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Horatio

                                             Well, my lord. 
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing
And 'scape detected, I will pay the theft.

Hamlet 

They are coming to the play. I must be idle.    
Get you a place.
[Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and other Lords.]

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.    

Claudius

I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These 
words are not mine.    

Hamlet

No, nor mine. [To Polonius] Now, my lord, 

Hamlet

No, nor mine. [To Polonius] Now, my lord, 
you played once i'th' university, you say?

Polonius

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

Hamlet   

And what did you enact?

Polonius

I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i'th' Capitol.
Brutus killed me.

Hamlet

It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.
Be the players ready?

Hamlet

[To Ophelia]  Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

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.

Ophelia

You are merry, my lord.

Hamlet   

Who, I?

Ophelia

Ay, my lord.

Hamlet

Oh, 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's two hours.

Hamlet    

may outlive his life halfa 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 oh, for oh, the hobby-horse is forgot."    

Ophelia

What means this, my lord?     

Hamlet

Marry, this is “miching mallico” — that means mischief.    

Ophelia

Belike this show imports the argument of the play?

Ophelia

Belike this show imports the argument of the play?
[Enter a Player as Prologue.]

Hamlet

We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot
keep counsel, they'll tell all.    

Ophelia

Will they tell us what this show meant?

Hamlet

Ay, or any show that you will show him. Be not you 
ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

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, does the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy 
Their own enactors with themselves destroy.

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