5. "That you have wronged me doth appear in this."

6. "Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt!"

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7. Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

8. "Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star in his steep course?"

9. "Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows like harmony in music.”

10. "Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up

Fostered alike by beauty and by fear."

11. "Now o'er the one-half world nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse the curtained sleep."

12. "Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl."

GROUP IV

Enunciate Clearly the Final Word in Each Sentence Practice reading "Hamlet's Advice to the Players."

SELECTIONS

HAMLET'S ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your 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 smoothOh, 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

ness.

and noise; I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod; pray you avoid

it.

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; 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. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. Oh, 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 them and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

SHAKESPEARE.

DIVISION I

CHAPTER IV

Forms of Emphasis

Emphasis is the prominence given to a word or group of words in order to make the meaning clear.

The forms of emphasis are melody, inflection, slide, volume, force, and pause. Any of these forms may be combined and re-enforced by gesture.

MELODY

The emphasis of melody is the wavelike change of the pitch of the speaking voice due to the mental recognition of the relative importance of the words in sentences.

Notice the melody of the following lines as you read them aloud.

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone,
He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;
But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,

The bride had consented, the gallant came late;
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

INFLECTION

The emphasis of inflection is a mere bending of the voice from the main pitch up or down, thus: Shall you

go

The rising inflection is also used in asking a direct question, and in the expression of joyousness and life.

The falling inflection is also used to express will, gravity, the completion of a thought, and to ask an indirect ques

tion.

Sometimes the rising and falling inflections are contrasted, to express antithesis. Sometimes the two are combined, giving a double bend to the voice, when they are

called circumflex. When the voice falls and rises, the inflection is called the falling circumflex. This expresses irony. When the voice rises and falls, the inflection is called the rising circumflex. This expresses sarcasm or insinuation.

Falling circumflex: Hath a dog money?

Notice the inflections in the following stanzas as you read them aloud:

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So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,

Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all:
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,)
O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?

"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied ;-
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide—
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.”
SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THE SLIDE.

The slide is a stronger form of emphasis than the inflection. It is used in stronger emotion. The voice leaves the main pitch and moves through a greater gamut of tone

on the emphatic words; thus

or

When there is antithesis or contrast of thought, the emphasis is marked by contrasting slides.