*.") 2.6 '■ ^ SHAKESPEARE'S TRAGEDY OF HAMLET. WITH INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND CLASSES. BY THE Rev. henry N. H UDSON. LL.D. II I HIM— — ^MiiiBumii mil I -trmmmmmmmmmmtl>mm\ SM- reet, , J3C .-- _--^£»ElKS, BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY GINN, HEATH, & CO. 1883. .A2H8 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by Henry N. Hudson, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 48 65 5 5 AUG'/o m? Cusking &= Bramhall, Printers, Boston. PREFACE. SINCE the first volume of my School Shakespeare made its appearance, which was about nine years ago, very considerable advances have been made in the way of furni- ture and preparation needful or desirable for such a work. This is especially the case with the play here presented in a new dress. And my own long and constant occupation in teaching classes in Shakespeare has, I would fain hope, now brought me a somewhat larger and riper fitness for doing what is requisite in this particular field. Moreover the stereotype plates of this play, as also of some others, have been so much and so often used for the pamphlet sections of the volume, that they have become not a little worn and defaced. These are the principal reasons for setting forth the present edition. I still adhere to my old plan of foot-notes, instead of mass- ing the annotation all together at the end of the play. This is because ample experience has assured me, beyond all per- ad venture, that whatever of explanation young students need of Shakespeare's text — and they certainly need a good deal — is much better every way when placed directly under the eye, so that they can hardly miss it ; and because at least nineteen in twenty of such pupils will pass over an obscure word or phrase without understanding it, rather than stay to look up the explanation in another part of the volume. In this instance, however, I have meant to exclude from the foot- notes all matter but what appeared fairly needful or useful iv , HAMLET. for a proper understanding of the Poet's language and mean- ing. As will readily be seen from some of the foot-notes, I am indebted to Mr. Joseph Crosby, of Zanesville, O., for most valuable aid towards this part of my task. The matter so used has been communicated to me in a private corre- spondence with that gentleman, running through several years, and extending over the whole field of Shakespeare, and throwing more hght on dark and difficult passages than I have received from any other living commentator on the Poet. Another advantage of the method of foot-notes is, that it operates as a wholesome restraint against overdoing the work of annotation. And surely, if we may judge from what has been done, it is so much easier to multiply superfluous notes than to keep within the bounds of what is fairly need- ful in this kind, that some such restraint seems eminently desirable. Shakespeare, it scarce need be said, has suffered a great deal from this sort of exegetical incontinence. And perhaps the tendency is stronger now then ever before to smother his workmanship beneath a mass of needless and even obstructive annotation. An inordinate fecundity of explanation is quite too much the order of the day. There have been divers instances, of late, where we find the gloss, I cannot say out -weighing, but certainly far out-bulking, the text. Surely it is better to leave students a little unhelped than thus to encumber them with superfluous help. These burdens of unnecessary comment are really a "weariness of the flesh " ; and even hungry minds may well be repelled from a feast so overlaid with quenchers of the appetite. Nor have the Poet's editors yet got their minds untied from the old vice of leaving many of his darkest things unexplained, and of explaining a multitude of things that were better left to ' PREFACE. V take care of themselves. For pupils ought not to be put to studying Shakespeare at all, until they have grown to such a measure of intelligence, that they may be safely presumed to know several things without being told. Such being the case, or at least my view of the case, I am not without apprehension, that some excess may be justly charged upon what is here done. Self-restrained and spar- ing as I have meant to be, still there is a considerable addi- tion to the number of notes given in my former edition. But, in the matter of annotation, it is not easy to strike just the right medium between too much and too little. Here, again, I have been mainly guided by the results of my own experience in teaching ; aiming to give such and so many notes as I have found needful or conducive to a fair under- standing of the Poet's thought. In the present stage of Shakespearian study, I suppose it would hardly do, even in a book designed for school use, to leave the matter of textual comment and textual correction altogether untouched. Accordingly there will be found, at the end of the play, a body of Critical Notes, wherein I have drawn together whatever seemed necessary or desirable to be said in the way of textual criticism, and of comment on such particulars of textual correction as are here admitted. In doing this, I have almost unavoidably been led to note a few instances of different readings. These few cases excepted, I have purposely, and with full deliberation, abstained from every thing in the line of vari- orum comment and citation. For, indeed, such matter, however right and good in its place, can hardly be of any use or interest save to those who are making or intending to make a specialty of Shakespearian lore. But, of the pupils and even the teachers in our schools and colleges, probably VI HAMLET. not one in five hundred has, or ought to have, any thought of becoming a specialist in Shakespeare, or a hnguistic anti- quary in any department of study. To such students, a minute discussion or presentation of various readings must needs be a stark impertinence ; and its effect, if it have any, can hardly be other than to confuse and perplex their thoughts. In this, as in other walks of human service, the processes of elaborate study are of very hmited use, and may well be confined to a few ; while the last results of such study are or may be highly useful to all. I hold, indeed, that Shakespeare ought to be made much more of than he is in our higher education : not, however, with the view of fitting people to be editors and critics ; but that they may have their minds and hearts rightly attuned to the delectations of his poetry and eloquence and wisdom ; and that they may carry from the study some fair preparation of liberal thought and culture and taste into the common pursuits and interests of life. The world is getting prodigiously overstocked with authors ; so many are aspiring to gain a living by their wits, that the thing is becoming a dreadful nuisance : and it really seems full time that we should begin to take more thought how a condition of "plain living " may be sanctified with the grace of " high thinking " ; and how even the humbler and more drudging forms of labour may be sweetened by the pure and ennobhng felicities of unambitious intelligence. A question has lately been raised, and is still pending, as to the comparative value of verbal and of what is called ses- thetic criticism ; and some have spoken disparagingly, not to say contemptuously, of the latter, as a mere irrelevancy, which they would fain be rid of altogether. Verbal criticism certainly has its place, and in its place is not to be dis- pensed with ; and it has at least this advantage over the PREFACE. VU Other, that it is strictly necessary in the study of such authors as Shakespeare, who abounds in words and phrases which, to common readers, are quite unintelHgible without such help. This, however, may easily be overdone, and in fact sometimes has been hugely overdone, insomuch as to be- come little better than a sheer incumbrance ; nevertheless, on the whole, it has been of incalculable service. But the other, I must think, has done good service too, and has fairly justi- fied its claims to a high estimate in Shakespearian lore : albeit I have to confess that some discredit has of late come upon it, from the fact that, in divers cases, it has taken to very odd and eccentric courses, and has displayed an ill- starred propensity to speculate and subtilize the Poet's work- manship clean out of its natural propriety. Transcendental metaphysics, whether appHed to science, to philosophy, to art, or to whatsoever else, of course loves to "reason high, and finds no end, in wandering mazes lost." Whatever it takes in hand, it can easily discover any meaning it wants, and as easily argue away any meaning not in accordance with its idealistic predilections ; so using its alchemy as to " extract sunbeams from cucumbers," or to resolve gold into vapour, just as it happens to list. But these abuses may very well be struck off without casting away the thing itself. And the aesthetic criticism of Coleridge, Schlegel, Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and Mrs. Jameson, has probably done more to diffuse and promote the study of Shakespeare, than all the verbal criticism in the world put together. The Introduction here given, as also some of the foot-notes, is mainly occupied with matter in this line ; the aim being, to aid such students as may care to be aided, towards what may be termed the interior study of Shakespeare's charac- ters. Ordinarily, in books designed for such use as the Vlll HAMLET. present, I deem it better to reproduce extracts from ap- proved masters in critical discourse than to obtrude any judgments of my own. But my views of Hamlet are so different from those commonly put forth, that in this case I judged it best to set them aside, and to occupy the limited space at my disposal with a presentation of my own thoughts. In this part of the work, I have derived much furtherance from Professor Karl Werder's able essay on Hamlet, portions of which, very choicely translated, are given in Mr. H. H. Furness's great and admirable work, the variorum edition of the play. My own views were indeed substantially the same long before I had any knowledge of the German Professor, and even before his essay was written ; but I would not if I could, and certainly could not if I would, disguise that I am indebted to him for much aid, and more encouragement, towards a full statement and expression of them. The occasion moves me to protest, with all possible earn- estness, against the course now too commonly pursued in our studying and teaching of Enghsh literature. We seem indeed to have got stuck fast in the strange notion, that chil- dren are never learning any thing unless they are conscious of it : and so we are sparing no pains to force in them a premature and most unhealthy consciousness of learning. Nothing is left to the free and spontaneous vitalities of Nature. Things have come to such a pass witn us, that a pupil must live, Knowing that he grows wiser every day, Or else not live at all, and seeing too Each little drop of wisdom as it falls Into the dimpling cistern of his heart. Hence our education is kept at a restless fever-heat of am- PREFACE. IX bition and emulation ; and this naturally involves an in- cessant urging of high -pressure methods. We have no faith in any sowing, save where the seeds " forthwith spring up, because they have no deepness of earth." So eager and impatient are we for immediate results, that the conditions and processes of inward growth are, as far as possible, worked off and got rid of. But the results attained by this straining and forcing are necessarily false and delusive ; and presently wither away, because they have no root. Thus in our hot haste to make the young precociously intellectual, we are just burning real health and vigour of intelligence out of them ; or, at all events, the best that can be gained by such a course is but what Wordsworth justly deprecates as " knowledge purchased with the loss of power." For, in truth, when people, of whatever age, see themselves growing from day to day, they are not really growing at all, but merely bloating ; — a puffing-up, not a building-up. And we shall assuredly find, in due time, nay, we are already finding, that those who get ripe before they are out of their teens begin to rot before passing their twen- ties. For such a forced and premature action of the mind can only proceed by overtaxing and exhausting other parts of the system ; and must needs be followed by a collapse of the mind itself equally premature. In other words, where the brain is built up at the expense of the stomach, the brain itself must soon break down. And, as " the child is father of the man," so of course the smart boys of our educational hot-beds can only blossom out into grown-up intellectual manikins. Now, in opposition to all this, be it said, again and again, that the work of education is necessarily secret and uncon- scious just in proportion as it is deep and generative. For X HAMLET. the mind is naturally conscious only of what touches its sur- face, rustles in its fringes, or roars in its outskirts ; while that which works at its vital springs, and feeds its native vigour, is as silent as the growing of the grass, as unconscious as the assimilation of the food and the vitalizing of the blood. When its springs of life are touched to their finest issues, then it is that we are least sensible of the process. So it is rightly said," " the gods approve the depth and not the tumult of the soul." Only the dyspeptic are conscious of their gastric operations : the eupeptic never think of their stomachs, are not even aware that they have any. One would suppose that a little reflection on the workings of the infant mind might teach us all this. For children, during their first five years, before they can tell any thing about it, or make any show of it in set recitations, and while they are utterly unconscious of it, do a vast amount of study- ing and learning ; probably storing up more of real intelli- gence than from any subsequent ten years of formal school- ing. And such schooHng is no doubt best and wisest when it continues and copies, as far as may be, those instinctive methods of Nature. But the pity of it is, that our educa- tion, as if "sick of self-love," appears to spurn the old wis- dom of Nature, preferring to take its rules and measures from a proud and arrogant intellectuahsm. In the mental and moral world, as in the physical, the best planting is always slow of fruitage : generally speaking, the longer the fruit is in coming, the sounder and sweeter when it comes ; an interval of several years, perhaps of ten, or even twenty, being little time enough for its full and per- fect advent. For growth is a thing that cannot be extempo- rized ; and, if you go about to extemporize it, you will be sure to cheat or be cheated with a worthless surface imita- PREFACE. XI tion : that it is to say, in place of a growth, which is slow and silent, but full of juice and taste withal, will be substi- tuted a swift, loud, vapid manufacture. What a teacher, therefore, most especially needs (and parents need it too) is the faith that knows how to work and wait ; — to work diligently, carefully, earnestly ; to wait calmly, patiently, hopefully ; — that faith which, having its eye on the far-off future, does not thirst for present rewards, Nor with impatience from the season ask More than its timely produce. For Nature, the honest old Mother, is far better, stronger, richer, than our busy and meddlesome intellectualists, who are straining so hard to get ahead of her, have the heart to conceive. Human wisdom may indeed aid and further her processes ; but it is stark folly to think of superseding them. And the forcing system now so much in vogue is essentially a levelling system ; though, to be sure, it can only level downwards : perhaps, indeed, the circumstance of its look- ing to a compelled equahty is what makes it so popular ; — a thing sure to issue in a manifold spuriousness ! For its estimate of things is, for the most part, literally preposterous. Minds of a Hght and superficial cast it over-stimulates into a morbid quickness and volubility, wherein a certain liveHness and fluency of memory, going by rote, parrot-like, enables them to win flashy and vainglorious triumphs by a sort of cheap and ineffectual phosphorescence ; thus making them, as Professor Huxley says, " conceited all the forenoon of their hfe, and stupid all its afternoon " : while, upon minds of a more robust and solid make, which are growing too much inwardly to do any shining outwardly, it has a dis- heartening and depressing effect. Thus the system operates XU HAMLET. to quench the deeper natures, while kindling false fires in the shallower. Hence, no doubt, the feeling, which can hardly be new to any thoughtful teacher or parent, that " strongest minds are often those of whom the noisy school hears least." For, under the system in question, modest vigour is naturally ecKpsed by pert and forward imbecility, — the proper charac- teristic of minds that have not strength enough to keep still. But minds thus heated into untimely efflorescence can hardly ripen into any thing but sterility and barrenness : before the season of fruitage, the sap is all dried out of them. To quote Professor Huxley again : " The vigour and freshness, which should have been stored up for the hard struggle for existence in practical life, have been washed out of them by precocious mental debauchery, — by book-gluttony and les- son-bibbing : their faculties are worn out by the strain upon their callow brains, and they are demoralized by worthless, childish triumphs before the real work of life begins." Of those who are so incessantly driving on this bad system, we may well ask, with Wordsworth, — When will their presumption learn, That in th' unreasoning progress of the world A wiser spirit is at work for us, A better eye than theirs, most prodigal Of blessings, and most studious of our good. Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours ? Now, Shakespeare, above all other authors, should be allowed to teach as Nature teaches, else he ought not to be used as a text-book at all. And here, I suspect, the great danger is, that teachers, having too little faith in the spontaneous powers of Nature, will undertake to do too much, will keep thrusting themselves, their specialties and PREFACE. Xlll artificial preparations, between the pupil and the author. With average pupils, if of sufficient age, Shakespeare will make his way, slowly and silently indeed, but effectively, pro- vided his proper efficacy be not strangled and defeated by an excess of learned verbaHsm. For his great superiority lies very much in this, that he writes close to facts as they are : no cloud of words, nothing, stands between his vision and the object. Hence with him, pre-eminently, language is used as a transparent, invisible vehicle of thought and matter ; so that the mind, if rightly put in communication with him, thinks not of his expression at all, but loses sight of it, in the force and vividness of what is expressed. Beau- tiful his speech is indeed ; but its beauty hes in this very thing, that it is the crystal shrine, itself unseen, of the speak- ing soul within. The less, therefore, the attention of students is diverted from his matter to his language by external calls, the quicker and stronger will be their interest in him ; — an interest free, natural, and unconscious indeed, but all the better for that : so that the teacher will best further it by let- ting it alone ; will most effectively help it by leaving it un- helped. For the learning of words is a noisy process ; whereas the virtue of things steals into the mind with noise- less step, and is ever working in us most when we perceive it least. And so, when Shakespeare is fairly studied in the manner here proposed, the pupil will naturally be drawn to forget himself ; all thought of the show he is to make will be cheated into healthful sleep ; unless, ay, unless — Some intermeddler still is on the watch To drive him back, and pound him, hke a stray, Within the pinfold of his own conceit. Not, however, but that something of special heed should XIV HAMLET. be given to the Poet's language, and his use of words ; for many of these are either unfamihar or used in unfamiliar senses : but this part of the study should be kept strictly subordinate to the understanding of his thought and mean- ing, and should be pushed no further than is fairly needful to that end. But I have ample cause for saying, that in many cases, if not in most, altogether too much time and strength are spent in mere word-mongering and lingual dissection ; a vice as old indeed as Cicero's time, who pointedly ridicules it in describing one as " a chanter of formulas, a bird-catcher of syllables." In fact, as we are now chiefly intent on edu- cating people into talkers, not workers, so the drift of our whole education is, to make language an ultimate object of study, instead of using it as a medium for converse with things : for we all know, or ought to know, that the readiest and longest talkers are commonly those who have little or nothing to say. On every side, teachers are to be found attending very disproportionately, not to say exclusively, to questions of grammar, etymology, rhetoric, and the mere technicalities of speech ; thus sticking for ever in the husk of language, instead of getting through into the kernel of matter and thought. Now, as before implied, Shakespeare, least of all, ought to be taught or studied after this fashion. A constant dissecting of his words and syllables just chokes off all passage of his blood into the pupil's mind. Our supreme master in the knowledge of human nature, it is little less than downright sacrilege to be thus using him as the raw material of philo- logical exercitations. In the degree that it is important people should acquire a taste for him and learn to love him, just in that degree is it a sin to use him so ; for such use can hardly fail to breed a distaste for him and an aversion to PREFACE. XV Iiim. Doubtless there is a time for parsing, as there is for other things ; but people cannot parse themselves or be parsed into a relish for Shakespeare's workmanship, or into a fruitful converse with his treasures of wisdom and power. And with the young, especially, the study of vernacular authors should be prosecuted in entire subservience to the knowledge of things : if turned into a word-mongering pro- cess, it touches no free and natural springs of interest, and so becomes tedious and dull, — just the thing to defeat all that pleasure which is the pulse of mental Hfe. For the proper business, as also the healthy instinct of young minds is, to accumulate and lay in stores of matter : the analytic and discriminative processes naturally belong to a later pe- riod ; and to anticipate the proper time of them is a very bad mistake. But the knowledge of things proceeds too slowly and too silently for the ends of school-room show. Boys in school and college shine chiefly by the knowledge of words, for this is the mere work of memory ; but, in prac- tical life, men are useful and successful in proportion to their knowledge of things : which knowledge proceeds, to be sure, by the measures of gj-owth, and therefore is far less available for competitive examinations and exhibitory purposes. And so, forsooth, our children must be continually drilled in a sort of microscopic verbalism, as if we had nothing so much at heart as to make them learned in words, ignorant of things. Hence, too, instead of learning how to do some one thing, or some few things, they must learn how to smatter of all things : instead, for example, of being taught to sing, they must be taught to prate scientifically about music. Thus our educational methods are all converging to the one sole purpose of generating a depurated and conceited intellectualism ; which is just about the shallowest, barrenest. XVI HAMLET. windiest thing in the whole compass of man's intellectual globe. But, what is strangest of all, so becharmed are we with our supposed progress in this matter, as not to see, what is nevertheless as plain as the Sun at midday, that we are taking just the right course to stunt and thwart the intellect itself. For the several parts of the mind must grow in pro- portion, keeping touch and time together in the unity of a common sap and circulation, else growth itself is but decay in disguise. And when the intellectual man, through pride of self-sufiicingness, sequesters itself from its natural com- merce and reciprocation with the moral, emotional, and imaginative man, the intellect must needs go into a dry-rot. I was convinced long ago, and further experience has but strengthened that conviction, that in the study of English authors the method of recitations is radically at fault, and ought seldom if ever to be used. For that method naturally invites, and indeed almost compels, the pupil to spend all his force on those points only which are, or may be made, available for immediate recitational effect. But, if the author be really worth studying, all, or nearly all, that is best in him escapes through the fingers of this process, and is left be- hind ; the pupil having no occasion for attending to it, nor any strength of attention to spare for it. He does nothing but skip lightly over the surface of what is before him, picking up such small items as the tongue and memory can handle ; but remaining quite innocent of all its deeper efficacies, which would indeed be rather an incumbrance than a help in reference to what he has in view. For the best thing that the best authors can do is to quicken and inspire the stu- dent's mind : but quickening and inspiration are nowise things to be recited ; their natural effect is to prevent glib- PREFACE. xvii ness of memory and tongue : and, while the pupil is intent only on what he can recite, the author's quickening and inspir- ing power has no chance to work ; and he just runs or shdes over it without being touched by it, or catching any virtue from it. It is just the difference of mere acquirement and culture : for what the mind gains in the way of acquirement merely, is lost almost as quickly as it is got ; but whatever of culture is gained abides as an inseparable part of the mind itself. Thus the same rule holds here as in so many other things, that, when pupils are studying merely or mainly for effect, all the best effect of the study is inevitably missed. For these reasons, I have never had and never will have any thing but simple exercises ; the pupils reading the author under the teacher's direction, correction, and explanation ; the teacher not even requiring, though usually advising, them to read over the matter in advance. Thus it is a joint com- muning of teacher and pupils with the author for the time being; just that, and nothing more. Nor, assuredly, can such communion, in so far as it is genial and free, be without substantial and lasting good ; far better indeed than any pos- sible cramming of mouth and memory for recitation. The one thing needful here is"", that the pupils rightly understand and feel what they read : this secured, all the rest will take care of itself; because, when this is gained, the work is, not indeed done, but fairly and effectively begun ; and what is once so begun, will be ever after in course of doing, never done. For people cannot dwell, inteUigently and with open minds, in the presence of "sweetness and hght," or within the sound of wisdom and eloquence, without being enriched, — enriched secretly, it may be, but permanently; for the enrichment is in the shape of germs, which have in them the virtue of perennial growth. And when I find the pupils XVlll HAMLET. taking pleasure in what they are about, entering into it with the zest and spirit of honest dehght, then I know fuJl well that they are drinking in the author's soul-power, and that what they are drinking in is going to the right spot. For, to find joy and sweetness in the taste of what is pure and good, is the strongest pledge that things are going well. And such a communing of youthful minds with genius and mellow wisdom has something of mystery and almost of magic in it. Rather say, it is a holy sacrament of the mind. As beautiful too as it is beneficent : in this naughty-lovely, or this lovely-naughty, world of ours, I hardly know of a lovelier sight. There is, be assured there is, regeneration in it. INTRODUCTION. History of the Play. " 'nr^HE Revenge of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, as it jL was lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain's Serv- ants," was registered at the Stationers' on the 26th of July, 1602. This entry undoubtedly refers to Shakespeare's trag- edy, and is the first we hear of it. The tragedy was printed in 1603. It was published again in 1604; and in the title- page of that issue we have the words, " enlarged to almost as much again as it was." This latter edition was reprinted in 1605, and again in 161 1 ; besides an undated quarto, which is commonly referred to 1607, as it was entered at the Stationers' in the Fall of that year. These are all the issues known to have been made before the play reappeared in the folio of 1623. The quartos, all but the first, have a number of highly important passages that are not in the folio ; while, on the other hand, the foHo has a few, less important, that are wanting in the quartos. It is generally agreed that the first issue was piratical. It gives the play but about half as long as the later quartos, and carries in its face abundant evidence of having been greatly marred and disfigured in the making-up. Mr. Dyce says, "It seems certain that in the quarto of 1603 we have Shakespeare's first conception of the play, though with a text mangled and corrupted throughout, and perhaps formed on 2 HAMLET. the notes of some shOrt-hand writer, who had imperfectly taken it down during representation." Nevertheless it is evident that the play was very different then from what it afterwards became. Polonius is there called Corambis, and his man Reynaldo is called Montano. Divers scenes and passages, some of them such as a reporter would be least likely to omit, are wanting altogether. The Queen is repre- sented as concerting and actively co-operating with Hamlet against the King's hfe -; and she has an interview of consid- erable length with Horatio, who informs her of Hamlet's ■ escape from the ship bound for England, and of his safe return to Denmark ; of which scene the later issues have no traces whatever. All this fully ascertains the play to have undergone a thorough recasting from what it was when the copy of 1603 was taken. A good deal of question has been made as to the time when the tragedy was first written. It is all but certain that the subject was done into a play some years before Shakespeare took it in hand, as we have notices to that effect reaching as far back as 1589. That play, however, is lost; and our notices of it give no clue to the authorship. On the other hand, there appears no good reason for believing that any form of Shakespeare's Hamlet was in being long before we hear of it as entered at the Stationers', in 1602. Source of the Plot. Whether, or how far, Shakespeare may have borrowed his materials from any pre-existing play on the subject, we have no means of knowing. The tragedy was partly founded on a work by Saxo Grammaticus, a Danish historian, written as early as 1204, but not printed till 15 14. The incidents, as related by him, were borrowed by Belleforest, through whose INTRODUCTION. 