For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, And after we will both our judgments join In censure of his seeming. If his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech, It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen, And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan’s stithy. I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe mine uncle. One scene of it comes near the circumstance Which I have told thee of my father’s death. Something too much of this.- There is a play tonight before the king. 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. And blessed are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger To sound what stop she please.

Dost thou hear? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice And could of men distinguish, her election Hath sealed thee for herself, for thou hast been- As one in suffering all that suffers nothing- A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards Hast ta’en with equal thanks. For what advancement may I hope from thee That no revenue hast but thy good spirits, To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning. Oh, there be players that I have seen play and heard others praise (and that highly), not to speak it profanely, that, neither having th’ accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so 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.

Now this overdone or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. 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 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. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor.

The Croaking Raven by Susanna Shore