatio!

 Enter HORATIO

HORATIO

 Here, sweet lord, at your service.

HAMLET

 Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man

 As e'er my conversation coped withal.

HORATIO

 O, my dear lord,--

HAMLET

 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

 Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?

 Since my dear soul 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 nothing,

 A man that fortune's buffets and rewards

 Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those

 Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,

 That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger

 To sound what stop she please. Give me that man

 That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him

 In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,

 As I do thee.--Something too much of this.--

 There is a play to-night before the king;

 One scene of it comes near the circumstance

 Which I have told thee of my father's death:

 I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,

 Even with the very comment of thy soul

 Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt

 Do not itself unkennel in one speech,

 It is a damned ghost that we have seen,

 And my imaginations are as foul

 As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;

 For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,

 And after we will both our judgments join

 In censure of his seeming.

HORATIO

 Well, my lord:

 If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,

 And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

HAMLET

 They are coming to the play; I must be idle:

 Get you a place.

 Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others

KING CLAUDIUS

 How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET

 Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat

 the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

KING CLAUDIUS

 I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words

 are not mine.

HAMLET

 No, nor mine now.

 To POLONIUS

 My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?

LORD POLONIUS

 That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.

HAMLET

 What did you enact?

LORD POLONIUS

 I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the

 Capitol; Brutus killed me.

HAMLET

 It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf

 there. Be the players ready?

ROSENCRANTZ

 Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

 Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET

 No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.

LORD POLONIUS

 [To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?

HAMLET

 Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

 Lying down at OPHELIA's feet

OPHELIA

 No, my lord.

HAMLET

 I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA

 Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

 Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA

 I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET

 That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

OPHELIA

 What is, my lord?

HAMLET

 Nothing.

OPHELIA

 You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET

 Who, I?

OPHELIA

 Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

 O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do

 but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my

 mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

OPHELIA

 Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLET

 So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for

 I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two

 months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's

 hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half

 a year: but, by'r lady, he must build churches,

 then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with

 the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For, O, for, O,

 the hobby-horse is forgot.'

 Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters

 Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love

 Exeunt

OPHELIA

 What means this, my lord?

HAMLET

 Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

OPHELIA

 Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

 Enter Prologue

HAMLET

 We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot

 keep counsel; they'll tell all.

OPHELIA

 Will he tell us what this show meant?

HAMLET

 Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you

 ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

OPHELIA

 You are naught, you are naught: I'll mark the play.

Prologue

 For us, and for our tragedy,

 Here stooping to your clemency,

 We beg your hearing patiently.

 Exit

HAMLET

 Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

OPHELIA

 'Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET

 As woman's love.

 Enter two Players, King and Queen

Player King

 Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

 Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,

 And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen

 About the world have times twelve thirties been,

 Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands

 Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

Player Queen

 So many journeys may the sun and moon

 Make us again count o'er ere love be done!

 But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,

 So far from cheer and from your former state,

 That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,

 Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:

 For women's fear and love holds quantity;

 In neither aught, or in extremity.

 Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;

 And as my love is sized, my fear is so:

 Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;

 Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

Player King

 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;

 My operant powers their functions leave to do:

 And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,

 Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind

 For husband shalt thou--

Player Queen

 O, confound the rest!

 Such love must needs be treason in my breast:

 In second husband let me be accurst!

 None wed the second but who kill'd the first.

HAMLET

 [Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.

Player Queen

 The instances that second marriage move

 Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:

 A second time I kill my husband dead,

 When second husband kisses me in bed.

Player King

 I do believe you think what now you speak;

 But what we do determine oft we break.

 Purpose is but the slave to memory,

 Of violent birth, but poor validity;

 Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;

 But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.

 Most necessary 'tis that we forget

 To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:

 What to ourselves in passion we propose,

 The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

 The violence of either grief or joy

 Their own enactures with themselves destroy:

 Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;

 Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.

 This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange

 That even our loves should with our fortunes change;

 For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,

 Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

 The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;

 The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.

 And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;

 For who not needs shall never lack a friend,

 And who in want a hollow friend doth try,

 Directly seasons him his enemy.

 But, orderly to end where I begun,

 Our wills and fates do so contrary run

 That our devices still are overthrown;

 Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:

 So think thou wilt no second husband wed;

 But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

Player Queen

 Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!

 Sport and repose lock from me day and night!

 To desperation turn my trust and hope!