3 French version, probably, the tale found its way to the English stage. It was called The History of Hamblet. As there told, the story is, both in matter and style, uncouth and barbarous in the last degree ; a savage, shocking tale of lust and murder, unredeemed by a single touch of art or fancy in the narrator. The scene of the incidents is laid before the introduction of Christianity into Denmark, and when the Danish power held sway in England : further than this the tinie is not specified. A close sketch of such parts of the tale as were specially drawn upon for the play is all I have room for. Roderick, King of Denmark, divided his kingdom into provinces, and placed governors in them. Among these were two warlike brothers, Horvendile and Fengon. The greatest honour that men of noble birth could at that time win was by piracy, wherein Horvendile surpassed all others. Cohere, King of Norway, was so moved by his fame that he challenged him to fight, body to body ; and the challenge was accepted, the victor to have all the riches that were in the other's ship. Cohere was slain ; and Horvendile re- turned home with much treasure, most of which he sent to King Roderick, who thereupon gave him his daughter Geruth in marriage. Of this marriage sprang Hamblet, the hero of the tale. Fengon became so envious of his brother, that he resolved to kill him. Before doing this, he corrupted his wife, whon^ he afterwards married. Young Hamblet, thinking he wa? likely to fare no better than his father, went to feigning him- self mad. One of Fengon's friends suspected his madness to be feigned, and counselled Fengon to use some crafty means for discovering his purpose. The plot being all laid, the counsellor went into the Queen's chamber, and hid V 4 HAMLET. behind the hangings. Soon after, the Queen and the Prince came in ; but the latter, suspecting some treachery, kept up his counterfeit of madness, and went to beating with his arms upon the hangings. Feeling something stir under them, he cried, " A rat, a rat ! " and thrust his sword into them ; which done, he pulled the man out half dead, and made an end of him. He then has a long interview with his mother, which ends in a pledge of mutual confidence between them. She engages to keep his secret faithfully, and to aid him in his purpose of revenge; swearing that she had often pre- vented his death, and that she had never consented to the murder of his father. Fengon's next device was to send the Prince to England, with secret letters to have him there put to death. Two of his Ministers being sent along with him, the Prince, again suspecting mischief, when they were at sea read their com- mission while they were asleep, and substituted one requir- ing the bearers to be hanged. All this and much more being done, he returned to Denmark, and there executed his revenge in a manner horrid enough. There is, besides, an episodical passage in the tale, from which the Poet probably took some hints, especially in the hero's melancholy mood, and his apprehension that " the spirit he has seen may be the Devil." I condense a portion of it : " In those days the northern parts of the world, living then under Satan's laws, were full of enchanters, so that there was not any young gentleman that knew not something therein. And so Hamblet had been instructed in that devilish art whereby the wicked spirit abuseth mankind. It toucheth not the matter herein to discover the parts of divi- nation in man, and whether this Prince, by reason of his over-great melancholy, had received those impressions, divin- INTRODUCTION. 5 ing that which never any had before declared." The " im- pressions " here spoken of refer to the means whereby Hamblet found out the secret of his father's murder. It is hardly needful to add that Shakespeare makes the persons Christians, clothing them with the sentiments and manners of a much later period than they have in the tale ; though he still places the scene at a time when England paid some sort of homage to the Danish crown ; which was before the Norman Conquest. Therewithal the Poet uses very great freedom in regard to time ; transferring to Denmark, in fact, the social and intellectual England of his own day. General Characteristics of the Play. We have seen that the Hamlet of 1604 was greatly en- larged. The enlargement, however, is mainly in the contem- plative and imaginative parts, little being added in the way of action and incident. And in respect of those parts, there is no comparison between the two copies ; the difference is literally immense, and of such a kind as to evince a most astonishing growth of intellectual power and resource. In the earlier text we have little more than a naked though in the main well-ordered and well-knit skeleton, which, in the later, is everywhere replenished and glorified with large, rich volumes of thought and poetry ; where all that is incidental and circumstantial is made subordinate to the living energies of mind and soul. Accordingly Schlegel well describes this play as " a tragedy of thought." Such is, indeed, its character ; in which re- spect it stands alone among all the tragedies in being ; and it takes this character from the hero's mind. Hamlet every- where floods the scene with intellectual wealth, and this in the varied forms of wit, humour, poetry, and high philosophy. 6 HAMLET. with large stores of moral and practical wisdom : affluent with the spoils of learning, of genius, and art, he pours out in inexhaustible variety and profusion, enriching and adorn- ing whatever he touches, and making it fresh, racy, delecta- ble, and instructive. And he does all this without any sign of exertion ; does it with the ease and fluency of a free native impulse, such as to preclude the idea of its being a special purpose with him. For, with all his redundancy of mental treasure, he nowhere betrays the least ostentation of intellect. It is plainly the unlaboured, unaffected issue of a mind so full that it cannot choose but overflow. But perhaps the leading characteristic of this play lies in its strong resemblance to the Classic Tragedy, in that the action is, in a very pecuHar degree, dominated by what the ancients called Fate, but what, in Christian language, is termed Providence. In no other modern drama do we take so deep an impression of a superhuman power presiding over a war of irregular and opposing forces, and, calmly working out its own purpose through the baffled, disjointed, and conflicting purposes of human agents. Of course, the Poet's genius is itself the providence of the play. But here, again, his insight is so profound and so just, his workmanship so true to the c&urse of human experience, that all things come to pass just as if ordered by the Divine Providence of the world. And, however the persons go at cross-aims with each other or themselves, they nevertheless still move true to the author's aim : their confused and broken schemes he uses as the elements of a higher order ; and the harshest discords of their plane of thought serve to enrich and deepen the harmonies of his ; their very blunders and failures minis- tering to his success, their wilfulness to his law, their mad- ness to his reason. INTRODUCTION. 7 Political Basis of the Action. The principal personages of the drama stand at or near the head of the State, and thus move in the highest pubhc representative capacity : the whole world of Denmark is most nearly concerned in them as the recognized supreme organs of the national life and law. In the political order of the play, the Danish crown is partly elective, partly heredi- tary ; that is to say, elective within the circle of a particular family and kindred. Whatever there is of hereditary right belongs to the Queen, who is accordingly described as " the imperial jointress of this warlike State." She was the only child of the former King ; and Hamlet's father was broiiglit^ within the circle of eligibility by his marriage with her. Of* course, when her first husband died, and she married a sec- ond, the second became eligible just as the first had done. So that Claudius, the present King, holds the crown by the same legal title and tenure as Hamlet's father had held it. A horrible crime has been committed, — a crime the f meanest, the blackest, the hatefullest that man is capable of. Claudius has murdered his own brother and his King ; steal- ing upon him in his sleep, and pouring a slow but deadly poison in his ear, which so wrought that he seemed to die of a natural though mysterious disease. The deed was done so secretly and with such consummate craft as to elude and \ defy all human discovery. It was and could be known only \ to the author of it, and to God ; even the victim knew noth- \ ing of it till after his death. No trace of the crime, not an [ atom of evidence, nothing even to ground a suspicion upon, exists, save in the conscience of the criminal himself. So that the hideous secret hes buried in the grave of the mur- dered man ; and no revelation of it is possible on Earth, but 8 , HAMLET. by his coming out of the tomb. Through this act of fratri- cide and regicide, Claudius has hewed his way to the Danish ! throne ; he having beforehand made love to the Queen, and seduced and corrupted her. Claudius is essentially a low, coarse, sensual, brutish vil- lain ; without honour and without shame ; treacherous and cruel in the last degree ; at once hateful, loathsome, and :^ble. At the same time he is mighty shrewd and saga- pick and fertile of resource ; inscrutably artful and withal, utterly remorseless and unscrupulous, and nothing, however base or wicked, to gain his ends, Tcure himself in what he has gained. Thus he stands *a. bold bad man," of a character too vile and too hocking to be suffered to live, yet exceedingly formidable to contend with, — formidable from his astuteness, formidable from his unscrupulousness ; above all, formidable from the powers and prerogatives with which he is invested as an absolute king. Such as he is, Hamlet knows him thoroughly ; f understands alike his meanness, his malice, and his cunning ; /. takes the full measure both of his badness and his potency. [ It appears that the Queen was nowise an accomplice di- rectly in the murder ; that she had, indeed, no knowledge of it, perhaps no suspicion. But she has incurred guilt enough in suffering such a wretch to make love to her, when she had a husband living ; in being seduced by his " wicked wit and gifts "; and then in rushing, with indecent and shameless haste, into a marriage held deeply criminal in itself, even though the forms of decorum had been strictly observed in the time and manner of it. These doings have fallen with terrible, weight upon her son, oppressing his soul with unutterable grief and shame, and filling his mind with irrepressible sus- picions and divinings of foul play. He knows not how or INTRODUCTION. 9 why it is, but he feels that the air about him is all tainted with I" the breath of hypocrisy and lust, of treachery and murder; insomuch that he would gladly escape, even by his own death^ from scenes so horrible and so disgusting. Hamlet's Madness. The proper action of the play turns upon the circumstance^ that the hero meets and converses with the ghost of hi|^' dered father, and thence learns by what means Clau^ reached his present position. He thereupon starts most strange, inexplicable course of behaviour : he s^ beside himself ; acts as if he were crazy. — Shakespeaf sons, generally, affect us just like those in actual life ;*so we severally take different impressions and form divers^ opinions of them. Especially is it so in the case of Hamlet Hence it has been variously argued and discussed, wh^ef his madness be real or feigned, or whether it be someti the one, sometimes the other. My own judgment is, an long has been, that he is really mad ; deranged not indeed . in all his faculties, nor in any of them continuously ; that is j to say, the derangement is partial and occasional : in other | words, he is mad in spots and at times ; paroxysms of wildness ' and fury alternating with intervals of serenity and composure.! My main reasons for this judgment are as follows : — f I . From the natural structure and working of his mind ; from the recent doings in the royal family; from the state of things at the Court ; still more from his interview with the Ghost, and the Ghost's appalling disclosures and injunctions, " shaking his disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of his soul " ; above all, from his instant view and grasp of the whole dire situation in which he is now placed ; — from all this, he ought to be crazy ; and it were vastly to his credit. lO HAMLET. both morally and mentally, to be so : we might well be amazed at the morbid strength or the natural weakness of his mind, if he were not so. We are told that, against stu- pidity, the gods themselves are powerless. And, sure enough, there are men with hearts so hard, and with heads so stolid and stockish, that even the gods cannot make them mad ; , at least, not, unless through some physical disease. Hamlet, I think, can hardly be a man of that stamp. 2. It is a part of the old ghost-lore, that the being talked ?*; with by a ghost either finds a man mad or makes him so. If K Ithe ghost be subjective, — that is, a mere spectral illusion ' Iborn of a diseased or frenzied brain, — then the interview finds him mad, the pre-existing madness causing the illusion : but if, on the other hand, the ghost be really objective, and duly authenticated as such, as it is in the case of Hamlet, then ' the interview causes the madness. This old notion is re- ferred to by Horatio, when he tries to dissuade Hamlet from / following the Ghost, on the ground that the Ghost maw depose his " sovereignty of reason, and draw him into mad-? ness." At all events, the being thus ghosted was held to be no such trifling matter as we are apt to consider it : it was accounted a very pokerish, soul-harrowing business ; inso- much that a man, after such an experience, could hardly continue the same he was before. And so Hamlet, directly: after his conversation with the Ghost, on being rejoined byl his friends, flies off into a course of behaviour so strange, soj wild, so eccentric, as to throw them into amazement. 3. Hamlet is believed to be really mad by all the other |* persons in the play, though they are quite in the dark as to i - the cause ; all, I mean, except the King, whose evil con- science renders him nervously suspicious that the madness is assumed, to cover some hostile design^,. Of course, this so INTRODUCTION. II general belief arises because he acts precisely as madmen often do ; because his conduct displays the proper symptomsT and indications of madness : nor does it make at all againsty^ this belief, that his behaviour has many contra-indicants. And, on this point, Hamlet himself, it appears, agrees with the rest : for, in his generous apology, his solemn appeal, to Laertes, near the close, — where I cannot think it just to pronounce him insincere,^ — he alleges his mental disorder as fairly entitling him to the pardon which he asks for the offence he has given. And, indeed, it seems to be admitted, ., on the other side, that, if Hamlet were actually mad, he/ could not enact the madman more perfectly than he does.* " If," says Professor Lowell, " Shakespeare himself, without going mad, could so observe and remember all the abnormal symptoms as to be able to reproduce them in Hamlet, why should it be beyond the power of Hamlet to reproduce- them in himself? " This means, I take it, that Hamlet counter-^ feits madness with an imitation so perfect as to be indistin-( guishable from a genuine case. But, if so, then what groundV is there for saying it is not a genuine case ? 4. Many distinguished mem_bers of the medical profession, deeply learned in the science, and of approved skill in the treatment, of insanity, have^ in our time, made a special study of Hamlet's case, as also of Shakespeare's other de- lineations of madness ; and — without a single exception, so far as I know — have all reached the same conclusion. I cannot but think that here their judgment ought to have much the same weight which it is allowed to have in actual cases. Dr. Conolly of England, referring to Hamlet's first soliloquy, — O, that this too-too solid flesh would melt, &c., — has the following- : " Of his father's ghost he has at this time 12 HAMLET. heard nothing. No thought of feigning melancholy can have entered his mind ; but he is even now most heavily shaken and discomposed, — indeed, so violently, that his reason, although not dethroned, is certainly well-nigh deranged." Dr. Isaac Ray, also, formerly of Providence, in a very able and well-considered essay on the subject, states it as " a scientific fact, that Hamlet's mental condition furnishes in abundance the pathological and psychological symptoms of insanity in wonderful harmony and consistency." And Dr. A. O. Kellogg of Utica fully concurs with Dr. Ray. " There are," says he, " cases of melancholic madness, of a delicate shade, in which the reasoning faculties, the intellect proper, so far from being overcome, or even disordered, are rendered more active and vigorous. Such a case Shakespeare has given us in the character of Hamlet, with a fidelity to nature which continues more and more to excite our wonder and astonishment, as our knowledge of this intricate subject advances." It is to be remembered, however, that a mind diseased is by no means necessarily a mind destroyed ; and that it may be only a mind with some of its faculties whirled into intem- perate and irregular volubility, while others of them are more or less palsied. And Dr. Ray justly observes, in regard to Hamlet, that madness " is compatible with some of the ripest and richest manifestations of intellect." Hamlet himself both affirms and denies his madness ; the one in his moments of calmness, the other when the fit is strong upon him. Nor is there any reason but that in both he may be perfectly sincere. It is commonly supposed that insane people are always unconscious of their state ; where- as there are many cases in which the patient is more or less conscious of it. And the degree of consciousness is apt to INTRODUCTION. 13 be inversely as that of tlie disease. So that the being con- scious is no sure proof of simulation ; in fact, any one simu- - lating would be almost certain to pretend unconsciousness, and so betray his falsehood by overacting his part. Thus Hamlet, in the first turn of his distemper, when he utters such " wild and whirling words," seems to be at least partly aware of his state, for he speaks of it. Once only (in the scene with his mother) does his paroxysm run to so high a pitch that he loses the consciousness of it entirely, insomuch that he goes to arguing against it. In this case, at least, his mind is completely enthralled to illusions spun out of itself; the ghost which he sees and hears being purely subjective, as is evident in that his mother neither hears nor sees any thing of the kind. Well might she say, " this bodiless crea- tion ecstasy is very cunning in." Yet here his intellectual faculties are kindled to the most overwhelming eloquence, burning both his mother and himself with their preternatural light. Shakespeare's great, earnest, delicate mind seems to have been specially charmed with those forms of mental disease in which the intellect is kindled into preternatural illumination and expression. We have many instances of this ; as in old Timon's terrible eloquence of invective ; in Macbeth's guilt- inspired raptures of meditation ; in Lear's he art- withering imprecations ; and most of all in Hamlet's profound moral- izing, his tempestuous strains of self-reproach, and his over- wrought consciousness of " thoughts that wander through eternity." I have sometimes thought that an instinct of genius may have put the Poet upon these frequent displays of mental exorbitancy, because the normal workings of the human mind did not afford scope enough for the full dis- charge of his own colossal and " thousand-souled " intellec- tuality 14 HAMLET. My own idea, then, is, that, in order to make this play em- phatically a tragedy of thought, the Poet's method was, to conceive a man great, perhaps equally so, in all the elements of character, mental, moral, and practical ; and then to place him in such circumstances and bring such influences to work upon him, that all his greatness should be made to take on the form of thought. And with a swift intuitive perception of the laws of mind, which the ripest science can hardly over- take, he seems to have known just what kind and degree of mental disturbance or disease would naturally operate to pro- duce such an irregular and exorbitant grandeur of intellectual manifestation. To return for a moment to the particular question of Hamlet's madness. Why should he feign to be mad ? How can he further, or hope to further, his end by assuming such a part ? It does not help him onward at all ; it rather hin- ders him ; the natural effect of his conduct being to arouse suspicions in the King's mind, to put him on the alert, and to make him guard himself with redoubled vigilance. Let us see how it is. The Ghost enjoins upon Hamlet two things ; first, " Re- venge this foul and most unnatural murder " ; second, " Howsoever thou pursuest this act, taint not thy mind." Thus time and manner are left to Hamlet's own judgment ; j only he must not, he must not corrupt himself with any ' wicked or dishonourable course of action. He is solemnly warned against pursuing revenge by any methods involving self-defilement ; and is to proceed as ever bearing in mind ; that I Him, only him the shield of Jove defends, j Whose means are pure and spotless as his ends.' / He might take off Claudius as secretly, and in some such INTRODUCTION. 15 way, as Claudius has taken off his father ; but this would be to stain himself with the most abominable guilt and baseness. Whatsoever he does, he must be ready to avow it in the face of all Denmark, and to stand responsible for it. Come what may, he must, he can, use no arts but manly arts. Ob- serve, then, what a dreadful dilemma he is placed in : he must punish, it is his most sacred duty to punish, a crime ^1 which it is not possible for him to prove, and which must not be punished till it has been proved. His strong, clear head instantly takes in the whole truth of his situation ; com- prehends at a glance the entire case in all its points and bearings. All this may well fill him, as indeed it does, with the most excruciating and inevitable, agony ; and, while he thus lives in torture, his mighty suffering, even because he is so strong, arouses all his faculties, and permits not a particle of the intellectual man to be lost. Thus, from the time of his interview with the Ghost, all is changed with Hamlet ; all, both without and within : hence- forth he lives in quite another world, and is himself quite another man. All his old aims and aspirations are to be sternly renounced and thrust aside : life can have no more joys for him : his whole future must be cast in a new shape. All the duties upon which his thoughts have been hitherto centred are now merged in the one sacred, all-absorbing task enjoined upon him as from Heaven itself. Now so great, so sudden, so agonizing a change within cannot but work some corresponding change without : it will naturally and even necessarily register itself in his manner and behaviour : while he is so different, how is it possible he should appear the same ? And he himself evidently foresees that this change will cause him to be regarded as beside himself, as out of his right mind ; especially as he cannot 1 6 HAMLET. disclose the reason of it, and must, by all means, keep the cause. of that change, or even any whisper of it, from reach- ^ ing the King or the Court. A behaviour so strange, so odd, so unaccountable, must needs appear to others to have sprung from a stroke of madness. All this he clearly fore- casts, as indeed he well may. And he desires, apparently, that his action may be so construed : he lets his " antic dis- position " have free course ; and rather studies than other- wise to sustain and strengthen the imputation of madness, by his conduct. If any see fit to call this feigning, so be it : the question is not worth wrangling about. " To this degree," says Professor Werder, "to this degree, which is relatively slight, he makes believe, he plays the madman. But, be- cause it is essentially his truth, the effect of his real suffering, of his shattered being, to which his mind gives vent, so far as it can without betraying his secret ; because it is his torture, his rage, his cry of woe, his agony, thus outwardly expressed ; therefore this playing of his • is not 77ierely feign- , ing, and because not merely, therefore not feigning at all, in \ the strict sense of the word." Hamlet's alleged Defect of 'Will. Our hero is not indeed master of the situation ; but he understands the situation, which is just what most of his critics have not done ; and he is not master of it, simply because, as things stand, such mastery is quite beyond the power of any man, without help from above. The critics in question insist upon it, that the one thing which Hamlet/ ought to do, and which he would do, if he had any real backbone of executive energy, is, to strike the avenging blow with instant dispatch, on the first opportunity. Such an opportunity he has, or can make, at almost any time/ INTRODUCTION. 