Page 271 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across,
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face,
Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the he i’th’ throat
As deep as to the lungs − who does me this? [570]

Ha!
’Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this

I should ha’ fatted all the region kites [575]
With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,

That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, [580]
Must like a whore unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,

A scullion! Fie upon’t! Foh!
About, my brains. Hum − I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play [585]
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. I’ll have these players [590]

Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks;
I’ll tent him to the quick. If a do blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

May be a devil, and the devil hath power [595]
T’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 [600]
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
Exit.