• HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY - John Barrymore

  • Dec 15 2023
  • Length: 5 mins
  • Podcast

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY - John Barrymore

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  • Summary

  • HamletNow I am alone.
    Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
    Is it not monstrous that this player here,








    But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,


    Could force his soul so to histo his whole conceit
    That, from her working, all the visage warmed,
    Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
    A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
    With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing,
    For Hecuba!










    What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
    That he should weep for her? What would he do
    Had he the motive and the cue for passion
    That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
    And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
    Make mad the guilty, and appall the free,


    Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed








    The very faculty of eyes and ears. Yet I,
    A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
















    Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,








    And can say nothing — no, not for a king
    Upon whose property and most dear life
    A damned defeat was made. Am I a coward?




    Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across,
    Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face,
    Tweaks me by th' nose, gives me the lie i'th' throat
    As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?










    Ha, why, I should take it. For it cannot be


    But I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall








    To make oppression bitter; or ere this
    I should have fatted all the region kites
    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 dead father murdered,
    Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
    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 brain! I have heard








    That guilty creatures sitting at a play
    Have, by the very cunning of the scene,
    Been struck so to the soul that presently
    They have proclaimed their malefactions.


    For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
    With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players








    Play something like the murder of my father
    Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;
    I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,
















    I know my course. The spirit that I have seen




    May be a devil, and the devil hath power


    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
    Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
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