1/ But to do thus would be both a crime and a blunder, and a blunder even more than a crime. How shall he justify such a deed to the world ? how vindicate himself from the very crime which must allege against another? For, as he can- not subpoena the Ghost, the evidence on which he is to act | is available only in the court of his own conscience. To serve any good end, the deed must so stand to the pubhc eye as it does to his own ; else he will be in effect setting an example of murder, not of justice. And the crown will seem to be his real motive, duty but a pretence. Can a man of his "large discourse looking before and after" be expected to act thus ? We, to be sure, long impatiently to have the crowned murderer get his deserts, because the whole truth of his guilt is known to us ; but the people of Denmark, Hamlet's social and political world, know nothing of it whatever, and can never be convinced of it, should he proceed in that way. For the Ghost's disclosures were made to his 6ar alone ; nobody else heard a word of them. And is it to be sup- posed that the Ghost's tale will be received on his sole word ? that, too, in behalf of an act by which he has cut away the only obstacle between himself and the throne? The very alleging of such grounds will be regarded as, if possible, a worse crime than that in defence of which they are alleged. To the Danish people Hamlet will needs himself appear to be just what he charges Claudius with being. Claudius is their lawful King ; they are his loyal subjects : they will not suffer their chosen ruler to be assassinated with impunity ; they will hold themselves bound to wreak upon Hamlet the very vengeance which he claims to have wreaked upon him. Unless he summons the Ghost into court as a witness, every man will set him down either as a raving maniac, to be held 1 8 HAMLET. in chains, or else as a monstrous liar and villain, who has murdered at once his uncle, his mother's husband, and his King ; and then has trumped up a ghost-story in order at the same time to shield himself and to blacken his victim. Most assuredly, therefore, the deed which the critics in question so loudly call for is the very thing of all others which Hamlet ought not to do, which he must not do ; which, moreover, he cannot do, for the simple reason that he is armed with such manifold strength ; because he is strong in reason, in judgment, in right feeling, in conscience, in circumspection, in prudence, in self-control, as well as in hand, in courage, in passion, in filial reverence, and in a just abhorrence of the King's guilt. That he does not deal the avenging stroke at once, — than which nothing were easier for him, were he not just the strong-willed man that he is ; were he a mere roll of explosive, impotent passion, like Laertes ; — this the critics aforesaid ascribe, some to consti- tutional or habitual procrastination, others to an intellectual activity so disproportionate as to quench what little force of will he may have. Against all this, I make bold to affirm that, if Hamlet has any one attribute in larger measure than another, it is that very power which these critics accuse him of lacking. They, forsooth, see no strength of will in him, because, while he has this, he has also the other parts of manhood equally strong. Now, the main peculiarity, the most distinctive feature of Hamlet's case is, that, from the inevitable, press- ing, exigent circumstances of his position, — circumstances quite beyond his mastery, quite beyond all mere human mastery, — his strength of will has, and must have, its high- est exercise, its supreme outcome, in self-restraint and self- control ; an indwelling power laying the strong hand of law INTRODUCTION. 1 9 upon him, and causing him to respect the clear, consenting counsels of reason, of prudence, of justice, and conscience, — counsels which his quick, powerful, well-poised intellect perfectly understands. And the act which the critics require of him, so far from evincing strength of will, would do just the reverse ; it would evince nothing but the impotence of a blind, headlong, furious passion, — a transport of rage so violent as to take away all that responsibility which everybody understands to adhere to a truly voluntary act. In other words, it would be an act not so much of executive energy as of destructive fury. Why Hamlet does not strike the King. Hamlet, as before observed, is called upon to revenge a crime which is altogether unproved, and which, from the nature of the case, is utterly unprovable, except from the criminal's own mouth : apart from this source, he has not, and cannot get, a particle of evidence available for impress- ing upon the world wherein he lives a judicial or even a moral conviction of the King's guilt. This is just the cardi- nal point in Hamlet's case. So that, matters standing thus, killing Claudius would be not so much a punishment of the guilty as a murder of the proof. As the only possible evi- dence is to come from Claudius himself, he must by all means be kept alive, till he can be made his own accuser, and a witness against himself; or rather, till either his con- science shall drive him to "proclaim his malefactions," or else his guilt, to barricade its safety, shall thrust him upon other crimes so monstrous and so evident, that all shall see him as he is, and acknowledge his punishment just. Mean- while, Hamlet must, above all things, refrain from the aveng- ing stroke ; must strain his utmost powers, if need be, to that 20 HAMLET. end. That he does thus hold hnnself back from the deed to which his burning passion for justice and his righteous thirst of vengeance are continually urging him, — in all this I must still think he displays an almost superhuman degree of that very thing which he is alleged to be without. The critics indeed talk just as if it were a matter lying solely between Hamlet and Claudius ; just as if the people of Denmark had nothing to say, no rights involved, no con- cern, in the question. Hamlet does not see it so ; and he would discover a pitch of egotism literally inhuman, if* he did. Every lover of his kind naturally desires, both in life and in death, the good opinion of his kind. This is partly because such opinion is an indispensable condition of his serving them. And so Hamlet has a just, a benevolent, and an honourable concern as to what the world may think of him : he craves, as every good man must crave, to have his name sweet in the mouths, his memory fragrant and precious in the hearts, of his countrymen. How he feels on this point, is touchingly shown in his dying moments, when he wrenches the cup of poison from Horatio's hand, and appeals at once to his strong love and his great sorrow : — O God, Horatio ! what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me ! If ever thou didst hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story. Thus the hero's hands are inextricably tied, — tied, not through any defect, nor through any excess, in himself; not through any infirmity of will or courage or resolution, but from the insurmountable difficulties of his situation. It is not, it is not, that an intellectual impetuosity, or a redun- dancy -of thought, cripples or any way retards his powers of INTRODUCTION. 21 action ; but that the utter impossibiUty of acting, without covering himself, in all human account, with the guilt of parricide and regicide, prodigiously stimulates and quickens his powers of thought, and kee|)s his splendid intellect in an incessant transport of exercise. And so the very plan of the drama, as I understand it, is to crush all the intellectual fra- grance out of him, between a necessity and an impossibility of acting. The tremendous problem, the terrible dilemma which he has to grapple with, is one that Providence alone can solve, as Providence does solve it at the last. As if on purpose to warn and guard us against imputing Hamlet's delay to the cause alleged, the Poet takes care to provide us with ample means for a different judgment ; showing him, again and again, to be abundantly energetic and prompt in action whenever the way is clear before him. So it is in his resolution to meet and address the Ghost ; in his breaking away from the hands of friendship when the Ghost beckons him to follow ; in his devising and executing the scheme for making the King's "occulted guilt unkennel itself" ; and especially in his action on shipboard, when he sends the King's agents to the fate they have prepared for himself. In these cases, as in various others also, he discov- ers any thing but a defect of active energy : his mental pow- ers range themselves under the leading of a most vigorous and steady will. And his conduct appears, moreover, strictly normal, and not spasmodic or exceptional ; I mean, it is clearly the result of character, not of disease. ^Why the Poet does not make Hamlet strike. Thus much for the reasons of Hamlet's course, as these are personal to himself. But the Poet had other reasons of his own, indispensable reasons of art, for not making Hamlet 22 HAMLET. act as the critics would have him. Shakespeare portrays many great criminals, men, and women too, who for a while ride in triumph over virtue wronged, persecuted, crushed. And he always brings them to punishment, so far as this world can punish them. But he never in a single instance does this till their crimes are laid open to the world, so that all about them recognise the justice of their fate, and are righteously glad at what befalls them. In all this Shake- speare is profoundly, religiously true to the essential order and law of all right tragic representation. For our moral nature, as tuned in sympathy with its Source, reaps a deep, solemn, awful joy from such vindications of the Divine law. Now the very nature and idea of a proper tragic revenge or retribution require that the guilty be not put to death, till their guilt has been proved ; and so proved, that the killing of them shall be manifestly a righteous act, — shall stand to the heart and conscience of mankind as an act of solemn and awful justice. To such a revenge, — the only revenge that Hamlet can execute or ought to execute ; the only re- venge, too, consistent with the genius of the work ; — to such a revenge, punishment is necessary ; to punishment, justice is necessary ; to justice, the vindication of it in the eyes, not merely of the theatre, but of those among whom the action takes place. So that, if Shakespeare had made Hamlet kill Claudius a moment eariier than he does, he would have vio- lated the whole moral law of his art, — that law whose " seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world." And in that case the tragic action, instead of being, to the persons concerned, in any proper sense a righteous proceed- ure, instead of appeahng to their high and sacred sympathies with justice, would be a mere stroke of brutal violence, or, at the best, an act of low, savage, personal revenge ; such an INTRODUCTION. 23 act as would inevitably array their sympathies with justice against the avenger of crime, and enlist them in behalf of the criminal. Thus the proper music of the work would be utterly untuned, and for the terrible of tragic art would be substituted the horrible of untragic bungling. This were to write tragedies for the coarse theatrical sense, for the vulgar apprehension of the crowd before the curtain, and not for the inner courts of the human soul ! Catching the King's Conscience. All through the first two Acts of the play, and until late in the second scene of the third Act, Hamlet more or less doubts the honesty of the Ghost. The old belief in ghosts held, among other things, that evil spirits sometimes walked abroad, in the likeness of deceased persons, to scare or tempt the living. Hamlet apprehends the possibility of its being so in this case. He therefore craves some direct and decisive confirmation of the Ghost's tale from the King's conscience. When the advent of the Players is announced, he instantly catches at the chance, thus offered, of testing the question, and the possibility, if the Ghost's tale be true, of unmasking Claudius, and of forcing or surprising him into a confession. Nothing could evince more sagacity in plan- ning, or more swiftness in executing, than the action he takes in pursuance of this thought : — I've heard That guilty creatures sitting at a play- Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul, that presently They have proclaim'd their malefactions ; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle : I'll observe his looks ; 24 HAMLET. I'll tent him to the quick : if he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be the Devil : and the Devil hath power T' assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and perhaps, Out of my weakness and my melancholy, — As he is very potent with such spirits, — Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds More relative than this : the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King. The scheme, I need not say, succeeds. The King's be- haviour in the interlude fully authenticates to Hamlet, per- haps also to Horatio, the Ghost's tale. Hamlet now knows that Claudius is indeed guilty. And Claudius also, as Ham-^ let well understands, knows that he knows it. But the evi- ' dence thus caught, however assuring to Hamlet, is nowise available for the ends of social or even dramatic justice. The Ghost's tale is still just as impossible to be proved to the mind and heart of Denmark, as it was before. But this advantage has been gained, that Claudius must now do one of two things : he must either repent and confess, or else he must try to secure himself by further measures : an attitude merely passive or defensive will no longer do. If he does not repent, there is henceforth a mortal duel between him and Hamlet : one, or the other, or both, of them must go down. As Hamlet lives but to avenge the murder, he must neither die himself nor let the King die, till that work is done. Force he has a hand to repel ; fraud he has a mind to scent out, to detect, to defeat ; and Claudius must get up very early, and be very busy when up, to out-Craft him. Hamlet seeing" the King at Prayer. The result of the interlude excites Hamlet to the utter- most : his faculties, his sensibilities are all wrought up to- INTRODUCTION. 25 their highest tension. All on fire, as he is, he may well ^' Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. In this state of mind he comes upon Claudius while in the act of praying. Now he has a fair chance, now, in his white- heat of rage, to deal the avenging blow : the self-convicted fratricide is there, alone, before him, and is completely at his mercy. All through his frame the blood is boiling : still his reason tells him that such a hit will be a fatal miss, and will irretrievably lose him his cause. His judgment, his pru- dence, his self-control are assailed and pressed by such an overwhelming stress and energy of passion, that they are all but forced to give way : so mighty is the impulse of revenge within him, that even his iron strength of will can hardly withstand it : and, to brace his judgment against his passion, he has to summon up a counterpoising passion in aid of his judgment. Even his inexpressible hatred of the King is itself called in, to help him through the potent temptation, and to keep him from striking the King. This, I take it, is the meaning of the dreadful reasons and motives which he raves out for sparing Claudius. He will take him while in the act of committing such sins as will make sure the perdi- tion of his soul. In all this, it seems to me, the providence of the drama is using one of Hamlet's maddest fits, to fore- / shadow the far deeper, fouler, more damning sins amidst I which this execrable wretch ultimately falls. Hamlet with his Mother. Now that Hamlet is, beyond all peradventure, certified of the King's guilt, the next thing for him to do is, to come to 26 HAMLET. a full and perfect understanding with his mother. He must see her by herself. He must search her breast to the bot- tom, he must " turn her eyes into her very soul," with his burning eloquence of indignation, of shame, of reproof, of remonstrance, of expostulation : he must arouse the better feeHngs of the woman and the mother in her heart, and through these, if possible, must redeem her from the blasting curse of her present position : above all, he must know from her directly, either through her words or her manner, whether she was any way conspirant in the murder of his father, and must also let her know, with an emphasis not to be re- sisted, both his opinion of Claudius and how matters are standing between Claudius and himself While he is on the point of doing this ; while, with his soul agitated to its inner- most depths, he is talking with her ; while he is standing in the room and beside the bed in which himself was born, and which she has so shockingly dishonoured ; Ppj£nius, on a sudden, raises an outcry behind the hangings : Hamlet, sup- posing the voice to be the King's, is surprised, snatched, .' swept quite away from himself with a whirlwind gust of pas- sion : instantly, with the speed of lightning, out leaps his sword from the scabbard, as of its own accord, and kills the old intriguer. Ho"w the Revenge is brought about. By this instant lapse of -self-control, Hamlet has lost his lead in the game, and given Claudius a great advantage over him ; which advantage, however, Claudius will so use as to open a clear way for the final triumph of Hamlet's cause, though at a fearful cost of life, his own among the rest. Claudius is now to assume the offensive, and is so to carry it as to achieve his own ruin. For, indeed, his guilt is of INTRODUCTION. 27 such a kind, and is so placed, that it can have its proper ret- ribution only through a process of further development. A dreadful safety indeed ! But he will prove far unequal to the sharp exigency in which he will involve himself. Too bad to repent, and too secure in his badness to be reached by human avengement, there is, nevertheless, a Hand which he cannot elude. That Hand is to work his punishment through the springs of his own moral constitution. Hamlet's piercing, unsleeping eye, now sharpened to its keenest edge, is to be upon him, to penetrate his secretest designs, to trace him through his darkest windings, as his evil genius. His guilt is to entangle him, by an inward law, in a series of dia- bolical machinations ; remorse is to disconcert his judgment, and put him to desperate shifts. Thus his first, most secret, unprovable crime is to goad him on, from within, to perpe- trating other crimes, — crimes so open and manifest as to stand in no need of proof ; and he is to go out of the world in such a transport of wickedness, lying, poisoning, murder- ing, that " his heels shall kick at Heaven," sure enough. Such is the stern, awful, inexorable moral logic of this mighty drama. And its great wisdom lies in nothing more than in the fact, the order, and the method of the hero's being made to serve as the unconscious organ or instrument of the providential retribution. He himself, indeed, is consciously doing the best that can be done in his situation. Mean- while the Nemesis of the play is working out the result through him, without his knowing it, without his suspecting it. Not till the hand of death is already upon him, does it become possible for him to strike. Now, at length, the seals are opened ; now, for the first time, his hands are untied, his passion, his avenging impulse, his will are set free. All this he sees instantly just as it is ; instantly, con- 28 HAMLET. sciously, he deals the stroke for which his Divine Helper has secretly prepared the way. He himself falls indeed, but falls as a pure and spotless victim, to feed the sacrificial fire of immortal hopes and aspirations in the human breast ; so falls as to leave upon us the hallowed sense, that " flights of Angels sing him to his rest." Hamlet's Self-Disparagement. I must not dismiss the hero without adverting briefly to one or two other points. — Many people, I suspect, shape their opinions and feelings about Hamlet quite too much from what Hamlet, in some of his soliloquies, says against himself. In this, they seem to me to take him at his word just there where his word is least to be taken. For, surely, thus to turn his solitary self- communings, his thinkings-aloud, against him, is not fair. Instead of so taking him at his word, we ought to see him better than he then sees himself, and rather, with our calmer and juster vision, to step between him and his morbid self-accusings ; to judge him and to maintain his cause upon reasons which he is himself too un- selfish, too right-hearted, too noble in mind, to accord their due weight in his thinkings. This holds especially in regard to his soliloquy beginning, " O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! " where he surges through a long course of railing and storming at himself, bitterly charging himself with faults and vices which his whole conduct most certainly and m^ost clearly acquits him of. This tempestuous strain of self-abuse springs in part from his madness, his disease, which vents itself in that way, and puts him thus to quarrelling with him- self, because, in the extreme, unrelenting hardness of his case, he nevertheless will not, dare not go to accusing or arguing against his fate, or fall to quarrelling with what he regards as the inevitable orderings of Providence. INTRODUCTION. 29 . The truth is, Hamlet is suffering dreadfully : shame, indig- nation, grief, sympathy with his father's purgatorial pains, detestation, horror, at the triumphant murderer, a consuming, holy thirst of vengeance, impossible, as things stand, to be attained, — all these are crowding and pressing his soul together ; and his intolerable anguish, instead of easing itself by blaming, by resenting, by deploring his miserable lot, seeks such relief as it can by arraigning himself before him- self, as desemng a lot far worse. He thus revenges upon himself, as it were, the inexorable cruelty of his position. All this is what some of the Poet's critics cannot or will not see ; and Hamlet appears to them cold, hard-hearted, indifferent, because they are themselves either so hard or so locked up in their self-applauding critical perspicacity as to have no ear, no sense for his mute agony. And so they take him at his word ! not perceiving that what he says to himself against himself are just the things he would be sure not to say, if they were really true ; while the things which he does not say are so true, and so unutterably crushing in their truth, that he i7iust be saying something else. Because he " has that within which passeth show," therefore what he does show is taken as a just index and exponent of what he has within. Pathos of Hamlet's Situation. This brings me to one of the most peculiar and most interesting features in the delineation of Hamlet. — In his intellectual powers, attainments, resources, Hamlet is highly self-conscious, though not at all touched with conceit. In his moral instincts, sentiments, principles, in his beautiful train of manly virtues, his courage, his honour, his reverence, his tenderness, his sense of truth and right, his human-heart- edness, his generosity, his self-restraint, his self-sacrifice, — • 30 HAMLET. in these he is nobly unconscious ; and rather shows his full, 'deep possession of them by a modest sense, or fear, of his being deficient in them : for these things are apt to be most on the tongue where they are least in the heart. Hence, in part, the singular vein of pathos that permeates the delinea- tion. That pathos is altogether undemonstrative, silent ; a deep undercurrent, hardly ever rising to the surface, so as to be directly visible, but kept down by its own weight. Hamlet, as I said before, suffers, suffers dreadfully ; but he makes no sign, at least none when his suffering is greatest ; or, if any at all, so very slight, as to be scarce heard amidst the louder noises of the play ; as in what he says to Horatio, near the close : " Thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart ; but it is no matter : it is but foolery ; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would perhaps trouble a woman." Thus his suffering is not made audible to the sense : it is speechless, indeed unspeakable, and left for the inner eye, the intelligent heart, the sympathizing magnet within, to iiifer. Such is the unspoken pathos of Hamlet's situation, — a pathos so deep, so pure, so refined, so soul-moving, if we have but the eye to see it, that I know not where else we shall find its like. Let us see, for a moment, to recur to a topic already discussed, — let us see how it is with him. If he could but forget the real nature of his task ; if he could give free course to his mighty impulse of justice ; then he might indeed have at least a respite to the torture that is wringing him. But, because his reason is so strong as to stay his hand, therefore he has to suffer such pain, — the pain of a most powerful will engaged in a mortal struggle against the insurgent forces of passion goading him onward. To quote again from Professor Werder : " To smite down INTRODUCTION. 3 1 the King, to sacrifice his own life by the blow, in order to be quit of his task at once, that were the easiest, the happiest thing for him ; but he wills to fulfill it, to fulfill it faithfully. What he rails at as 'pigeon-livered,' when the mortal nature, impatient of pain, weary of suffering, cries out in him, — all this is enduring courage, the courage of reason, springing from reverence for a holy duty, and from devotion thereto." But, harsh and bitter as is his lot, Hamlet never complains of it, hardly breathes an audible sigh over it : nay, he will not, if he can help it, let either himself or others see it : heroically he bears it, heroically he hides it. Of self-pity, of self-compassion, he discovers not the slightest symptom; and, so far from saying or doing any thing to stir pity or compassion in others, he is ever trying, though trying spon- taneously and unconsciously, to disguise his inward state both from others and from himself; — from himself in high strains of self-accusation ; from his true friends in smiles of benevolence, or in fine play of intellect ; from his foes and his false friends in caustic, frolicsome banter, and in pointed, f stinging remonstrance or reproofl Even when his anguish is: shrieking within him, he knits his lips down tight over it, and strangles the utterance. For, indeed, to his mind, it is not of the slightest consequence how much he suffers in this world, so he does his duty, his whole duty, and nothing but that ; and he is so all-intent upon that as to have no time, no heart, for self-commiseration. Now this utter oblivion of self in his vast, incommunicable sorrow is to me just the most pathetic thing in Shakespeare ; though, to be sure, the pathos is much less pronounced than in other cases : but I deem it all the better for that. It is partly to reheve or divert off his sense of woe that his mind is so continually " voyaging through strange seas of 32 HAMLET. thought " ; sometimes in outpourings of statesman-like wis- dom, such as would add to the fame of a Burke or a Web- ster j sometimes in profound moralizings on life and death, on duty and immortality, such as would give a richer bloom to the laurels of a Cicero, a Marcus Aurelius, a Jeremy Tay- lor, or a Sir Thomas Browne ; sometimes in well-seasoned discourse on the player's art and on the right virtues of liter- ary style, such as " shames the schools " ; now in flashes of wit more than Attic ; now in jets of humour the freshest, the raciest, the mellowest, the most suggestive, ever delivered. All this, to be sure, Hamlet does not himself say ; no ! nor does the Poet say it for him in words ; but the Poet says it through the ineffable dramatic logic of the play, — says it by a speaking silence, a mute eloquence, far more powerful and penetrating than words. It is the " austere and solid sweetness " of a great, strong, dehcate soul perfectly self- contained. General Remarks on Hamlet. Intellectually, and morally too, Hamlet is represented as, in the language of our time, much in advance of his age ; his mind casting far onwards to an era of purer, richer, brighter civilization. He conceives a mould of statesman- ship, a style of public order, and a tone of social converse, such as the time affords him no examples of. The coarse and brutal manners of Ris nation, infecting even the Court, he both scorns and deplores, and this on grounds of taste, of policy, of honour, and of right. And the effects which such things have on national character and well-being are discoursed by him with rare discernment and reach of thought. His mind is indeed penetrated with the best effi- cacies of Christian morality and refinement. INTRODUCTION. 33 In Shakespeare's time the Drama was an intense national passion, all grades of the English people, from the throne downwards, taking a lively interest in it, and some of the finest gentlemen and choicest spirits of the age lending it their hearty support, apparently regarding it as a powerful engine of public enlightenment and progress : all which was in fact one cause why the Drama came to such a glorious efflorescence in that age. It was therefore in strict keeping with the best thoughts of the time that the Poet made his favorite intellectual hero, prince though he be, deeply versed in the theory of the dramatic art, and much concerned to have the representatives of it well used ; as when he tells Polonius, " After your death you were better have a bad epi- taph, than their ill report while you live." Hamlet's idea seems to be, " Let me have the making of a nation's plays, and I care little who makes its laws." His mind was indeed meant to be large enough, and his taste cathoHc enough, to include all generous discipUnes and liberal preparations in its scope ; and Shakespeare evidently thought no scorn to endow such a man with his own exquisite science in the walk which his " sweet and cunning hand " was to render so illustrious. Laertes. Laertes makes a very peculiar and most emphatic contrast to Hamlet. We cannot exactly call Laertes a noble charac- ter, yet he has noble streaks in him. The respect in which he holds his father, and the entire and unreserved affection he bears his sister, set him well in our esteem as a son and a brother : beyond these he can hardly be said to show any sentiments or principles worthy of regard. He takes as ardently to the gayeties of the French capital as Hamlet does to the studious walks and shades of Wittenberg. 