pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she pleases. 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!"_

In the dumb show murder play, before the King and Queen Shakspere puts
these phrases in the mouths of the players and Hamlet:

_"The great man down, you mark his favorite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies;
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
For who not needs, shall never lack a friend."_

_"But what's that, your Majesty;
And we that have free souls, it touches us not;
Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung!"_

King Claudius frightened at the mock play runs away, and Hamlet says to
Horatio:

_"Why let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep
Thus runs the world away."_

_"'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;
I will speak daggers to her, but use none!"_

King Claudius the night before his death, after conspiring with Polonius
for the exile of Hamlet utters this self-accusing, remorseful soliloquy:

_"O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal, eldest curse upon it--
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will;
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offense?
And what's in prayer but this twofold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen,
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offense's gilded hand may shove by just