 An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!

 Each opposite that blanks the face of joy

 Meet what I would have well and it destroy!

 Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,

 If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

HAMLET

 If she should break it now!

Player King

 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;

 My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

 The tedious day with sleep.

 Sleeps

Player Queen

 Sleep rock thy brain,

 And never come mischance between us twain!

 Exit

HAMLET

 Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

 The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET

 O, but she'll keep her word.

KING CLAUDIUS

 Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?

HAMLET

 No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence

 i' the world.

KING CLAUDIUS

 What do you call the play?

HAMLET

 The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play

 is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is

 the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see

 anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o'

 that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it

 touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our

 withers are unwrung.

 Enter LUCIANUS

 This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

OPHELIA

 You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

HAMLET

 I could interpret between you and your love, if I

 could see the puppets dallying.

OPHELIA

 You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

HAMLET

 It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

OPHELIA

 Still better, and worse.

HAMLET

 So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer;

 pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:

 'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'

LUCIANUS

 Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;

 Confederate season, else no creature seeing;

 Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,

 With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,

 Thy natural magic and dire property,

 On wholesome life usurp immediately.

 Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears

HAMLET

 He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His

 name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in

 choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer

 gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

OPHELIA

 The king rises.

HAMLET

 What, frighted with false fire!

QUEEN GERTRUDE

 How fares my lord?

LORD POLONIUS

 Give o'er the play.

KING CLAUDIUS

 Give me some light: away!

All

 Lights, lights, lights!

 Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO

HAMLET

 Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

 The hart ungalled play;

 For some must watch, while some must sleep:

 So runs the world away.

 Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers-- if

 the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two

 Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a

 fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

HORATIO

 Half a share.

HAMLET

 A whole one, I.

 For thou dost know, O Damon dear,

 This realm dismantled was

 Of Jove himself; and now reigns here

 A very, very--pajock.

HORATIO

 You might have rhymed.

HAMLET

 O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a

 thousand pound. Didst perceive?

HORATIO

 Very well, my lord.

HAMLET

 Upon the talk of the poisoning?

HORATIO

 I did very well note him.

HAMLET

 Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!

 For if the king like not the comedy,

 Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.

 Come, some music!

 Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

GUILDENSTERN

 Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

HAMLET

 Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN

 The king, sir,--

HAMLET

 Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN

 Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.

HAMLET

 With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN

 No, my lord, rather with choler.

HAMLET

 Your wisdom should show itself more richer to

 signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him

 to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far

 more choler.

GUILDENSTERN

 Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and

 start not so wildly from my affair.

HAMLET

 I am tame, sir: pronounce.

GUILDENSTERN

 The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of

 spirit, hath sent me to you.

HAMLET

 You are welcome.

GUILDENSTERN

 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.

HAMLET

 Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN

 What, my lord?

HAMLET

 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,--

ROSENCRANTZ

 Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her

 into amazement and admiration.

HAMLET

 O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But

 is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's

 admiration? Impart.

ROSENCRANTZ

 She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you

 go to bed.

HAMLET

 We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have

 you any further trade with us?

ROSENCRANTZ

 My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET

 So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

ROSENCRANTZ

 Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you

 do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if

 you deny your griefs to your friend.

HAMLET

 Sir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZ

 How can that be, when you have the voice of the king

 himself for your succession in Denmark?

HAMLET

 Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb

 is something musty.

 Re-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?

GUILDENSTERN

 O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too

 unmannerly.

HAMLET

 I do not well understand that. Will you play upon

 this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN

 My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET

 I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN

 Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET

 I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN

 I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET

 '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.

GUILDENSTERN

 But these cannot I command to any utterance of

 harmony; I have not the skill.

HAMLET

 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. 'Sblood, do you think I am

 easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what

 instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you

 cannot play upon me.

 Enter POLONIUS

 God bless you, sir!

LORD POLONIUS

 My lord, the queen would speak with you, and

 presently.

HAMLET

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

LORD POLONIUS

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

HAMLET

 Methinks it is like a weasel.

LORD POLONIUS

 It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET

 Or like a whale?

LORD POLONIUS

 Very like a whale.

HAMLET

 Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool

 me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.

LORD POLONIUS

 I will say so.

HAMLET

 By and by is easily said.

 Exit POLONIUS

 Leave me, friends.

 Exeunt all but HAMLET

 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