34 HAMLET. Though incapable of any thing so serious as friendship, he is nevertheless a highly companionable fellow, at least among those of like resort. He is never pestered at all with moral scruples : life has no dark and difficult problems to him : he has no philosophy at all, does not even know what the word means : truth, as such, is neither beautiful nor venerable in his sight : in his heat and stress of destructive impulse, he does not see far enough to apprehend any causes for delib- eration or delay. In regard to the death of his father, he snatches eagerly at the conclusion shaped for him by the King, without pausing to consider the grounds of it, or to weigh the merits of the case, because it offers a speedy chance of discharging his revenge ; and he is reckless ahke of means and of consequences, in fact cares nothing for others or even for himself, here or hereafter, so he may quickly ease his breast of the mad rapture with which it is panting. He has a burning resentment of personal wrongs, real or supposed, but no proper sense of justice ; indeed, he can nowise enter into any question of so grave a nature as that : hence in the exigency that overtakes him, " wild sword-law " becomes at once his religion. The blame of the treacherous plot for assassinating Ham- let, on the express ground of his " being remiss, most gen- erous, and free from all contriving," properly belongs to the King : but the further infamy of anointing his sword in order to clinch the nail of his purpose would go hard with Laertes, but that his trance of passion at Opheha's madness and death in a great measure, if not entirely, takes away his responsi- bility. In his transport of grief and rage he is as much beside himself as Hamlet is in his wildest paroxysms of dis- order ; and the most suggestive point of contrast between them is in reference to the opposite manner in which the INTRODUCTION. 35 moral character of each transpires under the eclipse of rea- son. Observe, also, how the two men differ in their ends : Laertes dies repenting of the base and hateful wrong he has done to Hamlet, and begging his forgiveness ; Hamlet dies pitying Laertes, and — forgiving him ! The King. Enough, perhaps, has already been said of Claudius ; but there is one further point in his character, so suggestive of wholesome thought, that it ought to receive some passing notice. — The words " all may be well," with which he pro- logues his act of devotion, are very significant, as showing that his prayer is an attempt to make religion a substitute for duty. As often -happens in real life, he betakes himself to a sentimental repentance as absolving him from " doing works meet for repentance." For who has not seen men resorting to very emphatic exercises of religion, as virtually dispensing with the law of good and pious works ? It- is ob- servable that the King's fit of devotion operates to ease him through his course of crime, instead of deterring him from it. Such are the subtle tricks men practice on themselves, to soothe the pangs of guilt without amendment of life. The King goes from his closet to plot further crimes ! Thus his prayer is " like a spendthrift sigh that hurts by easing " ; that is to say, he endeavours to satisfy or appease his con- science with a falsetto cry of penitence. Strange it should be so, but so it is ! The Ghost. The Ghost is a powerful element in this great drama, shedding into it a peculiar and preternatural grandeur ; but that power acts through the finest organs of the soul, work- ^6 HAMLET. ing so deeply on the moral and imaginative forces, that the coarse arts of criticism can do but little with it. What an air of dread expectancy waits upon the coming and the mo- tions of that awful shade ! How grave and earnest, yet how calm and composed its speech ! as if it came indeed from the other world, and brought the lessons of that world in its mouth. The stately walk, the solemn, slowly- measured words, the unearthly cast and temper of the discourse, are all ghost-like. The popular currency of many of the Ghost's sayings shows how profoundly they sink into our souls, and what a weight of ethical meaning attaches to them. Ob- serve, too, how choicely Horatio hits the key-note of the part, and attempers us to its influences : — What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night, Together with that fair and warhke form In which the majesty of bm-ied Denmark Did sometime march ? But indeed the whole matter preparatory to the Ghost's in- terview with Hamlet, its first appearance on the scene, its sad and silent steps, its fading at the crowing of the cock, and the subdued reflections that follow, ending with the speech. But look, the Morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yond high eastern hill ; all this is managed with consummate skill. Horatio. Horatio is one of the very noblest and most beautiful of Shakespeare's male characters : there is not a single loose stitch in his make-up : he is at all times superbly self-con- tained : he feels deeply, but never gushes nor runs over : as true as a diamond, as modest as a virgin^ and utterly unself- INTRODUCTION. 37 ish ; a most manly soul, full alike of strength, tenderness, and solidity. But he moves so quietly in the drama, that his rare traits of character have received scant justice. Much of the best spirit and efficacy of the scenes is owing to his presence. He is the medium whereby some of the hero's finest and noblest qualities are conveyed to us ; yet himself so clear and transparent, that he scarcely catches the attention. The great charm of his unselfishness is, that he seems not to be himself in the least aware of it ; " as one, in s.uffering all, that suffers nothing." His mild scepticism " touching the dreaded sight twice seen of us," is exceed- ingly graceful and scholarly. And, indeed, all that comes from him marks the presence of a calm, clear head keep- ing touch and time perfectly with a good heart. Polonius. Pqlonius is Shakespeare's version, sharply individualized, of a politician somewhat past his faculties ; shrewd, careful, conceited, meddlesome, and pedantic. Hamlet does him some injustice ; partly as thinking that the old man has wantonly robbed him of his heart's best object, and not making due allowance, as indeed lovers seldom do in such cases, for the honest though perhaps erring solicitude of a father's love. Therewithal he looks upon him as a supple time-server and ducking observant, which indeed he is, of whoever chances to be in power, ever ready to " crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawn- ing." As such he of course has the utmost contempt for him ; which contempt his disease lets loose from the bands of respect, while his intellect engineers it' with the , greatest fluency and point. j Polonius has his mind richly stored with prudential and 38 HAMLET. politic wisdom ; which however shows somewhat absurdly in him, because, to use a figure of Coleridge's, it is like a light in the stern of a ship, that illumines only that part of the course already left behind. For, as Dr. Johnson aptly re- marks, he is " knowing in retrospect, and ignorant in fore- sight." A man of one method, political engineering; with his fingers ever itching to work the machine of policy ; and with little perception of times and occasions ; he is called to act where such arts and methods are peculiarly unfitting, and therefore he overreaches himself. To such a mind the hero's character can hardly be other than an inscrutable enigma. It takes a whole man to under- stand Hamlet, and Polonius is but the attic storey of a man ! Assuming Hamlet to be thus and so, Polonius reasons and acts just right in regard to him ; but the fact is, he cannot see him ; and so, his premises being all wrong, the very just- ness of his reasoning only carries the further astray. But, in the directions he gives his man Reynaldo for angling out the truth about his absent son, the old politician is perfectly at home ; and his mind seems to revel in the mysteries of wire- pulling and trap-setting. He understands, no man better, " how your bait of falsehood takes the carp of truth," But to such modes of dealing Hamlet is quite impracticable. And he takes a mad pleasure in fooling and plaguing the old fox ! A chronic fanaticism of intrigue having blunted in Polo- nius the powers of special insight and discernment in what is before him, he therefore perceives not the unfitness of his old methods to the new exigency ; while his long experience of success in "hunting the trail of policy" makes him feel quite sure of succeeding now. To quote Dr. Johnson again, " such a man is positive and confident, because he knows INTRODUCTION. 39 that his mind was once strong, but knows not that it has become weak." Antiquated managers, indeed, like Polo- nius, seldom have much strength but as they fall back upon the resotirces of memory : out of these, the ashes, so to speak, of extinct faculties, they may appear wise long after the springs of real wisdom are dried up within them ; as a man who has lost his sight may seem to distinguish colours, provided he does not speak of the particular colours before him. I Polonius has great knowledge of the world ; though even here his mind has come to rest mainly in generalities. Ac- cordingly the pithy maxims he gives Laertes, to " character in his memory," are capital in their way; nothing could be better : yet they are but the well-seasoned fruits of general experience and reflection ; and there is no apparent reason why he should speak them at that time, except that they were strong in his mind. One would suppose that in such an act of paternal blessing he would try to breathe some fire of noble sentiment into his son j whereas he thinks of noth- ing higher than cold precepts of worldly prudence ; which seem indeed to be the essence of religion with him. And he imagines that such thoughts will be a sufficient break- water against the passions of youth ! Note, also, what a precious, characteristic specimen of unconscious grannyism he blunders out when he undertakes TO explain "the very cause of Hamlet's lunacy." Here, with his hands brimfull of the most serious business, he is pleased, notwithstanding, to spend the time in dallying with artful quirks of thought and speech, — a piece of pedantry and impertinence which has often reminded me of the man who " could speak no sense in several languages." - We do, my lord. Ham. Arm'd, say you ? Marc. ) , , , Bern. \ ^'"^ ^' "^^ ^°'^- Ham. From top to toe ? Marc. ) , ,r , 1 <. 1 1 r „ \ My lord, from head to foot. Bern. ) •' Ham. Then saw you not his face ? Hora. O, yes, my lord ; he wore his beaver up.*^ Ham. What, look'd he frowningly? 43 The beaver was a movable part of the helmet, which could be drawn down over the face or pushed up over the forehead. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 67 Hora. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. Ham. Pale, or red? Hora. Nay, very pale. Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you? Hora. Most constantly. Hun. I would I had been there. Hora. It would have much amazed you. Ham. Very like, very like. Stay' d it long ? Hora. While one with moderate haste might telH'* a hundred. Marc. ^ Bern. \ ^^^S"'' ^^^S'^' Hora. Not when I saw't. Ham. His beard was grizzled? — no? Hora. It was, as I have seen it in his Hfe, A sable silver'd. Ham. I'll watch to-night ; Perchance 'twill walk again. Hora. I warrant it will. Ham. If it assume my noble father's person, I'll speak to it, though Hell itself should gape. And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight, Let it be tenable ^^ in your silence still ; And whatsoever else shall hap to-night. Give it an understanding, but no tongue : I will requite your loves. So, fare you well : Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve, I'll visit you. All. Our duty to your Honour. ■*4 To tell was continually used for to count. 45 Tenable for retained. The Poet has many like instances of confusion 68 HAMLET, ACT I. Ham. Your loves, as mine to you j farewell. — \_Exeunt all but Hamlet. My father's spirit in arms ! all is not well ; I doubt ^6 some foul play : would the night were come ! Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise, Though all the Earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. \_Exit. Scene III. — A Room in Polonius^s House. Enter Laertes and Ophelia.^ Laer. My necessaries are embark'd ; farewell : And, sister, as the winds give benefit And convoy is assistant,^ do not sleep. But let me hear from you.*^ Ophe. Do you doubt that ? Laer. For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour, Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood, A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting. The perfume and supplyance of a minute ; "* No more. of forms ; as admired for admirable, that is, wonderful, in Macbeth, iii. 4 : " Broke the good meeting with most admired disorder. 46 Doubt in the sense of fear or suspect. Repeatedly so. 1 This scene must be regarded as one of Shakespeare's lyric movements in the play, and the skill with which it is interwoven with the dramatic parts IS peculiarly an excellence with our Poet. You experience the sensation of a pause, without the sense of a stop. — COLERIDGE. 2 Convoy is used for conveyance. Communication with France being by sea, of course there needed, both a ship to carry letters, and a wind to drive the ship. 2 That is, " without letting me hear from you." The Poet repeatedly uses but in this way ; the exceptive but, from be out. The usage is very common in Scotch : Burns has it frequently 4 A mere pastime, to supply ox fill up the passing hour ; a sweet play, to SCENE III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 69 Ophe, No more but so ? Laer. Think it no more : ^ For nature, crescent, does not grow alone In thews ^ and bulk, but, as this temple waxes, The inward service of the mind and soul Grows wide withal."^ Perhaps he loves you now ; And now no soil nor cautel^ doth besmirch The virtue of his will : but you must fear ; His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own ; For he himself is subject to his birth \^ He- may not, as unvalued persons do. Carve for himself; for on his choice depends The safety and the health of the whole State ; And therefore must his choice be circumscribed Unto the voice and yielding of that body Whereof he is the head.i^ Then, if he says he loves you. It fits your wisdom so far to beHeve it As he in his particular act and place May give his saying deed ; 11 which is no further Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain, beguile the present idle time. Instead of supply ance, the Poet elsewhere has siipplyvient in much the same sense. s " Take for granted that such is the case, till you have clear proof to the contrary." — Crescent is growing, increasing. 6 Thews is an old word for sinews or muscles. "> The idea is, that Hamlet's love is but a youthful fancy which, as his mind comes to maturity, he will outgrow. The passage would seem to in- fer that the Prince is not so old as he is elsewhere represented to be. 8 Cautel is a debauched relation of caution, and means fraud or deceit. 9 Subject to the conditions which his birth entails upon him. 1*^ His choice of a wife must be limited by the approval or consent of the nation. 11 So far only as he, in his public and ofificial character, shall make his promise good. 70 HAMLET, ACT 1. If with too credent ear you list his songs, ^^ Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open To his unmaster'd importunity. Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister ; And keep you in the rear of your affection, Out of the shot and danger of desire. Th' unchariest maid is prodigal enough, If she unmask her beauty to the Moon : Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes : The canker galls the infants of the Spring, Too oft before their buttons be disclosed ; ^^ And in the morn and liquid dew of youth Contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary, then ; best safety lies in fear : Youth to itself rebels, though none else near. Ophe. I shall th' effect of this good lesson keep, As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors ^^ do. Show me the steep and thorny way to Heaven, Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine. Himself the primrose path of dalhance treads. And recks not his own read.^^ Laer, O, fear me not. I stay too long : but here my father comes. — Enter Polonius. 12 " If with too credulous ear you listen to his songs." 13 In Shakespeare's time, canker was often used of the worm that kills the early buds before they open out into flowers. Perhaps it here means a disease that sometimes infests plants, and eats out their life. — Buttons \% buds, and disclose is used in the sense of open or unfold. 14 Pastors that have not the grace to practice what they preach. 15 Regards not his own lesson. SCENE III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 71 A double blessing is a double grace ; Occasion smiles upon a second leave. Polo. Yet here, Laertes? aboard, aboard, for shame ! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, And you are stay'd for. There ; my blessing with thee ! x\nd these few precepts in thy memory See thou character.!*^ Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.^^ Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.i^ The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel ; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade.^^ Beware Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in, Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice : Take each man's censure,^^ but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express 'd in fancy ; rich, not gaudy : For the apparel oft proclaims the man ; And they in France of the best rank and station Are most select and generous, chief in that.^^ Neither a borrower nor a lender be : For loan oft loses both itself and friend ; 16 To character is to engrave or imprint. 1'^ Unproportion' d for unhandsome or unfitting. His, again, for its. See page 47, note 8. 18 Vulgar is here used in its old sense of common. 19 " Do not Hunt thy feeling by taking every new acquaintance by the hand, or by admitting him to the intimacy of a friend." 20 Censure was continually used for opinion, ox judgment. 21 That is, most select and generous, but chiefly or especially so in the matter of dress. 72 HAMLET, ACT I. And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all : To thine own self be true ; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.^^ Farewell ; my blessing season ^^ this in thee ! Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord, Folo. The time invites you ; go, your servants tend, Laei\ Farewell, Ophelia ; and remember well What I have said to you. Ophe. 'Tis in my memory lock'd^ And you yourself shall keep the key of it. Laer. Farewell. , \_Exit Polo. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you? Ophe. So please you, something touching the Lord Ham- let. Polo. Marry,^'* well bethought : 'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late Given private time to you ; and you yourself Have of your audience been most free and bounteous. If it be so, — as so 'tis put on me, ^2 This is regarded by many as a very high strain of morality. I cannot see it so ; though, to be sure, it is as high as Polonius can go : it is the height of worldly wisdom, — a rule of being wisely selfish. In the same sense, " honesty is the best policy " ; but no truly honest man ever acts on that principle ; and a man who fixes upon no higher rule than that of be- ing true to himself will never be really true to himself. This is one of the cases wherein a man must aim at the greater, else he will not attain the less. In other words, a man . will never be really true to himself, unless it be a matter of conscience with him to be true to something higher than himself. K passion for rectitude is the only thing that will serve. See iii. 4, note 16. 23 Season is here used, apparently, in the sense of itigjuin ; the idea be- ing that of so steeping the counsel into his mind that it will not fade out. 24 Marry was continually used as a general intensive, like heracle and edepol in Latin. The usage sprang from the custom of swearing by St, Mary the Virgin Mother. SCENE III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 73 And that in way of caution, — I must tell you, You do not understand yourself so clearly As it behoves my daughter and your honour. What is between you ? give me up the truth. Ophe. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection to me. Polo. Affection ! pooh ! you speak like a green girl. Unsifted 25 in such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his — tenders, as you call them ? Ophe. I do not know, my lord, what I should think. Polo. Marry, I'll teach you : think yourself a baby ; That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay, Which are not sterhng.^^ Tender yourself more dearly ; ^7 Or — not to crack the wind of the poor phrase. Running it thus^^ — you'll tender me a fool. Ophe. My lord, he hath importuned me with love In honourable fashion ; — Polo. Ay, fashion you may call it ; go to, go to.^^ Ophe. — And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, With almost all the holy vows of Heaven. Polo. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.-^^ I do know, 25 Unsifted is untried, inexperienced. We still speak of sifting a matter, in the same sense. 26 Polonius is using tender in different senses ; here in a business or finan- cial sense, as in the phrase " legal tender." So our " greenbacks," though legal tender, have not been sterling; that is, have been below par. 27 " Take better care of yourself." To tender a thing is, in one sense, to be tender or careful of it, Shakespeare has the word repeatedly so. 28 Polonius is likening the phrase to a poor nag, which, if run too hard, will be wind-broken. 29 Go to is an old phrase of varying import ; sometimes meaning hush up, sometimes come on, sometimes go ahead. SO This was a proverbial phrase. There is a collection of epigrams under 74 HAMLET, ACT i When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows : these blazes, daughter. Giving more light than heat, extinct in both, Even in their promise, as it is a-making. You must not take for fire.^^ From this time Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence ; Set your entreatments at a higher rate Than a command to parley.^^ For Lord Hamlet, Believe so much in hiin, that he is young ; And with a larger tether -^"^ may he walk Than may be given you. In few,^^ Ophelia, Do not believe his vows ; for they are brokers,^^ — Not of that dye which their investments show. But mere implorators of unholy suits, Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,^^ The better to beguile. This is for all, — I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth. Have you so slander *^^ any moment's leisure, that title : the woodcock being accounted a witless bird, from a vulgar notion that it had no brains. " Springes to catch woodcocks " means arts to entrap simplicity. Springe is, properly, snare or trap. — Blood, in the next line, is put for passion. Often so. 31 Here, as often, yf?-^ is two syllables : the verse requires it so. 32 Be more difficult of access, and let the suits to you for that purpose be of higher respect than a command to parley. 33 That is, with a lojtger line ; a horse, fastened by a string to a stake, is tethei'ed. 34 In few words ; in short. 35 Brokers, as the word is here used, are go-betweens, or panders ; the same as bawds, a little after. 36 So in As You Like It, ii. 3 : " Your virtues are sanctified and holy trai- tors to you." This joining of words that are really contradictory, or qualify- ing of a noun with adjectives that literally quench it, sometimes gives great strength of expression. Even so grave a writer as Hooker speaks of stealing certain benefits upon men " through a kind of heavenly fraud" 37 That is, so disgrace, or misuse, as to cause slander. SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 75 As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet. Look to't, I charge you : come your ways. Ophe. I shall obey, my lord. \JExeunt, Scene IV. — The Platform. Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus. Ham. The air bites shrewdly ; it is very cold. Hora. It is a nipping and an eager ^ air. Ham. What hour now? Hora. I think it lacks of twelve. Ham. No; it is struck. Hora. Indeed? I heard it not: it then draws near the season Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. \_A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot ofl^ within. What does this mean, my lord ? Ham. The King doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,^ Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels ; ^ And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down. The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge. Ho7'a. Is it a custom ? Ham. Ay, marry is't ; But to my mind, though I am native here 1 Eager \n2ls used in the sense of the French aigre, sharp, biting. 2 To wake is to Jiold a late revel or debauch. A rotise is what we now call a bumper. — Wassail originally meant a drinking to one's health ; from wees heel, health be to you : hence it came to be used for any festivity of the Ibottle and the bowl. 3 Reels through the swaggering up-sprlng, which was the name of a rude, boisterous German dance, as appears from a passage in Chapman's Alphon- sus : " We Germans have no changes in our dances ; an almain and an up' iprifig, that is all." 76 HAMLET, ACT I. And to the manner born, it is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance. This heavy-headed revel east and west^ Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations : They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase Soil our addition ; ^ and indeed it takes From our achievements, though perform'd at height, The pith and marrow of our attribute.^ So, oft it chances in particular men,''' That for some vicious mole of nature in them, As in their birth, — wherein they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose his origin ; — 4 The sense of east and west goes with what follows, not what precedes : " brings reproach upon us in all directions." To tax was often used for to charge, to accuse. 5 Clepe is an old Saxon word for call. — The Poet often uses addition for title ; so that the meaning is, they sully our title by likening us to swine. The character here ascribed to the Danes appears to have had a basis of fact. Haywood, in his Drujikard Opened, 1635, speaking of " the vinosity of na- tions," says the Danes have made profession thereof from antiquity, and are the first upon record " that have brought their wassel bowls and elbowdeep healths into this land." 6 That is, of our reputation, or of what is attributed to us. ■^ Hamlet is now wrought up to the highest pitch of expectancy; his mind is sitting on thorns ; and he seeks relief from the pain of that over- intense feeling by launching off into a strain of general and abstract reflec- tion. His state of mind, distracted between his eager anticipation and his train of thought, aptly registers itself in the irregular and broken structure of his language. Coleridge remarks upon the passage as follows : " The unimportant conversation with which this scene opens is a proof of Shake- speare's minute knowledge of human nature. It is a well-established fact, that, on the brink of any serious enterprise, or event of moment, men almost invariably endeavour to elude the pressure of their own thoughts by turning aside to trivial objects and familiar circumstances : thus this dialogue on the platform begins with remarks on the coldness of the air, and inquiries, obliquely connected indeed with the expected hour of the visitation, but thrown out in a seeming vacuity of topics, as, to the striking of the clock, and so forth." SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 77 By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason ; ^ Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens The form of plausive ^ manners ; — that these men, — Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,io — Their virtues else — be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may undergo — Shall in the general censure take corruption From that particular fault ; the dram of leav'n Doth all the noble substance of 'em sour, To his own scandal ;^^ — 8 The idea is, of some native aptitude indulged and fostered too much, so that it breaks down the proper guards and strongholds of reason. Here, as in some other cases, pales is palings. And complexion was often used, as here, to signify any constitutional texture, aptitude, ox predisposition. 