Pol. 
What treasure had he, my lord?

Ham. 
Why—­
   ’One fair daughter, and no more,
   The which he loved passing well.’

Pol.
[Aside.] Still on my daughter.

Ham. 
Am I not i’ the right, old Jephthah?

Pol. 
If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I
love passing well.

Ham. 
Nay, that follows not.

Pol. 
What follows, then, my lord?

Ham. 
Why—­
   ‘As by lot, God wot,’
and then, you know,
   ‘It came to pass, as most like it was—­’
The first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look
where my abridgment comes.

[Enter four or five Players.]

You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:—­I am glad to see thee well.—­welcome, good friends.—­O, my old friend!  Thy face is valanc’d since I saw thee last; comest thou to beard me in Denmark?—­What, my young lady and mistress!  By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine.  Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.—­Masters, you are all welcome.  We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anything we see:  we’ll have a speech straight:  come, give us a taste of your quality:  come, a passionate speech.

I Play. 
What speech, my lord?

Ham.  I heard thee speak me a speech once,—­but it was never acted; or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million, ’twas caviare to the general; but it was,—­as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine,—­an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning.  I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indite the author of affectation; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine.  One speech in it I chiefly loved:  ‘twas AEneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter:  if it live in your memory, begin at this line;—­let me see, let me see:—­

The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast,—­

it is not so:—­ it begins with Pyrrhus:—­

  ’The rugged Pyrrhus,—­he whose sable arms,
   Black as his purpose,did the night resemble
   When he lay couched in the ominous horse,—­
   Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d
   With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
   Now is be total gules; horridly trick’d
   With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
   Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets,
   That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
   To their vile murders:  roasted in wrath and fire,
   And thus o’ersized with coagulate gore,
   With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
   Old grandsire Priam seeks.’