Speak the speech, I pray you, as I have pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the towncrier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently.
– William Shakespeare
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2. Hamlet instructs the actors in the play he has written, advising them not to overact or use large gestures. He is telling the players to at realistically, a paradox because actors do not actout reality, and also dramatic irony because Claudius does not know the play is meant to expose his guilty conscience.