9 Plausive for approvable, or that which is to be applauded ; the active form with the passive sense. This indiscriminate use of active and passive forms, both in adjectives and participles, was very common. So Milton has unexpressive for inexpressible, and Shakespeare has decelvable for deceptive. 10 Alluding to the old astrological notion, of a man's character or fortune being determined by the star that was in the ascendant on the day of his birth. — Livery is properly a badge-dress ; of course, here put for a man's distinctive idiom. — Note the change of the subject from these men to their virtues. 11 His, again, for its, referring to stibstance, or, possibly, to leav'n. Oi course 'em refers to virtues. So that the meaning is, that the dram of leaven sours all the noble substance of their virtues, insomuch as to bring reproach and scandal on that substance itself. The Poet seems to have had in mind Saint Paul's proverbial saying, i Corinthians, v. 6 : "A little leaven leaven- eth the whole lump." And so in Bacon's Henry the Seventh : " And, as a little leaven of new distaste doth commonly soure the whole lumpe of former merites, the King's wit began now to suggest unto his passion," &c. This is said in reference to Sir William Stanley, whose prompt and timely action gained the victory of Bosworth Field. Some years after, he became a suitor for the earldom of Chester ; whereupon, as Bacon says, " his suit did end not only in a denial, but in a distaste " on the part of the King. See Critical Notes. 7S HAMLET, ACT I. Hora, Look^ my lord, it comes ! Enter the Ghost. Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us ! — Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd ; Bring with thee airs from Heaven or blasts from Hell ; Be thy intents wicked or charitable ; Thou comest in such a questionable ^^ shape, That I will speak to thee : I'll call thee Hamlet, King, father : royal Dane, O, answer me ! Let me not burst in ignorance ; but tell Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their cerements ; i^ why the sepulchre. Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd. Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws. To cast thee up again. What may this mean, .That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel Revisit'st thus the gUmpses of the Moon, Making night hideous ; and we fools of Nature So horridly to shake our disposition With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ?^* Say, why is this ? wherefore ? what should we do ? [Ghost beckons Hamlet. 12 " A questionable shape " is a shape that may be questioned, or con' versed with. In Hke manner the Poet often uses question for conversation. 13 Canonized means made sacred by the canonical rites of sepulture. — Cerements is a dissyUable. It is from a Latin word meaning wax, and was so appHed from the use of wax or pitch in seahng up coffins or caskets so as to make them waterproof. 14 " We fools of Nature," in the sense here implied, is, we who cannot by nature know the mysteries of the supernatural world. Strict grammar would require us instead of we. — The general idea of the passage seems to be, that man's intellectual eye is not strong enough to bear the unmuffled fight of eternity. SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 79 Hora. It beckons you to go away with it, As if it some impartment did desire To you alone. Marc. Look, with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ^^ ground : But do not go with it. Mora. No, by no means. Ham. It will not speak ; then I will follow it. Hora. Do not, my lord. Ham. Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin's fee ; And for my soul, what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal as itself? It waves me forth again : I'll follow it. Hora. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord. Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base ^^ into the sea, And there assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,^'^ And draw you into madness ? ^^ think of it : ^ The very place puts toys ^^ of desperation, Without more motive, into every brain That looks so many fathoms to the sea. And hears it roar beneath. 15 Re7noved for remote, secluded, retired. 16 Overhangs its base. So in Sidney's Arcadia : " Hills lift up their leetle brows, as if they would overlooke the pleasantnesse of their under prospect." 1'^ To " deprive your sovereignty of reason " is to depose your gover7wient of reason, or take it away. The word was often used thus. 18 It was anciently believed that evil spirits sometimes assumed the guise of deceased persons, to draw men into madness and suicide, as is here apprehended of the Ghost. 19 Toys is freaks, whims, or fancies ; here meaning any sudden mad im- pulse to suicide. So HAMLET, ACT I. Ham. It waves me still. — Go on ; I'll follow thee. Ma7x. You shall not go, my lord. Ha7n, Hold off your hands ! Hora. Be ruled ; you shall not go. Ham. My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery ^^ in this body As hardy as the Nemean hon's nerve. Still am I call'd. — Unhand me, gentlemen ; — \_B7'eaking away fi^om them. By Heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets^i me ! I say, away ! — Go on ; I'll follow thee. \^Exeunt Ghost ajid Hamlet. Hora. He waxes desperate with imagination. Mai'c. Let's follow ; 'tis not fit thus to obey him. Ho7'a, Have after. — To what issue will this come ? Ma7'c. Something is^otten-in-t-he State of Denmark. Ho7'a, Heaven will direct it. Marc. Nay, 22 let's follow him. \_Exeufif, Scene V. — A7iothe7'- Pa7't of the Platform, E7iter the Ghost a7id Hamlet. Ha77t, Where wilt thou lead me ? speak ; I'll go no fur- ther. Ghost. Mark me. Ha77i. I will. Ghost, My hour is almost come, 20 Artery, nerve, and sinew were used interchangeably in the Poet's time. 21 The old let, now obsolete, meaning to hinder. 22 Nay refers to Horatio's " Heaven will direct it," and means, " let us.not leave it to Heaven, but look after it ourselves." SCENE V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 8 1 When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself. Ham. Alas, poor Ghost ! GJiost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold. Ham. Speak ; I am bound to hear. Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. Ham. What? Ghost. I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confined to fast in fires,^ Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul ; freeze thy young blood ; Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ; Thy knotted and combined locks to part. And each particular hair to stand on end. Like quills upon the fretful porpentine : ^ But this eternal ^ blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list ! If thou didst ever thy dear father love, — Ham. O God ! Ghost. — Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. Ham. Murder ! 1 Chaucer in the Persones Tale says, " The misese of hell shall be in de- faute of mete and drinker So, too, in The Wyll of the Devyll: " Thou shalt lye in frost and fire, with sicknes and hunger!' 2 Such is the old form of the word, and so Shakespeare always has it. 3 The Poet repeatedly has eternal in the sense of infernal, like our Yan- kee 'tarnal; and such is probably the meaning here; though some think it means " the mysteries of eternity." 82 HAMLET, ACT I. Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is ; But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. ^ Ham. Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge. Ghost. I find thee apt ; And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,'* Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear : 'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,^ A serpent stung me ; so the whole ear of Denmark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abused ; but know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown. Ham. O my prophetic soul !^ My uncle ! Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, — O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power So to seduce ! — won to his shameful lust The will of my most seeming- virtuous Queen : Hamlet, what a falling-off was there ! From me, whose love was of that dignity, That it went hand in hand even with the vow 1 made to her in marriage ; and to decline Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor 4 Of course " Lethe wharf" is the place on the banks of the river Lethe where the old boatman, Charon, had his moorings, — In the preceding line, shouldst for wouldst. See page 48, note 11. 5 Orchard and gaiden were synonymous, 6 Hamlet has suspected " some foul play," and now his suspicion seems prophetic, or as if inspired. SCENE V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 83 To "^ tliQse of mine ! But .virtue, as it^iever will be moved, Though lewdness court it in a shape of Heaven, So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd^ Will sate itself in a celestial bed, And prey on garbage. But, soft ! methinks I scent the morning air ; Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard, My custom always in the afternoon, Upon my secure ^ hour thy uncle stole. With juice of cursed hebenon^ in a vial. And in the porches of my ears did pour The leperous distilment ; whose effect ^^ Holds such an enmity with blood of man, That swift as quicksilver it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body ; 11 And with a sudden vigour it doth posset And curd, like eager ^^ droppings into milk, ■^ To, again, for compared to. See page 62, note 29. 8 Secure has the sense of the Latin securus ; ungicarded, tinsuspecting. 9 Hebefion is probably derived from henbane, the oil of which, according to Pliny, dropped into the ears, disturbs the brain ; and there is sufficient evidence that it was held poisonous. So in Anton's Satires, 1606 : " The poisoiid henbane, whose cold juice doth kill." 10 Effect for efficacy, or effectiveness ; the eifect put for the cause, ^1 The Poet here implies as much as was then known touching the circu- lation of the blood. So in yullus Ccesar, ii. i : "As dear to me as are the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart." Harvey's great discovery was not published till 1628, twelve years after the Poet's death. The lawyers claim Shakespeare as of their house : I suspect the physicians have an equal right to him. 12 Eager\\2k.'~, occurred before in the sense oi. sharp, biting. " Eager drop- pings " are drops of acid. — A posset is described by Randle Holme as fol- lows : " Hot milk poured on ale or sack, having sugar, grated bisket, and eggs, with other ingredients boiled in it, which goes to a curd." So that to posset is to coagulate or curdle. 84 HAMLET, ACT L The thin and wholesome blood : so did it mine ; And a most instant tetter bark'd ^^ about, Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All my smooth body. Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand Of life, of crown, of Queen, at once dispatch'd : Cut off even in the blossom of my sins, Unhousell'd, disappointed, unanel'd ; ^^ No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head. Ham. O, horrible ! O, horrible ! most horrible ! GJiost. If thou hast nature ^^ in thee, bear it not ; Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest. But, howsoever thou pursuest this act, Taint not thy mind,^^ nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught : leave her to Heaven, And to those thorns that inlier bosom lodge To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once ! The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, 13 Bark'd means formed a hark or scab. — Instant in the sense of the Latin instans ; urgent, importunate, itching. — The meaning of lazar-like is well illustrated in Paradise Lost, xi. 477-488. 14 Unhousell'd is without having received the sacrament. Disappoijited is U7iappointed, unprepared. A man well furnished for an enterprise is said to be v^eW-appointed. Unanel'd is without extreme unction. So in Caven- dish's Life of Wolsey : " Then we began to put him in mind of Christ's pas- sion ; and sent for the abbot of the place to anneal him." These " last offices " were thought to have much effect in mitigating the pains of Purga- tory. 15 Nature for natziral affection. A very frequent usage. 16 This part of the injunction is well worth noting : time and manner are left to Hamlet ; only he is to keep himself clean from crime and from dishon- our : his revenge must be righteous, and according to the demands of jus- tice, not merely personal. SCENE V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 85 And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire : ^"^ Adieu, adieu, adieu ! remember me. [^^xif. Ham. O all you host of Heaven ! O Earth ! what else ? And shall I couple Hell ? O, fie ! ^^ Hold, hold, my heart ; And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up. — Remember thee ! Ay, thou poor Ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe.^^ Remember thee ! Yea, fi-om the table ^^ of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records. All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there ; And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmix'd with baser matter : yes, by Heaven ! — • O most pernicious woman ! — O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain ! My tables,2i — meet it is I set it down. That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain ; At. least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark. — So, uncle, there you are.^^ — Now to my word ; 1'^ Uneffectual hzcdMSQ it gives light without heat, does not burn. — Matin, properly morning-prayer, is here put for ino?-7iing. 18 Hamlet invokes Heaven and Earth, and then asks whether he shall in- voke Hell also. " O, fie 1 " refers to the latter, and implies a strong nega- tive. 19 By this globe Hamlet means his head. 20 Table for what we call tablet. — Saws is sayings; pressures, itnpres- sions. 21 " Tables, or books, or registers for memory of things " were used in Shakespeare's time by all ranks of persons, and carried in the pocket; what we call meinora7idum-books. 22 This, I think, has commonly been taken in too literal and formal a way, as if Hamlet were carefully writing down the axiomatic saying he has just c^^tered. I prefer Professor Warder's view of the inatter : " Hamlet 86 HAMLET, ACT I. It is Adieu, adieu! remetnber me: I have sworn't. Hora. [ Within^ My lord, my lord, — MarC. [ Within?^ Lord Hamlet, — Hora. [ IVithinJ] Heaven secure him ! Marc. [ Within^ So be it ! Hora. [ Within^ Illo, ho, ho, my lord ! Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy ! come, bird, come.^^ Enter Horatio aiid Marcellus. Marc. How is't, my noble lord? Hora. What news, my lord? Ham. O, wonderful ! Hora. Good my lord, tell it. Ham. No ; you'll reveal it. Hora. Not I, my lord, by Heaven. Marc. Nor I, my lord. Ham. How say you, then? would heart of man once think it ? — But you'll be secret ? Hora. "I M^j^c. j ^^' ^^ Heaven, my lord. Ham. There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark But he's an arrant knave. ^"^ pulls out his tablets, and jabs the point of his pencil once or twice into the leaf, because he cannot do the same to the King with his sword, as he would like to do, — nothing further; only such marks, such a sign, does he make. That stands for ' So, uncle, there you are ! ' And although he says he must write it down for himself, he does not literally write ; that does not accord with his mood and situation." 23 This is the call which falconers use to their hawk in the air when they would have him come down to them. '^^4 Dr. Isaac Ray, a man of large science and ripe experience in the treat- ment of insanity, says of Hamlet's behaviour in this scene, that " it betrays SCENE V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 87 Hora. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave To tell us this. Ham. Why, right ; you are i' the right ; And so, without more circumstance^-^ at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands and part : You, as your business and desire shall point you, — For every man hath business and desire. Such as it is ; — and, for mine own poor part. Look you, I'll go pray. Ho7'a. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord. Ham. I'm sorry they offend you, heartily ; Yes, faith, heartily. Hora. There's no offence, my lord. Ham. Yes, by Saint Patrick,^'^ but there is, Horatio, And much offence too. Touching this vision here, It is an honest ghost,^^ that let me tell you ; For your desire to know what is between us, O'ermaster't as you may.^^ And now, good friends, As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers, Give me one poor request. the excitement of delirium, — the wandering of a mind reeling under the first stroke of disease." 25 Circumstance is sometimes used for circumlocution. So in Othello, i. I : " A bombast cij-cumstance horribly stuff 'd with epithets of war." But it was also used for circumstantial detail; and such is probably the meaning here. 26 Warburton has ingeniously defended Shakespeare for making the Danish Prince swear by St. Patrick, by observing that the whole northern world had their learning from Ireland. 27 Hamlet means that the Ghost is a real ghost, just what it appears to be, and not " the Devil " in " a pleasing shape," as Horatio had apprehended it to be. See page 79, note 18. 28 That is, o'ermaster your desire; " subdue it as you best can." 88 HAMLET, ACT I. Hora. What is't, my lord ? we will. Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night. Hora. ] , , ■nr r My lord, we will not. Marc. ) ^ ' Ham. Nay, but swear't. Hora. In faith, my lord, not I. Marc. Nor I, my lord, in faith. Hai7i. Upon my sword. Marc. We've sworn, my lord, already .^^ Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed. Ghost. \_Beneathr\ Swear. Ham. Ha, ha, boy ! say'st thou so ? art thou there, true- penny ? -^"^ — Come on, — you hear this fellow in the cellarage, — Consent to swear. Hora. Propose the oath, my lord. Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen : Swear by my sword. Ghost. \_Bcneath.~\ Swear. Ham. Hie et itbique ! then we'll shift our ground. — Come hither, gentlemen. And lay your hands again upon my sword. Never to speak of this that you have heard : Swear by my sword. Ghost. \_Beneath.~\ Swear. Ha?7i. Well said, old mole ! canst work i' the ground so fast? 29 The oath they have already sworn is itifaitk. But this has not enough of ritual solemnity in it, to satisfy Hamlet. The custom of swearing by the sword, or rather by the cross at the hilt of it, is very ancient. The Saviou*-'"? name was sometimes inscribed on the handle. So that swearing by one's sword was the most solemn oath a Christian soldier could take. 30 True-penny is an old familiar term for a right honest fellow. SCENE V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 89 A worthy pioneer P^ — Once more remove, good friends. Hora. O day and night ! but this is wondrous strange. Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy .^^ But come : Here, as before, never, so help you Mercy, How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself, — ■ As I perchance hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on,^^ — That you, at such times seeing me, never shall, With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake, Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, as. Well, well, we know ; or. We coidd, an if ^^ we would ; or, If we list to speak; or, Thei^e be, an if they might; Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note That you know aught of me : — this not to do. So Grace and Mercy at your most need help you. Swear. 31 Alluding to one of the offices of military engineers, which is to pioneer an army ; that is, to go before and clear the road. 32 Strictly speaking, ;/(?2^r is redundant here. Hamlet means any philoso- phy. The Poet often uses the pronouns in that way. So in v. i, of this play : " And /02^r water is a sore decayer of _)/<9«r whoreson dead body." In the text, however, I suspect that your is meant to convey a mild sneer at philosophy, which has sometimes been as arrogant as science is in some of her modern representatives. 33 This has been taken as proving that Hamlet's " antic disposition " is merely assumed for a special purpose. But our ripest experts in the matter are far from regarding it so. They tell us that veritable madmen are some^ times inscrutably cunning in arts for disguising their state ; saying, in effect, " To be sure, you may find me acting rather strangely at times, but you must not think me crazy ; I know what I am about, and have a purpose in it." 34 An if is merely an old reduplication, and is equivalent simply to if. So the Poet uses if or an, or an if indifferently. 90 HAMLET, ACT II. Ghost. \_Beneath.'] Swear. \_They kiss the hilt 93 I saw him yesterday, or ''tother day, Or then, or then ; with such or such ; and, as you say, There was he gaming, there o^e?^took in''s rouse, There falling out at tennis : or, perchance, / saw him enter such a house of sale. See you now. Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth ; ^^ And thus do we of wisdom and of reach. With windlaces and with assays of bias,!^ By indirections find directions out : So, by my former lecture and advice. Shall you my son. You have me, have you not ? ^^ Reyn. My lord, I have. Polo. God b' wi' you ! ^^ fare you well. Reyn. Good my lord ! Polo. Observe his inclination in yourself.^^ If* The shrewd old wire-puller is fond of angling arts. The carp is a species of fish. 11 " Of wisdom and of reach " is here equivalent to hy amning and over- reaching. — Windlaces is here used in the sense of taking a winding, circuit- ous, or roundabout course to a thing, instead of going directly to it ; or, as we sometimes say, " beating about the bush," instead of coming straight to the point. This is shown by a late writer in the Edinburgh Review, who quotes two passages in illustration of it from Golding's translation of Ovid, which is known to have been one of the Poet's books. Here is one of the quotations : — The winged god, beholding them returning in a troupe, Continu'd not directly forth, but gan me down to stoupe, And fetch' d a wmdlass round about. "Assays of bias "are trials of inclination. A bias is a weight in one side ot a bowl, which keeps it from rolling straight to the mark, as in ninepins. 12 " You tinderstand me, do you not ? " 13 The old phrase, " God be with you," is here in the process of abbrevi- ation to what we now use, — " Good by." 14 " Use your own eyes upon him, as well as learn from others." Or the meaning may be, " comply with his inclinations in order to draw him out." Observe sometimes has this sense of yielding to, and so flatter itig. 94 HAMLET. ACT II. Reyn. I shall, my lord. Polo. And let him ply his music.^^ Reyn. Well, my lord. Polo. Farewell ! — \_Exit Reynaldo. Enter Ophelia. How now, Ophelia ! what's the matter? Ophe. O, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted ! Polo. With what, i' the name of God? Ophe. My lord, as I was sewing in my closet. Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all mibraced j ^^ No hat upon his head ; his stockings foul'd, Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ankle ; ^^ Pale as his shirt ; his knees knocking each other ; And with a look so piteous in purport As if he had been loosed out of Hell To speak of horrors, — he comes before me. Polo. Mad for thy love ? Ophe. My lord, I do not know ; But, truly, I do fear it. Polo. What said he ? ■ Ophe. He took me by the wrist and held me hard ; Then goes he to the length of all his arm. And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow, He falls to such perusal of my face As he would draw it.^^ Long time stay'd he so ; At last, — a little shaking of mine arm, And thrice his head thus waving up and down, — 15 " Eye him sharply, but slyly, and let him fiddle his secrets all out." 16 Unbraced is the same as our unbuttoned. 1" Hanging down like the loose cincture that confines the fetters or gyves round the ankles. 18 " To such a study of my face as if he would make a picture of it." SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 95 He raised a sigh so piteous and profound, That it did seem to shatter all his bulk/'^ And end his being : that done, he lets me go ; And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd. He seem'd to iind his way without his eyes ; For out o' doors he went without their help. And, to the last, bended their hght on me. Pc>/o. Come, go with me : I will go seek the King. This is the very ecstasy ^^ of love. Whose violent property fordoes ^i itself. And leads the will to desperate undertakings, As oft as any passion under heaven That does afflict our natures. I am sorry, — What, have you given him any hard words of late ? Oj>/ie. No, my good lord ; but, as you did command, I did repel his letters, and denied His access to me. I'o/o. That hath made him mad. I'm sorry that with better heed and judgment I had not quoted him.22 I fear'd he did but trifle, And meant to wreck thee ; but beshrew^^ my jealousy ! By Heaven, it is as proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,^^ As it is common for the younger sort 19 Here hi/k is put for breast. The usage was common. 2" All through this play, ecstasy is madness. It was used for any violent perturbation of mind. 21 Fordo was the same as imdo or destroy. 22 To quote is to note, to 7nark, or observe. 23 Beshrew was much used as a mild form of imprecation ; about thb same as co7ifound it! or, a plague upon it/ 24 In this admirable scene, Polonius, who is throughout the skeleton of his former skill in state-craft, hunts the trail of policy at a dead scent, sup- plied by the weak fever-smell in his own nostrils. — COLERIDGE. 96 HAMLET, ACT II. To lack discretion.^^ Come, go we to the King : This must be known ; which, being kept close, might move More grief to hide than hate to utter love.26 \Exeiint Scene II. — A Room in the Castle. Enter the King, the Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Attendants. King. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 1 Moreover that ^ we much did long to see you. The need we have to use you did provoke Our hasty sending. Something have you heard Of Hamlet's transformation ; so I call it. Since nor th' exterior nor the inward man Resembles that it was. What it should be. More than his father's death, that thus hath put him So much from th' understanding of himself, I cannot dream of. I entreat you both. That, being of so young days brought up with him. And since so neighbour'd to his youth and humour,^ That you vouchsafe your rest here in our Court Some little time ; so by your companies To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather, So much as from occasion you may glean, 25 We old men are as apt to overreach ourselves with our own policy, as the young are to miscarry through inconsideration. 26 The sense is rather obscure, but appears to be, " By keeping Hamlet's love secret, we may cause more of grief to others, than of hatred on his part by disclosing it." The Poet sometimes strains language pretty hard in or- der to close a scene with a rhyme. 1 Moreover that for besides that. Not so elsewhere, I think. 2 And having since had so near an opportunity of studying his inclina- tion and character during his youth. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 97 Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus, That, open'd, hes within our remedy. Queen. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you j And sure I am two men there are not hving To whom he more adheres. If it will please you To show us so much gentry ^ and good will As to expend your time with us awhile. For the supply and profit of our hope,^ Your visitation shall receive such thanks As fits a king's remembrance. Rosen. Both your Majesties Might, by the sovereign power you have of us. Put your dread pleasures more into command Than to entreaty. Guild. But we both obey ; And here give up ourselves, in the full bent, To lay our service freely at your feet, To be commanded. King. Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstem. Queen. Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz : And I beseech you instantly to visit My too-much-changed son. — Go, some of you. And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is. Guild, Heavens make our presence and our practices Pleasant and helpful to him ! Queen. Ay, amen ! \_Exeunt Rosen., Guilden., and some Attendants. Enter Polonius. Polo. Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, Are joyfully return'd. s Gentry for courtesy, gentleness, or good-breeding, 4 " The supply and profit" is ihe feeding and realizing. 98 HAMLET, ACT II. Kijig. Thou still hast been the father of good news. Polo. Have I, my lord ? Assure you, my good liege, I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, Both to my God and to my gracious King : ^ And I do think — or else this brain of mine Hunts not the trail of policy so sure As it hath used to do — that I have found The very cause of Hamlet^s lunacy. King. O, speak of that ; that do I long to hear. Polo. Give, first, admittance to th' ambassadors ; My news shall be the fruit to that great feast. King. