Nor do not
saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in
the very torrent, tempest, and--as I may say--whirlwind of passion,
you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness.
"Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor:
suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special
observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. O! there be
players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that
highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the 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."
The player amiably responds: "I hope we have reformed that
indifferently with us." Shakespeare in the person of Hamlet retorts in
a tone of some impatience: "O! reform it altogether. And let those
that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them." The
applause which welcomed Shakespeare's masterpieces on their first
representation is adequate evidence that the leading Elizabethan
actors in the main obeyed these instructions.
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