THE PLAYERS

Act III. Scene 2

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 5
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, 10
who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such
a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods
Herod: pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion 15
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 anything 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 20
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 25
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 Christains
nor the gait of Christain, pagan, nor man, have so 30
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.

--_Shakespeare_

MOUTH, TOWN-CRIER, TAME, JOURNEYMEN. Why are these words
emphatic? (Introduction, p. 30.)

Explain FROM THE PURPOSE OF PLAYING, COME TARDY OFF, THE
CENSURE OF THE WHICH ... OTHERS. What are the emphatic
words in each?

TORRENT, TEMPEST, WHIRLWIND. Observe the Climax.

Give other examples of Climax from this selection and
show how the Emphasis is employed. (Introduction, p.
31.)

Select parenthetical clauses and show how they are
subordinated. (Introduction, p. 24.)

Read the last two sen