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in. — \_Exit POLONIUS. He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found The head and source of all your son's distemper. Queen. I doubt ^ it is no other but the main, — His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage. King. Well, we shall sift him. — Re-enter Polonius, with Voltimand and Cornelius. Welcome, my good friends ! Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway? Volt. Most fair return of greetings and desires. Upon our first, he sent out to suppress His nephew's levies ; which to hiril appear'd To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack ; But, better look'd into, he truly found It was against your Highness : whereat grieved, — That so his sickness, age, and impotence Was falsely borne in hand,'^ — sends out arrests 5 I hold my duty both to my God and to my King, as I do my soul. 6 Doubt, again, for suspect or fear. See page 68, note 46. 7 To bear in hand is to delude by false assurances or expectations. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 99 On Fortinbras ; which he, in brief, obeys ; Receives rebuke from Norway j and, in fine, Makes vow before his uncle never more To give th' assay of arms against your Majesty. Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy, Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee ; ^ And his commission to employ those soldiers, So levied as before, against the Polack : With an entreaty, herein further shown, [ Giving a paper. That it might please you to give quiet pass Through your dominions for this enterprise, On such regards of safety and allowance ^ As therein are set down. King. It likes us ^^ well ; And at our more consider'd time ^^ we'll read. Answer, and think upon this business : Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour. Go to your rest ; at night we'll feast together : Most welcome home ! \_Exeunt Voltimand and Cornelius. Polo. This business is well ended. — My liege, and madam, to expostulate ^^ What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, 8 Fee was often used for fee-simple, which is the strongest tenure in English law, and means an estate held in absolute right. 9 That is, on such pledges of safety to the country, and on such terms of permission. The passage of an army through a country is apt to cause great trouble and damage to the people. 1'^ " It likes us " for " it pleases us," or " we like it." Often so. ii That is, " when we have had time iox further consideration^ The Poet has several like expressions in this play. 12 Expostulate in the Latin sense of a7-gue or discuss. lOO HAMLET, ACT II. And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief : Your noble son is mad : Mad call I it ; for, to define true madness, What is't but to be nothing else but mad? But let that go. Queen. More matter, with less art. Polo. Madam, I swear I use no art at all. That he is mad, 'tis true : 'tis true 'tis pity ; And pity 'tis 'tis true : a fooHsh figure ; But farewell it, for I will use no art. Mad let us grant him, then : and now remains That we find out the cause of this effect, — Or rather say, the cause of this defect. For this effect defective comes by cause : Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend : ^^ I have a daughter, — have while she is mine, — Who, in her duty and obedience, mark, Hath given me this : now gather, and surmise. [Reads.] To the celestial and my souVs idol, the most beauti- fied Ophelia : — That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase ; beautified is a vile phrase : but you shall hear. Thus : [Reads.] In her excellent white bosom, these}^ d^c. Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her? Polo. Good madam, stay awhile ; I will be faithful. [Reads.] Doubt thou the sta7's are fi7'e ; Doubt that the Sun doth move ; 13 Perpend is weigh or co7isider. 14 The v^oxdL.these was usually added at the end of the superscription of letters. Hamlet's letter is somewhat in the euphuistic style which was fash- ionable in the Poet's time. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. lOI Doubt ^^ truth to be ajiar; But never doubt I love, O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon ^^ my groans ; but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,^^ Hamlet. This in obedience hath my daughter shown me ; And, more above, hath his soUcitings, As they fell out by time, by means, and place, All given to mine ear. King. But how hath she Received his love? Polo. What do you think of me ? Kinz. As of a man faithful and honourable. Polo. I would fain prove so. But what might you think, — When I had seen this hot love on the wing, (As I perceived it, I must tell you that, Before my daughter told me,) — -what might you, Or my dear Majesty your Queen here, think, If I had play'd the desk or table-book ; ^^ Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb ; ^^ Or look'd upon this love with idle sight ; — 15 Doubt, again, as note 6. In the two preceding lines the word has its ordinary sense. 16 Hamlet is tacitly quibbling : he first uses numbers in the sense of verses, and here implies the other sense. '^'^ That is, " while he is living." Machine for body. 18 By keeping dark about the matter. A desk or table-book does not prate of what it contains. A table-book is a case or set of tablets, to carry in the pocket, and write memoranda upon. See page 85, note 21. 19 " If I had given my heart a hint to be mute about their passion." " Cnnniventia, a winking at ; a sufferance ; a feigning not to see or know." I02 HAMLET, ACT II. What might you think? No, I went round ^^ to work; And my young mistress thus I did bespeak : Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star ;^^ This must not be : and then I precepts gave her, That she siiould lock herself from his resort, Admit no messengers, receive no tokens. Which done, she took the fruits of my advice ; And he, repulsed, — a short tale to make, — Fell into a sadness ; then into a fast ; Thence to a watch ; thence into a weakness ; Thence to a hghtness ; and, by this declension. Into the madness wherein now he raves. And all we mourn for. King. Do you think 'tis this ? Queen. It may be, very likely. Polo. Hath there been such a time — I'd fain know that — That I have positively said 'Tis so, When it proved otherwise ? King. Not that I know. Polo. \Pointing to his head and shoulder.~\ Take this from this, if this be otherwise. If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre.^^ King. How may we try it further ? Polo. You know, sometimes he walks for hours together Here in the lobby. 2" To be ro2md is to be plain, downright, ontspokett. 21 Not within thy destiny ; alluding to the supposed influence of the stars on the fortune of life. 22 Ce?it?-e here means, no doubt, the Earth, which, in the old astronomy, Was held to be literally the centre of the solar system. The Poet has the Vvord repeatedly in that sense. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 103 Queen. So he does indeed. Polo. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him : Be you and I behind an arras ^^ then ; Mark the encounter : if he love her not, And be not from his reason fall'n thereon, Let me be no assistant for a State, But keep a farm and carters.. King. We will try it. Queen. But look where sadly the poor wretch ^^ comes reading. Polo. Away, I do beseech you, both away : I'll board 2^ him presently. — \_Exeimt King, Queen, and Attendants. Enter Hamlet, I'eading. O, give me leave : How does my good Lord Hamlet ? Ham. Well, God-'a-mercy. Polo. Do you know me, my lord ? Hani. Excellent well ; you're a fishmonger .^^ Polo. Not I, my lord. Hani. Then I would you were so honest a man. Polo. Honest, my lord ! 23 In Shakespeare's time the chief rooms of houses were hned with tapes- try hangings, which Avere suspended on frames, some distance from the walls, to keep them from being rotted by the damp. These tapestries were called arras from the town Arras, in France, where they were made, 24 Wretch was the strongest term of endearment in the language ; gen- erally implying, however, a dash of pity. So in Othello, iii. 3, the hero, speaking of Desdemona, exclaims in a rapture of tenderness, " Excellent wretch, perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee ! " 25 To board him is to accost or address him. 26 Fishmonger m.Q2sv\. an angler as well as a dealer in fish. Hamlet prob- ably means that Polonius has come to fish out his secret. I04 HAMLET, ACT II. Ham, Ay, sir ; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man pick'd out of ten thousand. Folo. That's very true, my lord. Ha77t. For if the Sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion,^" — Have you a daughter ? Polo. I have, my lord. Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun : conception is a bless- ing ; but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to't. Polo. How say you by thatP^s — [Aside.'] Still harping on my daughter : yet he knew me not at first ; he said I was a fishmonger : he is far gone, far gone : and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love ; very near this. I'll speak to him again. — What do you read, my lord ? Ham. Words, words, words. Polo. What is the matter, my lord ? Ham. Between who ? Polo. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. Ham. Slanders, sir : for the satirical rogue says here that old men have gray beards ; that their faces are wrinkled ; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum ; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams : all which, sir, though I most powerfully and 27 " A good kissing carrion " is, no doubt, a carrion good for kissing, or good to kiss. So in The Merry Wives, v. 5, we have the compound " kissing- comfits," which were candies flavoured so as to perfume the breath, and thus render the Hps sweet for kissing, or to kiss. And so we often say " good hay-making weather," meaning, of course, weather good for hay-making, or good to make hay. In my first edition of Shakespeare, 1856, I so explained the passage ; but afterwards, in my School edition of Hamlet, 1870, 1 receded from that explanation, out of deference to the judgment of others. I am now obliged to Professor Hiram Corson for recalling me to it. 28 " How say you by that ? " is " What mean you by that ? " SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 05 potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty ^^ to have it thus set down ; for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. ^^ Polo. \_Aside.'\ Though this be madness, yet there is method in't. — Will you walk out of the air, my lord ? Ham. Into my grave? Polo. Indeed, that is out o' the air. — \_Asider\ How pregnant "^^ sometimes his replies are ! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so pros- perously be deliver'd of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daugh- ter. — My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. Hain. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal ; — \^Aside.'\ except my life, except my hfe, except my hfe. Polo. Fare you well, my lord. Ham. These tedious old fools ! Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Polo. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet ; there he is. Rosen. \To Polo.] God save you, sir ! [^x// Polonius. Guild. My honour'd lord ! Rosen. My most dear lord ! Ham. My excellent-good friends ! How dost thou, Guildenstern ? — Ah, Rosencrantz ! — Good lads, how do ye both? Rosen. As the indifferent ^^ children of the Earth. 29 Shakespeare sometimes uses honesty with the sense of the adjective right, or honourable. 3i> Thiat is, "if you could turn your life backward, and grow young." 31 Pregnaftt, here, is pithy, _/;/// of meaTiing, or of pertbiency. 82 Iiidlfferetit, here, has the sense of middling, — tolerably well off. Io6 HAMLET, ACT II. Guild, Happy, in that we are not over-happy ; On Fortune's cap we're not the very button. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe? Rosen. Neither, my lord. Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours ? What's the news ? Rosen. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest. Ham. Then is doomsday near : but your news is not true. Let me question more in particular : What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither? Guild. Prison, my lord ! Ham. Denmark's a prison. Rosen. Then is the world one. Ham. A goodly one ; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst. Rosen. We think not so, my lord. Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you ; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so : to me it is a prison. Rosen. Why, then your ambition makes it one ; 'tis too narrow for your mind. Ham. O God, I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. Guild. Which dreams indeed are ambition ; for the very substance of the ambitious ^^ is merely the shadow of a dream. 33 This is obscure : but " the very substance of the ambitious " probably means the substance of that which the ambitious pursue, not that of which they are made. The obscurity grows from an uncommon use of the objec- tive genitive. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 107 Ha7n. A dream itself is but a shadow. Rosen. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow. Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the Court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.34 Rosen. ) „ . r- -7 7 \ We 11 wait upon you. yj- III let. ) Ham. No such matter : I will not sort you with the rest of my servants ; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended.^^ But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore ? ^^ Rosen. To visit you, my lord ; no other occasion. Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks ; but I thank you : and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear at a halfpenny. Were you not sent for ? Is it your own in- clining ? Is it a free visitation ? Come, deal justly with me : come, come ; nay, speak. • Guild. What should we say, my lord ? Ham. Why, anything, — but to the purpose. You were sent for ; and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties have not craft enough to colour.^^ I know the good King and Queen have sent for you. 34 Hamlet is here playing or fencing with words, and seems to lose him- self in the riddles he is making. The meaning is any thing but clear ; per- haps was not meant to be understood. But bodies is no doubt put for substance or substances. And perhaps the sense will come thus : Substance and shadow are antithetic and correlative terms, and Hamlet assumes beggar and ki.??g \o be so too. As a shadow must be cast by some substance; so our beggars are the substances antithetic and correlative to the shadows cast by them. All which infers that our kings and heroes are but the shad- ows of our beggars. — Fay is merely a diminutive oi faith. 35 Referring, perhaps, to the " bad dreams " spoken of a little before. 36 " What is your business at Elsinore ? " See page 63, note 36. 87 To colour is to disguise, to concjal. I08 HAMLET, ACT II. Rosen. To what end, my lord? Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no. Rose7i. \_Aside to Guilden.] What say you ? Hain. \_Aside7\ Nay, then I have an eye of you.-^^ — If you love me, hold not off. Guild. My lord, we were sent for. Ha77i. I will tell you why ; so shall my anticipation pre- vent your discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather.39 I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises ; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave ^^ o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with gold- en fire, — why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in action how Hke an angel ! in apprehension how like a god ! the 38 " I will watch you sharply." Of for on ; a common usage. 39 Hamlet's fine sense of honour is well shown in this. He will not tempt them to any breach of confidence ; and he means that, by telling them the reason, he will forestall and prevent their disclosure of it. — Moult is an old word for change ; used especially of birds when casting their feathers. So in Bacon's Natiaul History : " Some birds there be, that upon their moult- ing do turn colour ; as robin-redbreasts, after their moulting, grow red again by degrees." 40 Here, as often, brave is grand, splendid. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. IO9 beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust ? man delights not me ; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. Rosen. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts. Ham. Why did you laugh then, when I said man delights not me ? Rosen. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment "^^ the players shall receive from you : we coted"^- them on the way, and hither are they com- ing to offer you service. Ham. He that plays the king shall be welcome, — his Majesty shall have tribute of me ; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target \ the lover shall not sigh gratis ; the humorous man '^'^ shall end his part in peace ; the Clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o' the sear ; '*^ 41 '' Lentett entertainment" is entertainment for the season of Lent, when players were not allowed to perform in public, in London. 42 To cote is, properly, to overpass, to outstrip. So Scott, in Old Mortality^ note J. : " This horse was so iieet, and its rider so expert, that they are said to have outstripped and coted, or turned, a hare upon the Bran-Law." 43 Humorous man here means a man made unhappy by his own crotch- ets. Humour was used for any wa)^ward, eccentric impulse causing a man to be full of ups and downs, or of flats and sharps. Such characters were favourites on the stage. The melancholy Jaques in As You Like It is an instance. 44 Tickle is delicate, sensitive, easily moved. Sear, also spelt sere and serre, is the catch of a gun-lock, that holds the hammer cocked or half- cocked. Here, as often, o\ that is, of, is equivalent to in respect of. The image is of a gunlock with the hammer held so lightly by the catch as to go off at the slightest pressure on the trigger ; and the general idea is of per- sons so prone to laughter, that the least touch or gleam of wit is enough to make them explode. The same thought occurs in The Tempest, ii. i : " I did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs, that they always use to laugh at nothing." Here, as in many other places, sensible is sensitive. In the text, Hamlet is slurring the extern- no HAMLET, ACT II. and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank-verse shall halt for't.-*^ What players are they ? Rosen. Even those you were wont to take delight in, the tragedians of the city. Ham. How chances it they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.^^ Rosen. I think their innovation comes by the means of the late inhibition.^^ Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? are they so follow'd? Rosen. No, indeed, they are not. Ham. How comes it? do they grow rusty? Rosen. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace ; but there is, sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases,^^ that cry out on the top of question,^^ and are most tyrannically porized witticisms of the Clowns, by a sort of ironical praise. For this explanation I am indebted to the " Clarendon Press Series," which quotes from Howard's Defensatlve against the Poyson of supposed Prophecies, 1620: " Discovering the moods and humors of the vulgar sort to be so loose and tickle of the seared 45 That is, the poet's feet shall go lame from her overworking them. 46 The London theatrical companies, when not allowed to play in the city, were wont to travel about the country, and exercise their craft in the towns. This was less reputable, and at the same time brought less pay, than residing in the city. 47 Referring, no doubt, to an order of the Privy Council, issued in June, 1600. By this order the players were itihibited from acting in or near the city during the season of Lent, besides being very much restricted at all other seasons, and hence " chances it they travel," or stroll into the country. 48 Eyrie, from eyren, eggs, properly means a brood, but sometimes a nest. Eyases are unfledged hawks, 49 " Cry out on the top of question " means, I have no doubt, exclaim against those who are at the top of their profession, who stand highest in the public esteem, who are most talked or conversed about as having surpassed all others. Shakespeare uses cry out on, or cry on, nearly if not quite always in the sense of exclaim against, or cry down. So in the last scene of this SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 1 1 clapped for't : these are now the fashion ; and so berattle ^^ the common stages, — so they call them, — that many wear- ing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.5i Ham. What, are they children? who maintains 'em? how are they escoted?^^ ^^■^ \\^^y pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players, — as it is most like, if their means are no better, — their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession ? ^^ play: "This quarry cries on havoc." He also very often uses top, both noun and verb, in the sense of to excel or surpass. He also has question repeatedly in the sense of talk or conversation. — For this explanation I am mainly indebted to Mr. Joseph Crosby, of Zanesville, O., who remarks to me upon the whole sentence as follows : " A brood of young hawks, unfledged nestlings, that exclaim against, or lampoon, the best productions of the dramatic pen ; little chits, that declaim squibs, and turn to ridicule their seniors and betters, both actors and authors, and are vociferously applauded for it," 5'i To berattle is to berate, to squib. Here, again, I quote from Mr. Crosby : " It is no wonder the regular profession suffer, when children thus ' carry it away,' and are all ' the fashion ' ; berating the adult performers, and getting ' most tyrannically clapp'd for it ' ; so much so, that the well-deserv- ing writers for the ' common stages,' grown-up men ' wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills,' (applied to the penny-a-liners for the boys,) and dare scarce come to the play-house any more." 51 The allusion is to the children of St. Paul's and of the Revels, whose performing of plays was much in fashion at the time this play was written. From an early date, the choir-boys of St. Paul's, Westminster, Windsor, and the Chapel Royal, were engaged in such performances, and sometimes played at Court. The complaint here is, that these juveniles abuse " the common stages," that is, the pubUc theatres. 52 Escoted is paid; from the French escot, a shot or reckoning. — Quality is profession or calling ; often so used, — " No longer than they can sing" means no longer than they keep the voices of boys. 53 Run down the profession to which they are themselves to succeed. This fully accords with, and approves, the explanation given in note 49. As Mr. Crosby observes, " it appears that a contest was waging between the 112 HAMLET, ACT II. Rosen. Faith, there has been much to-do on both sides ; and the nation holds it no sin to tarre ^^ them to controversy : there was for a while no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.^^ Ham. Is't possible? Guild. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.^^ Ham. Do the boys carry it away?^^ Rosen. Ay, that they do, my lord ; Hercules and his load too. Ham. It is not very strange ; for mine uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little. 'Sblood,^^ there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. \_Flourish of trumpets within. Guild. There are the players. patrons of these boy-players, who wrote their parts for them, and the writers for ' the common stages,' whom the children so berated and disparaged." 54 The Poet has to-do repeatedly in the exact sense of ado. — To tarre is to set 07t, to incite ; a word borrowed from the setting-on of dogs. 55 The meaning is not " unless the poet and the player " went to fighting each other, but unless both the writers and the actors joined together in pelting and running down the full-grown regular performers. Here, as often, argument is the subject-matter or plot of a play, and so is put for the play itself. Question, again, often means conversation, and is here put, ap- parently, for the dialogue. So that the meaning of the whole seems to be, " The public would not patronize these juvenile performances, unless both the ' eyases ' and the ' goosequills,' (that is, the boy-actors and their writers,) in their dialogue, went to abusing or berating the authors and actors of the ' common stages.' " — Crosby. 56 Bandying of wit, or pelting each other with words. 57 That is, carry all the world before them : there is, perhaps, an allusion to the Globe theatre, the sign of which is said to have been Hercules carry- ing the globe. 5S 'Sblood is an old diluted and disguised oath, originally God's blood. So, also, are 'swoimds or 'zounds, 'sfoot, 'slight. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. II3 Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come : the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony : let me comply with you in this garb ; lest my ex- tent to the players, ^'^ which, I tell you, must show fairly out- ward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome ; but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. Guild. In what, my dear lord ? Ham. I am but mad north-north-west ; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.^^ Enter Polonius, Polo. Well be with you, gentlemen ! Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern ; — and you too ; — at each ear a hearer : that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling- clouts. Rosen. Happily he's the second time come to them j for they say an old man is twice a child. Ham. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players ; mark it. — You say rights sir : o' Monday morning; 'twas so indeed.*^^ Polo. My lord, I have news to tell you. Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome, — 59 To comply with, as here used, evidently means to be formally civil or polite to, or to compliment. We have it again in the same sense, in v. 2, where Hamlet says of Osric, " He did comply with his dug before he suck'd it." — Appzirtetiance is appertainings, ox proper appendages. — Garb is style or manner. Repeatedly so. — " My exteitt to the players " means exte?tsio7t of courtesy and civility to them. 60 " To know a hawk from a handsaw " was a proverb in Shakespeare's time. Handsaw is merely a corruption of hernshaw, which means a heroft. 61 This is spoken in order to bUnd Polonius as to what they have been talking about. 114 HAMLET, ACT II. Polo. The actors are come hither, my lord. Ham. Buz, buz ! ^'^ Polo. Upon mine honour, — Ham. Then came each actor on his ass, — Polo, — the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pas- toral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unhmited ; ^^ Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty,^^ these are the only men. Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou! Polo. What treasure had he, my lord ? Ham. Why, One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved passing well. Polo. \Aside^ Still on my daughter. Ha7n. Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah ? 62 Hamlet affects to discredit the news : all a mere buzzing or rumour. Polonius then assures him, " On my honour " ; which starts the poor joke, " If they are come on your honour, ' then came each actor on his ass ' " ; these latter words being probably a quotation from some ballad. 63 Individable for undivided; just as we have tenable for retained, i. 2: " Let it be tenable in your silence still." The Poet has many like instances of the endings -able or -ible and -ed used indiscriminately. In the text, scene and poem are evidently used as equivalent terms. In the Greek Tragedy there was no division into scenes ; the scene continued the same, or undivided, all through the piece. But in the Gothic Drama, as Shake- speare found and fixed it, the changes of scene are without definite limita- tions. This seems to be the difference meant. Seneca was considered the best of the Roman tragic writers, and Plautus of the comic. 64 "The meaning," says Collier, " probably is, that the players were good, whether at written productions or at extemporal plays, where liberty was allowed to the performers to invent the dialogue, in imitation of the Italian commedle at improvisoy v SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. I15 Polo. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daugh- ter that I love passing well. Ham. Nay, that follows not. Polo. What follows, then, my lord ? Ham. Why, As by lot, God wot; and then, you know, // came to pass, as most like it was,^^ — the first row of the pious chanson 66 will show you more.; for look, where my abridgments come.