Hamlet, Act II, Scene ii - Advice to Players
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you, trippingly on the tongue, /but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines./ 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 your passion, /you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.// Oh it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters,/ to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, /who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. /I would have such a fellow whipt for o'erdoing Termagant,/ it out-Herods Herod, pray you avoid it.