^^ — Enter four or five Players. You are welcome, masters ; welcome, all. I am glad to see ye well. Welcome, good friends. — O, my old friend ! thy face is valanced since I saw thee last : ^s comest thou to beard me in Denmark? — What, my young lady and mis- 65 Hamlet is teasing the old fox, and quibbling between a logical and a literal sequence. The lines he quotes are from an old ballad, entitled Jephfha, Judge of Israel. A copy of the ballad, as Shakespeare knew it, was reprinted in Evan's Old Ballads, in 1810; the first stanza being as fol- lows : — I have read that many years agoe, When Jephtha, judge of Israel, Had one fair daughter and no moe, Whom he loved passing well; As by lot, God wot, It came to passe, most like it was, Great warrs there should be. And who should be the chiefe but he, but he. 66 Chanson is something to be sung or chanted; and "the first row" probably means the first column, or, perhaps, stanza. 6" Perhaps Hamlet calls the players " my abridgments " in the same sense and for the same reason as he afterwards calls them " the abstracts and brief chroniclers of the time." He may have the further meaning of abridg- ing or cutting short his talk with Polonius. Or, again, he may mean that their office is to abridge the time, or make it seem short; to minister pas- times. 68 Valanced \% fringed, and here means that the player has lately grown a beard. Il6 HAMLET, ACT II. tress ! By'r Lady, ^^ your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopineJ^ Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not crack'd within the ring,'^^ — Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at any thing we see : '^^ we'll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality ; come, a passionate speech. I Play. What speech, my lord ? Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, — but it was never acted ; or, if it was, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the million ; 'twas caviar to the general ; "^^ but it was — as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine '^^ — an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as 69 By r Lady is a contraction oi by our Lady, referring to the Virgin Mary. In the Poet's time, female parts were acted by boys ; and Hamlet is ad- dressing one whom as a boy he had seen playing some heroine. ■^0 Choplne was the name of an enormously thick-soled shoe which Span- ish and Italian ladies were in the habit of wearing, in order, as would seem, to make themselves as tall as the men, perhaps taller ; or it may have been, to keep their long skirts from mopping the sidewalks too much. The fash- ion is said to have been used at one time by the English. ■^1 The old gold coin was thin and liable to crack. There was a ring or circle on it, within which' •'the sovereign's head was stamped ; if the crack extended beyond this ring, it was rendered uncurrent : it was therefore a simile applied to any other injured object. There is some humour in ap- plying it to a cracked voice. ■^2 From this it would seem that the English custom in falconry was, first to let off some bird into the air, and then to fiy the hawk after it; the French, to fly the hawk at any bird that might happen to be on the wing within ken. "^^ Caviar v^^s the pickled roes of certain fish of the sturgeon kind, called in Italy caviale, and much used there and in other countries. Great quan- tities were prepared on the river Volga formerly. As a dish of high season- ing and peculiar flavour, it was not relished by the many ; that is, the gen- eral. 74 Meaning, probably, were better than mine. See page no, note 49. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. II7 much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallets in the hnes to make the matter savoury ,''^5 j^gr no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affec- tation ; but call'd it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved : 'twas yEneas' tale to Dido ; and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam's slaugh- ter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line : let me see, let me see, — The ricgged Fyrrkus, like tJi' Hyrcanian beast, — 'tis not so : — it begins with Pyrrhus : The i^ugged Pyrrhics, — he whose sable arms. Black as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in the ominous horse, — Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared With heraldry more dismal : head to foot Now is he total gules ;'^^ hoj-ridly trick" d With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, Baked and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrannous and damjted light To their lorcfs murder. Roasted in wrath and fire. And thus oversized with coagulate gore, With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Pidam seeks. So, proceed you. Polo. Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion. 75 No impertinent high-seasoning or false brilliancy, to give it an unnatu- ral relish. Sallet is explained " a pleasant and merry word that maketh folk to laugh." — This passage shows that the Poet understood the essential poverty of " fine writing." 76 Gules is red, in the language of heraldry : to trick is to colour. Il8 HAMLET, ACT II. I Play. Anon he finds him ^ Striking too short at Greeks ; his antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Rep2tgna7it to co7ninand : imequal matched, Pyrrhus at Priam drives ; in rage strikes wide ; But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword Til' tmnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium, Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top Stoops to his base ; and with a hideous crash Takes prisoner Pyrrhus^ ear : for, lo ! his sword. Which was declining on the milky head Of reverend Priam, seeni'd V the air to stick : So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood. And like a neutral to his will and matter. Did nothing. But, as we often see, against so7ne storm, A silence in the heavens, the rack'^'^ stand still, The bold winds speechless, and the 07'b below As hush as death, anon the di'eadful thunder Doth rend the 7'egiojt ; "^ so, after Pyrt'hus'* pause. Aroused vengeance sets him new a-wo7'k ; And never did the Cyclops'' hammers fall On Ma?'s's armour, forged for proof etei-7ie^^ With less re77iorse tha7i Pyrrhus'' bleedi7ig sword Now falls 071 P7da77t. Out, out, thou ha7'lot, Fo7'tu7ie ! All you gods, 77 Rack, from reek, is used by old writers to signify the highest and there- fore hghtest clouds. So in Fletcher's Women Pleased, iv. 2 : " Far swifter than the sailing 7'ack that gallops upon the wings of angry winds." So that the heavens must be silent indeed, when " the rack stands still." 78 Region, here, is sky, or the air. So in the last speech of this scene : " I should have fatted all the regio7i kites," &c. 79 For eternal resistance to assault. As we say shot-proof, water-proof. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. II9 In general synod, take away her power ; Break all the spokes and fellies frofn her wheel, And boivl the round nave down the, hill of heaven As low as to the fiends I '^^ Polo. This is too long. Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard. — Pr'ythee' say on : he's for a jig*^^ or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps Say on ; come to Hecuba. I Play. But who, O, who had seen the modled Queen — Ham. The mobled Queen ? Polo. That's good ; mobled Queen ^^ is good. I Play. — Run barefoot zip and down, threatening the flames With bisson rheum ; ^^ a clout about that head Where late the diadem stood ; and for a robe, About her lank and all o^er-teemed loins, A blanket in th^ alarm of fear caught up ; — Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep''d ' Gainst Fortune'' s state would treason have pronounced : 80 This admirable substitution of the epic for the dramatic, giving such reality to the dramatic diction of Shakespeare's own dialogue, and author- ized, too, by the actual style of the tragedies before his time, is well worthy of notice. The fancy that a burlesque was intended sinks below criticism : the lines, as epic narrative, are superb. — In the "thoughts, and even in the separate parts of the diction, this description is highly poetical : in truth, taken by itself, that is its fault, that it is too poetical! — the language of lyric vehemence and epic pomp, and not of the drama. But if Shakespeare had made the diction truly dramatic, where would have been the contrast be- tween Hamlet SiXid the play in Hamlet f — COLERIDGE, 81 Gig-a, in Italian, was a fiddle or crowd; gigaiv, a fiddler, or minstrel. Hence ayV^ was a ballad, or ditty, sung to the fiddle. 82 Mobled is hastily or carelessly dressed. To mob or mab is still used in the north of England for to dress in a slatternly manner ; and Coleridge says " 7;zc»i5-cap is still a word in common use for a morning cap." 83 Bisson is blind. Bisson rheum is therefore blindi?ig tears. I20 HAAILET, ACT II. But if the gods themselves did see her then. When she saw Pyrrhus inake malicious sport In mincing with his sword her husband^ s limbs, The instant biirst of clamotir that she made — Unless things mortal move the?7i not at all — Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, And passion in the gods^'^ Polo. Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's eyes. — Pray you, no more. Ham. 'Tis well ; I'll have thee speak out the rest soon. — Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed ? Do you hear ? let them be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time : ^^ after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live. Polo. My lord, I will use them according to their desert. Ham. God's bodykins,^^ man, much better ! Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your ' own honour and dignity : the less they de- serve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. Polo. Come, sirs. Ham. Follow him, friends ; we'll hear a play to-morrow. \_Exit PoLONius with all the Players but the First.'] — Dost thou hear me, old friend ? can you play The Murder of Gon- zago ? 84 By a hardy poetical license this expression means, "Would haxe filled with tears the burning eyes of heaven." — Passion, here, is compassion, or sympathetic sorrow. 85 The condensed efficacies and representatives of the age. In Shake- speare's time, the Drama, including both authors and actors, v^^as a sort of Fourth Estate in the realm ; perhaps as much so as the Newspaper Press is now. 86 Bodykins is merely a diminutive of body. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 121 J Play. Ay, my lord. Ham, We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in't, could you not ? I Play. Ay, my lord. Ham. Very well. Follow that lord ; and look you mock him not. \_Exit Player.] — My good friends, I'll leave you till night : you are welcome to Elsinore. Rosen. Good my lord ! Ham. Ay, so, God b' wi' ye ! — \_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! Is it not monstrous, that this player here. But in a fiction, in a dream of passion. Could force his soul so to his own conceit,^^ That from her working all his visage wann'd ; Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit ? and all for nothing ! For Hecuba ! What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her ? What would he do, Had he the motive and the cue ^^ for passion That I have ? He would drown the stage with tears. And cleave the general ear with horrid speech ; Make mad the guilty, and appal the free. Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed 87 Conceit is used repeatedly by the Poet for conception or imagination. 88 The hint or prompt-word, a technical phrase among players. "A prompter," says Florio, " one who keepes the booke for the plaiers, and teacheth them or schoUers their kue." 122 HAMLET, ACT II. The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing ; ^^ no, not for a king Upon whose property and most dear life A damn'd defeat was made.^^ Am I a coward? Who calls me villain ? breaks my pate across ? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face ? Tweaks me by th' nose ? gives me the lie i' the throat, As deep as to the lungs ? ^^ who does me this ? Ha! 'Swounds, I should take it ; for it cannot be But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall To make oppression bitter ; ^^ or, ere this, I should have fatted all the region kites ^^ With this slave's offal.^'^ Bloody, bawdy villain ! 89 This John was probably distinguished as a sleepy, apathetic fellow, a sort of dreaming or droning simpleton or flunky. The only other mention of him that has reached us is in Armin's Nest of Ninnies, 1608 : " His name is John, indeed, says the cinnick, but neither John a-nods nor John a-dreams, yet either, as you take it." so Thus Chapman, in his Revenge for Honour: "That he might in the meantime make a sure defeat on our good aged father's life." 91 This was giving one the lie with the most galling additions and terms of insult, or belabouring him with extreme provocation, and then rubbing it in ; so that the not resenting it would stamp him as the most hopeless of cowards. So in King Richard II., when Norfolk would drive home his charge upon Bolingbroke with the utmost force, he exclaims, " As low as to thy heart, through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest." 92 " Lack gall to make me feel the bitterness of oppression " ; or, perhaps, to make oppression bitter to the oppressor. — The gentleness of doves and pigeons was supposed to proceed from their having no gall in them. 93 All the kites of the airy region, the sky. See page 118, note 78. 94 This soliloquy is said to mean, forsooth, that thus far Hamlet has mis- taken and blundered about the whole thing. Pray, have people no ears for the agony of a human being, which is so intolerable, that it drives him to SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 23 Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless ^^ villain 1 O vengeance ! — Why, what an ass am I ! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murder'd. Prompted to my revenge by Heaven and Hell,^^ Must, like a trull, unpack my heart with words, And fall a- cursing, like a very drab, A scullion ! Fie upon't ! foh ! About, my brain ! ^^ — I've heard That guilty creatures sitting at a play Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul, that presently They have proclaim'd their malefactions ; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak the extremity of falling out with himself? no appreciation of a situation in which righteous indignation, because it cannot reach its object, turns against itself, in order to give itself vent, and to cool the heated sense of the impos- sibility of acting, by self-reproach and all manner of self-depreciation ? That he can say nothing for a king upon whose property and most dear life a damned defeat has been made, — that is the very horror of his position, — to be forced to speak not a syllable directly to the point : if he had chosen to do only that, most assuredly and instantly he would have lost the game. The actor, he can talk of Priam's death and Hecuba's grief, — talk of them so movingly ! Had he Ms (Hamlet's) motive, Ms cue for passion, he would drown the stage with tears, make mad the guilty, &c., because he, in the freedom of the actor, of the objective, can act ! But Hamlet cannot do that ; ke can act no play, but a real thing, directly, out of his own consciousness ; and must suffer wreck, because he can adduce no proof of the reality. He must be silent ; he can operate only indirectly, by means of a reflected image ; must let the play-actors speak and act for him ; and can himself only /00k on and observe. — Werder. 95 Kindless is unnatural. See page 59, note 18. — Observe how Hamlet checks himself in this strain of objurgation, and then, in mere shame of what he has just done, turns to ranting at himself for having ranted. 96 By all the best and all the worst passions of his nature. 9"^ "About, my brain," is nothing more than " to 'work, my brain." The phrase to go about a thing, is still common. 124 HAMLET, act ill. With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle : I'll observe his looks ; I'll tent him to the quick : if he but blench^^s I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be the Devil : and the Devil hath power T' assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and perhaps, Out of my weakness and my melancholy, — As he is very potent with such spirits, — Abuses me to damn me.^^ I'll have grounds More relative than this : ^^^ the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King. [^ExU ACT III. Scene I. — A Room in the Castle. Enter the King, the Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosen- CRANTZ, a7ld GUILDENSTERN. King. And can you, by no drift of circumstance,^ Get from him why he puts on this confusion, 98 To tent was to probe a wound. To blench is to shrink or start. 99 That Hamlet was not alone in the suspicion here started, appears from Sir Thomas Browne's Rellglo Medici : " I believe that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandering souls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting and suggesting us into mischief, blood, and villainy ; instilling and stealing into our hearts that the blessed spirits are not at rest in their graves, but wander, solicitous of the affairs of the world." — To abuse, in the Poet's language, is to deceive, or practise upon with illusions. 100 Grounds standing in closer and clearer relation with the matter alleged by the Ghost. 1 Course of indirect, roundabout inquiry. SCENE I. PRINCE OF DExNMARK. 1 25 Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? Rosen. He does confess he feels himself distracted ; But from what cause he will by no means speak. Guild. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded ; But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof. When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state. Queej2. Did he receive you well ? Rosen. Most like a gentleman. Guild. But with much forcing of his disposition. Rosen. Most free of question,^ but of our demands Niggard in his reply. Queen. Did you assay him To any pastime ? Rosen. Madam, it so fell out that certain players We o'er-raught ^ on the way : of these we told him ; And there did seem in him a kind of joy To hear of it. They are about the Court ; And, as I think, they have already order This night to play before him. Polo. 'Tis most true : And he beseech'd me to entreat your Majesties To hear and see the matter. King. With all my heart ; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclined. — Good gentlemen, give him a further edge. And drive his purpose on to these delights. 2 Here, as often, of is probably equivalent to in respect of. Also in " of our demands." Question may here mean inquiry, or conversation ; and either of these senses accords well enough with the occasion referred to. See Critical Notes. 3 O'er-raught is overtook ; raught being an old form of reached. 126 HAMLET, ACT III. Rosen. We shall, my lord. \_Exetmt RosENCRANTZ and Guildenstern. King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too ; For we have closely* sent for Hamlet hither, That he, as 'twere by accident, may here Affront ^ OpheHa. Her father and myself, lawful espials, Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen, We may of their encounter frankly judge ; (\nd gather by him, as he is behaved, If t be the affliction of his love or no That thus he suffers for. Queen. I shall obey you. — (\nd for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That your good beauty be the happy cause Of Hamlet's wildness ; so shall I hope your virtues Will bring him to his wonted way again, To both your honours. Ophe. Madam, I wish it may. \^Exit Queen. Polo. Ophelia, walk you here. — Gracious, so please you. We will bestow ourselves. — \_To Ophe.] Read on this book ; That show of such an exercise may colour Your loneliness. We're oft to blame in this, — 'Tis too much proved, — that with devotion's visage A.nd pious action we do sugar o'er The Devil himself. King. \_Asider\ O, 'tis too true ! How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience ! 4^ Closely is secretly ; sent in such a way as not to let Hamlet know from whom the message came : a got-up accident. 5 Affront was sometimes used for meet, or, as it is explained a little after, encounter. So in Cymbeline, iv. 3 : " Your preparation can affront no less than what you hear of." SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 12 7 The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it^ Than is my deed to my most painted word. O heavy burden ! Polo. I hear him coming : let's withdraw, my lord. \^Exeunt King and Polonius. Enter Hamlet. Ham. To be, or not to be, — that is the question : Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them ? To die, — to sleep, — No more ; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, — 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, — to sleep ; — To sleep ! perchance to dream ! — ay, there's the rub j '^ For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,^ Must give us pause : there's the respect ' That makes calamity of so long life ; ^ For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, 6 Not more ugly in comparison with the thing that helps it. " Rub is obstruction, hindrance. The word was borrowed from the bowl- ing-alley, where it was used of any thing that deflected the bowl from its aim. 8 "This mortal coir is the tumult and bustle of this mortal life; or, as Wordsworth has it, " the fretful stir unprofitable, and the fever of the world." Perhaps coil here means, also, the body. ^ That is, the consideration that induces us to undergo the calamity of so long a life. This use of respect is very frequent. 128 HAMLET, ACT III. The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus i^ make With a bare bodkin? who'd these fardels ii bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, — The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns,^^ — puzzles the will. And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; And thus the native hue of resolution ^ Is sickhed o'er with the pale cast of thought ; i^ And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry. And lose the name of action. — Soft you now ! The fair Ophelia ! — Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd. Ojf/ie. Good my lord, How does your Honour for this many a day? 1" The allusion is to the term quietus est, used in settling accounts at exchequer audits. Thus in Sir Thomas Overbury's character of a Franklin: " Lastly, to end him, he cares not when his end comes ; he needs not feare his audit, for his quietus is in heaven." — Bodkin was the ancient term for a small dagger. 11 Fardel is an old word for burdef? or bundle. 12 Bourn is boundary. So in Troilus and Cressida, ii. 3 : "I will not praise thy wisdom, which, like a boutn, a pale, a shore, confines thy spa- cious and dilated parts." — Of course Hamlet means that no one comes back to the state of mortal life ; or, as Coleridge says, " no traveller returns to this world as his home or abiding-place." 13 That is, the pale complexion of grief. Tho7ight \Na.s often used in this way. So in Twelfth Night, ii. 4: "She pined in thought" ; that is, she wasted away through grief. Also in yulius Ccesar, ii. i : "If he love Caesar, all he can do is to himself; take thought a?id die for Caesar" ; which means erieve himself to death. SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 29 Ham. I humbly thank you ; well, well, well. Ophe. My lord, I have remembrances of yours. That I have longed long to re-deliver ; I pray you, now receive them. Ham, No, not I : I never gave you aught. Ophe, My honour'd lord, 'I know right well you did ; And with them words of so sweet breath composed As made the things more rich : their perfume lost, Take these again ; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There, my lord. Ham. Ha, ha ! are you honest? Ophe. My lord? Ham. Are you fair?i'* Ophe. What means your lordship ? Ha7n. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty sho; /d admit no discourse to your beauty.i^ Ophe. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner 1* Here it is evident that the penetrating Hamlet perceives, from the strange and forced manner of Opheha, that the sweet girl was not acting a part of her own, but was a decoy : and his after-speeches are not so much directed to her as to the listeners and spies. Such a discovery in a mood so anxious and irritable accounts fbr a certain harshness in him ; and yet a wild up-working of love, sporting with opposites in a wilful, self-tormenting strain of irony, is perceptible throughout. — COLERIDGE. 15 " Your chastity should have no conversation or acquaintance with your beauty." This use oi ho?iesty for chastity is very frequent in Shakespeare. — It should be noted, that in these speeches Hamlet refers, not to Ophelia personally, but to the sex in general. So, especially, when he says, " I have heard of your paintings too," he does not mean that Ophelia paints, but that the use of painting is common with her sex. 130 HAMLET, ACT III. transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his hkeness : this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. Ophe. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have beheved me ; for virtue can- not so inoculate our old stock but we shall rehsh of it : ^^ I loved you not. Ophe. I was the more deceived. Ham. Get thee to a nunnery : why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners ? I am myself indifferent honest : ^^ but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me : I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious ; with more offences at my beck ^^ than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven ? We are arrant knaves all ; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? Ophe. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the foobno where but in's own house. Farewell. Ophe. \_Aside^ O, help him, you sweet Heavens ! Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry : Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go : fare- well. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool ; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go ; and quickly too. Farewell. 16 " Cannot so penetrate and purify our nature, but that we shall still have a strong taste of our native badness." 1" " Indifferent honest " is tolerably honest. See page 105, note 32. 18 That is, " ready to come about me on a signal of permission." SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 131 Ophe. \_Aside^ O heavenly powers, restore him ! Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough ; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves an- other : you jig, you amble, and you lisj), and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. ^^ Go to, I'll no more on't ; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages : those that are married already, all but one, shall live ; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.^^ \_Exit' Ophe. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword ; Th' expectancy and rose of the fair State, The glass of fashion and the mould of form,^! Th' observed of all observers, — quite, quite down ! And I, of ladies most deject and wretched. That suck'd the honey of his music vows. Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh \ 19 Johnson explains this, " You mistake by wanton affectation, and pre- tend to mistake by ignorance'' Moberly, " You use ambiguous words, as if you did not know their meaning." 20 Throughout the latter part of this fine scene, Hamlet's disorder runs to a very high pitch, and he seems to take an insane delight in lacerating the gentle creature before him. Yet what keenness and volubility of wit ! what energy and swiftness of discourse ! the intellectual forces in a fiery gallop, while the social feelings seem totally benumbed. And when Ophelia meets his question, "Where's your father? " with the reply, "At home, my lord," how quickly he darts upon the true meaning of her presence ! The sweet, innocent girl, who knows not how to word an untruth, having never tried on a lie in her life, becomes embarrassed in her part ; and from her manner Hamlet instantly gathers what is on foot, and forthwith shapes his speech so as to sting the eavesdroppers. 21 This is well explained in what Lady Percy says of her lost Hotspur, in 2 King Henry IV., ii. 3 : "By his light did all the chivalry of England move ; he was indeed the glass wherein the noble youth did dress themselves." 132 HAMLET, ACT III. That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me, T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see ! Enter the King and Polonius. King. Love ! his affections do not that way tend ; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a httle, Was not like madness. There's something in his soul. O'er which his melancholy sits on brood ; And I do doubt ^^ the hatch and the disclose Will be some danger : which for to prevent, I have in quick determination Thus set it down : He shall with speed to England, For the demand of our neglected tribute : Haply the seas and countries different. With variable objects, shall expel This something-settled matter in his heart ; Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus From fashion of himself. What think you on't ? Polo. It shall do well : but yet do I believe The origin and commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love. — How now, Ophelia ! You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said ; We heard it all. — My lord, do as you please ; But, if you hold it fit, after the play Let his Queen mother all alone entreat him ToMiow his grief: let her be round ^^ with him; And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear Of all their conference. If she find him not, 22 Doubt, again, in the sense oifear or suspect. 23 Round, again, iox plain-spoken, downright^ SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 133 To England send him ; or confine him where Your wisdom best shall think. Kins^. It shall be so : Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. \_Exeicnt. Scene II. — A Hall in the Castle. Enter Hamlet and Players.^ Ham. 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 smoothness. O, 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 whipp'd for o'erdoing Termagant ; it out- herods Herod : ^ pray you, avoid it. 1 " This dialogue of Hamlet with the players," says Coleridge, " is one of the happiest instances of Shakespeare's power of diversifying the scene while he is carrying on the plot." 2 The ancient theatres were far from the commodious, elegant structures which later times have seen. The pit was, truly, what its name denotes, an untioored space in the area of the house, sunk considerably beneath the level of the stage. Hence this part of the audience were cd^^A givundlings. 3 Termagaimt Ss the name given in old romances to the tempestuous god of the Saracens. He is usually joined with Mahound, or Mahomet. John Florio calls him "^ Termiglsto, a great boaster, quarreller, killer, tamer, or ruler of the universe ; the child of the earthquake and of the thunder, the brother of death." Hence this personage was introduced into the old Mira- cle-plays as a demon of outrageous and violent demeanour; or, as Bale says, " Termagauntes altogether, and very devils incarnate." The murder of 134 HAMLET, ACT in I Flay. I warrant your Honour. Main. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discre- tion 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 any thing 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 of,^ though it make the unskil- ful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve ; the censure of the which one must, in your allowance,^ o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it pro- fanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor Turk, have so strutted and bel- lowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made them, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. I Flay. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently''' with us, sir. Ham. O, reform it altogether. And let those that play the innocents was a favourite subject for a Miracle-play; and wherever Herod is introduced, he plays the part of a vaunting braggart, a tyrant of tyrants, and does indeed outdo Termagant. 4 Pressure is impression here ; as when, in i. 5 : Hamlet says, " I'll wipe away all.forms, ?X\- press u?'es past." 5 To " come tardy of" a thing is evidently the same as to come short of it, 6 " The censm-e of the which one " means the Jzidgment of one of which, or of whojn. This use of censure is very frequent. — Allowance is estimation or approval. To approve is the more frequent meaning of to allow, in Shake- speare. And so in the Bible ; as, " The Lord alloweth the righteous " ; and, " That which I do I allow not." ■^ That is, tolerably well. See page 130, note 17. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 35 your Clowns speak no more than is set down for them : for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too ; though, in the meantime, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered : that's villainous, and shows a most pitiful am- bition in the Fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. — \_Exeunt Players. Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. How now, my lord ! will the King hear this piece of work? Polo, And the Queen too, aiid that presently. Ham. Bid the players make haste. \_Exit Polonius.] — Will you two help to hasten them ? Rosen. | ^^ ^.^^^ ^^^^ j^^.^^ Guild. ) \_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Ham. What ho ! Horatio ! Enter Horatio. Hora. Here, sweet lord, at your service. Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation coped withal. Hora. O, my dear lord, — Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter ; 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 flatter'd ? No, let the candied tongue Hck absurd pomp, 8 Here, and generally, though not always, in Shakespeare, revenue has the accent on the second syllable. And such is undoubtedly the right pro- nunciation. I have marked the word in Spenser, Daniel, Dryden, Young, and Thomson, and all have it so. So, too, Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate, and Edward Everett always spoke it. 136 HAMLET, ACT III. And crook the pregnant ^ hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear ? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for herself : for thou hast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing ; A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards Hath ta'en with equal thanks : and blest 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. 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. — Something too much of this. — ■ There is a play to-night before the King : One scene of it comes near the circumstance Which I have told thee of my father's death. I pr'ythee, when thou seest that act a-foot. Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe my uncle : if his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech, It is a damned ghost that we have seen ; And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan's stithy.i^ Give him heedful note : For I mine eyes will rivet to his face ; And, after, we will both cur judgments join In censure of his seeming. Hora. Well, my lord ; If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing, And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft. ^Pregnant is ready, prompt. — Caftdied is sugared; a tongue steeped in the sweetness of adulation. — Thrift is, profit ; the gold that flatterers lie for. 10 Vulcan's workshop o'r smithy ; stith being an anvil. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DEiNMARK. 137 Ham, They're coming to the play ; I must be idle : ^^ Get you a place. Danish march. A flourish. Enter the King, the Queen, PoLONius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, aiid others. King. How fares our cousin Hamlet ? Ham. Excellent, i' faith ; of the chameleon's dish : I eat the air, promise-cramm'd : ^^ you cannot feed capons so. King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet j these words are not mine. Ham. No, nor mine now. — [_To Polonius.] My lord, you played once i' the university, you say? Folo. That did I, my lord ; and was accounted a good actor. Ham. What did you enact? Folo. I did enact Julius Caesar : I was kill'd i' the Capi- tol ; Brutus kill'd me.^^ Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. i'^ — Be the players ready? Rosen. Ay, my lord ; they stay upon your patience. Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. 11 Must seem idle ; must behave as if his mind were purposeless, or intent upon nothing in particular. 12 Because the chameleon was supposed to live on air. In fact, this and various other reptiles will live a long time without any visible food. So in Othello, iii. 3 : " I had rather be a toad, and live upon the vapour oi a dun- geon," &c. — The King snuffs offence in " I eat the air, promise-cramm'd," as implying that he has not kept his promise to Hamlet. Ip A Latin play on Csesar's death was performed at Christ's Church, Ox- ford, in 1582. Malone thinks that there was an English play on the same subject previous to Shakespeare's. Caesar was killed in Pompey's portico, and not in the Capitol ; but the error is at least as old as Chaucer's time. 14 He acted the part of a brute. — The play on Capitol and capital is ob- vious enough. 138 HAMLET, ACT III. Ham. No, good mother ; here's metal more attractive. Polo. \To the King.] O ho ! do you mark that? Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap ? \_Lying down at Ophelia's feet^ Ophe. No, my lord. Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap ? Ophe. Ay, my lord. You are merry, my lord. Ham. Who, I? Ophe. Ay, my lord. Ham. O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within's ^^ two hours. Ophe. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. Ham. So long? Nay, then let the Devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sabell^^ O Heavens ! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year : but, by'r Lady, he must build churches, then ; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is For O, fo7' O, the hobby-horse is forgot .'^'^ 15 Within's is a contraction of within this. The Poet has sctme contrac- tions even harsher than this. 16 Sabell is a fiaine-co\oviX. A writer in The Critic for 1854, page 373, remarks that " sabell or sabelle is properly a fawn-colour a good deal height- ened with red, and that the term came from the French couleur d'isabelle." According to the Dictionary of the French Academy, isabelle is a colour " between white and yellow, but with the yellow predominating." It is there- fore a very showy, flaring colour ; as far as possible from mourning. 1'^ The Hobby-horse was a part of the old Morris-dance, which was used in the May-games. It was the figure of a horse fastened round a man's waist, the man's legs going through the horse's body, and enabling him to walk, but covered by a long footcloth ; while false legs appeared where those of the man's should be, astride the horse. The Puritans waged a furious war against the Morris-dance ; which caused the Hobby-horse to be left out of it : hence the burden of a song, which passed into a proverb. The plays of the times have many allusions to it. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 139 Hautboys play. The Dumb-show enters. Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly ; the Queen em- bi'acing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes lier up, and declines his head upon her neck ; lays him down upon a bank of flow- ers : she, seeing hi?n asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellozu, takes off his crown, kisses it, and poitrs poison in the King's ears, a?id exit. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, conies in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts : she seems loth and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love}'^ [Exeunt. Ophe. What means this, my lord ? Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho ; ^^ it means mis- chief. Ophe, Belike this show imports the argument of the play. Enter Prologue. Hum. We shall know by this fellow : the players cannot keep counsel ; they'll tell aU.^o Ophe. Will he tell us what this show meant ? 18 As the King does not take fire at this Dumb-show, we may suppose his attention to be so engaged with some about him, that he does not mark it. 19 Miching mallecho is lurking mischief or evil-doing. . To mich, for to skulk, to lurk, was an old English verb in common use in Shakespeare's time ; and mallecho or malhecho, misdeed, he borrowed from the Spanish. 20 Hamlet is running a high strain of jocularity with Ophelia, in order to hide his purpose. The wit here turns upon the fact, that an actor's business is speaking ; blurting out before the world what would else be unknown ; as dramatic personages are always supposed to be speaking, as without an au- dience, what an audience is nevertheless listening to. Hence, even when keeping counsel, they are not keeping it ; are telling the very things they are hiding, and blabbing to the public what they are confiding to each other. I40 HAMLET. ACT III. Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him : be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means. Ophe. You are naught,^! you are naught ; I'll mark the play. Prologue. For tis, and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your cleinency, We beg your hearing patiently, [Exit. Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy ^^ of a ring? Ophe. 'Tis brief, my lord. Ham. As woman's love. Enter two Players, King and Queen. Play. K. Full thii^ty times hath Phoebus' cart^"^ gone round Neptune's salt 7vash and Tellus' orbed ground. And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheejt About the world have times twelve tlm-ties been, Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands Unite commutual in most sacred bands. Play. Q. So many journeys may the Sun and Moon Make us again count o^er ere love be done / But, woe is me ! you are so sick of late. So far from cheer and from your former state. That I distrust yo u?^ Yet, though I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must : For women^sfear and love hold quantity ;'^^ 21 That is naughty, bad ; not nothing or notight. 22 T\\&posy is the motto, that is, words inscribed, and of course very brief. 23 Cart, car, and chariot were used indiscriminately. — " The style," says Coleridge, " of the interlude here is distinguished from the real dialogue by rhyme, as in the first interview with the players by epic verse." 24 " 'D'vsXxw'sX your health " ; " am solicitous about you." 25 " Hold quantity " is have equal strength. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 141 Tn neither aught, or in extremity. Now, what my love is, proof Jiath made you know; And as my love is sized, my fear is so : Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear ; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there. Play. K. Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too ; My opei-ant ^6 powers their functions leave to do : And thou shall live in this fair world behind, Honour' d, beloved ; and haply one as kind For husband shall thou — Play. Q. O, confound the rest! Such love must needs be treason in my breast : In second husband let ?ne be accui-st ! None wed the second btct who kilVd the first. Ham. \^Aside,'] Wormwood, wormwood ! Play. Q. The instances ^'^ that second marriage move Are base i^espects of thi^ift, but none of love : A second time I kill 7ny husband dead. When second husband kisses me in bed. Play. K. / do believe you think what now you speak ; But what we do determine oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory. Of violent birth, but poor validity ; Which now, like fritit unripe, sticks on the tree, But fall tmshaken when they mellow be. Most necessary ^^ Uis that we forget 26 " operant for active or operative. So in Tinion of Athens, iv. 3 : " Sauce his palate with thy most operant poison." 27 Instances for inducements. In tlie next line, respects is considerations or motives, as usual in Shakespeare. 28 Necessary here means natuml simply. So in Afcasure for Measure, ii. 4 : " Dispossessing all my other parts of necessary fitness." 142 HAMLET, ACT III. To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt : What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures ^^ with themselves destroy : Where joy most I'evels, grief doth most lament ; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. This world is 7iot for aye ; nor ^tis not strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change ; For ^tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune or else fortune love. The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies ; The poor advanced makes friends of enemies : And hitherto doth love on fortune tend ; For who not needs shall never lack a friend ; And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy. Bttt, orderly to end where I begun, Our wills and fates do so contrary run, That our devices still ai^e overthrown ; Ou-r thoughts are ows, their ends noite of our own : ^^ So, think thou wilt no second husband wed ; But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. Play. Q. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light ! Sport and repose lock from me day and night / To desperation turn my trust and hope / An anchor'' s cheer ^^ in prison be my scope ! Fach opposite, that blanks the face of joy, ^'^ 29 Enactures for determinations ; what they enact. so That is, we can control our thoughts, but not their results. 31 A hermit's fare, or diet. Anchor for anchoret, an old word for hermit. 32 To blank the face is to make it white ; to take the blood out of it. The proper colour of joy is ruddy. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 43 Meet what I would have well, and it destroy ! Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, If, once a widow, ever I be wife / Ham. If she should break it now ! Play. K. ^Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile : My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with sleep. [Sleeps. Play. Q. Sleep rock thy brain ; And never come mischance between us twain / [Exit. Ham. Madam, how like you this play ? Queen. The lady protests too much, methinks. Ham. O, but she'll keep her word. King. Have you heard the argument ? Is there no offence in't ? Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest ; no of- fence i' the world. King. What do you call the play ? Ham. The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically.^^ This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna : Gonzago is the King's name ; his wife, Baptista : you shall see anon ; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o' that? your Maj- esty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not : let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.34 Enter Lucianus. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King. Ophe. You are as good as a chorus,^^ my lord. . 33 Tropically \% figuratively, or in the way of trope. 3* The allusion is to a horse wincing as the saddle galls his withers. 35 The use to which Shakespeare put the chorus may be seen in King Henry V. Every motion or puppet-show was accompanied by an interpreter or showman. 144 HAMLET, ACT III. Ham. I could interpret between you and your love,^^ if I could see the puppets dallying. Ophe. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. Ham. Begin, murderer ; pox ! leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come : The croaking raven doth bellow for r^- vengep Luci. Thoughts blacky hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing; Confederate season, else no creature seeing : ^^ Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate'' s ban thrice blasted^^ thrice infected. Thy natural magic and dire property, On wholesome life usurp immediately. [Pours the poison into the sleeper's ear. Ham, He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago : the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago 's wife. Ophe. The King rises ! Ham. What, frighted with false fire !* Queen. How fares my lord ? Polo. Give a'er the play ! King. Give me some light ! — away ! All. Lights, lights, lights ! \_Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio. 86 Love for lover; a very common usage. 37 " The croaking raven," &c., is probably a quotation from some play then well known. The raven's croak was thought to be ill-boding. 38 No creature but time looking on, and that a confederate in the act, or conspiring with the murderer. 39 Poisonous weeds were supposed to be more poisonous if gathered in the night. Hecate was the name given to the Queen of the witches ; and her banning or cursing brought the poison to the highest intensity. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. * 1 45 Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play ; ^o For some must watch, while some must sleep : So runs the world away. Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers,'^! — if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me, — with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes,^^ get me a fellowship in a cry of players, -«ir?43 Hora. Half a share.^^ *o It is said that a deer, when badly wounded, retires from the herd, and goes apart, to weep and die. Of course, hart is the same as deer, and un- galled the opposite of strucken. 41 Alluding, probably, to a custom which the London players seem to have had in Shakespeare's time, of flaunting it in gaudy apparel, and with plumes in their caps, the more the better. So in Chapman's Monsieur D Olive, 1606, iii. i : " Three of these goldfinches I have entertained for my followers : I am ashamed to train 'em abroad ; they say I carry a whole forest of feathers with me." Some one calling himself a Soldier wrote to Secretary Walsingham in 1586, complaining, " It is a woeful sight, to see two huxidxed. proud players Jet in their silks, -vfYvQ-VQ five hundred poor people starve in the streets." — To tufn Turk with any one was to desert or betray him, or turn traitor to him. A common phrase of the time. 42 Provincial roses took their name from Provijts, in Lower Brie, and not from Provence. Razed shoes are most probably embroidered shoes. To race, or raze, was to stripe. So in Markham's Country Farm, speaking of wafer cakes : " Baking all together between two irons, having within them many raced and checkered draughts after the manner of small squares." 43 " A fellowship in a cry of players " is a partnership in a company of players. The Poet repeatedly uses cry thus for set, pack, or 'troop. The word was borrowed 'from the chase, as hounds were selected for a pack according to their barking tones, so as to make a harmonious or musical cry. 44 The players were paid not by salaries, but by shares or portions of the profit, according to merit. Perhaps, however, the allusion is rather to the custom, then in vogue, of making the theatrical property a joint-stock affair. Thus Shakespeare himself was a stockholder in the Globe theatre, and so had not only his portion of the profits as one of the players, but also an income from the money invested, or from the shares he held in the stock. 146 HAMLET, ACT III. Ham. A whole one, ay. For thou dost know^ O Damon dear, This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself ; ^^ and now reigns here A very, very — pajock^^ Hora. You might have rhymed.'^^ Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the Ghost's word for a thousand 'pound. Didst perceive ? Hora. Very well, my lord. Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning? Hora. I did very well note him. Ha7n. Ah, ha ! Come, some music ! come, the record- ers l^S— 45 The meaning is, that Denmark was robbed of a king who had the majesty of Jove. — Hamlet calls Horatio Damon, in allusion to the famous friendship of Damon and Pythias. 46 Pajock is probably an old form of peacock. Dyce says he has " often heard the lower classes in the north of Scotland call the peacock peajock." Editors have been greatly in the dark as to the reason of the word's being used here. But a writer in The Edinburgh Review, October, 1872, shows that in the popular belief of Shakespeare's time the peacock had a very bad character, " being, in fact, the accredited representative of inordinate pride and envy, as well as of unnatural cruelty and lust." And he quotes from what was then the most popular manual of natural history : " The peacocke is a bird th-at loveth not his young, for the male searcheth out the female, and seeketh out her egges for to break them, that he may so occupy him the more in his lecherie. And he wondereth at the fairenesse of his fethers, and areareth them up as it were a circle about his head, a^d then he looketh to his feet, and seeth the fouleness of his feet, and lyke as he were ashamed he leteth his fethers fall sodeinlye. And as one sayth, he hath the voice of a feend, the- head of a serpent, and the pace of a theefe." The writer adds that " in the whole fauna of the time Hamlet could not have selected the name of bird or beast that expressed with greater emphasis the hateful union of corrupted passion and evil hfe that now usurped the throne of Denmark." • *' Ass was often used as a rhyme to was. 48 The recorder was a soft-toned instrument, something like the flute. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 147 For if the King like not the comedy, Why then, behke, — he hkes it not, perdy.^^ — Come, some music ! Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Guild. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. Ham. Sir, a whole history. Guild. The King, sir, — Ham. Ay, sir, what of him? Guild. — is in his retirement marvellous distemper'd. Ham. With drink, sir? Guild. No, my lord, with choler. Ham. Your wisdom should show itself m©re richer to sig- nify this to his doctor ; for, for me to put him to his purga- tion would perhaps plunge him into more choler. Guild. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair. Ham. I am tame, sir : pronounce. Guild. The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. Ham. You are welcome. Guild. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment ; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business. Ha7n. Sir, I cannot. Guild. What, my lord ? So in Paradise Lost, i.: "They move in perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders:' To record was also used for to warble or sing. Thus in Drayton's Eclogues : " Fair Philomel, night-music of the Spring, sweetly records her tuneful harmony," *9 Perdy is a corruption of the French /ar Dieu. 148 HAMLET, ACT III. Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's dis- eased : but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall com- mand ; or, rather, as you say, my mother : therefore no more, but to the matter : My mother, you say, — Rosen. Then thus she says : Your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.^^ Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother ! — But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's ad- miraetion ? Impart. Rosen. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed. Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us ? Rosen. My lord, you once did love me. Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.^! Rosen. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend. Ham. Sir, I lack advancement. Rosen. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark ? Ha7n. Ay, sir, but While the grass grows, — the proverb is something musty.^^ — Re-enter Players with recorders. O, the recorders ! let me see one. — To wdthdraw with you : 60 Admiration, again, in its proper Latin sense of wonder. 61 This is explained by a clause in the Church Catechism : " To keep my ha?»ds from picking and stealing." — In " So I do still," so is emphatic, and strongly ironical. 52 " The musty proverb " is, " Whylst grass doth growe, oft sterves the seely steede." SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 149 \_Takes GuiLDENSTERN aside.'] Why do you go about to re- cover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? 53 Guild. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.5^ Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe ? Guild. My lord, I cannot. Ham. I pray you. Guild, Believe me, I cannot. Ham. I do beseech you. Guild. I know no touch of it, my lord. Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying : govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. 55 Guild. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony ; I have not the skill. Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me ! You would play upon me ; you would seem to know my stops ; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery ; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass : and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a 53 " To recover the wifid of me " is a term borrowed from hunting, and means to take advantage of the animal pursued, by getting to the windward of it, that it may not scent its pursuers. — Toil is snare or trap. 54 Hamlet may well say, " I do not well understand that." The mean- ing, however, seems to be, " If I am using an unmannerly boldness with you, it is my love that makes me do so." 55 The ventages are the holes of the pipe. Stops signifies the mode of stopping the ventages so as to make the notes. 150 HAMLET, ACT III. pipe? Call me what instrument you will, tliough you can fret me,^^ you cannot play upon me. — Re-enter Polonius. God bless you, sir ! Polo. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently. Ham. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel ? Polo. By the Mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel. Polo. It is backed like a weasel. Ham. Or like a whale ? Polo. Very like a whale. Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-and-by. — \_Aside.'\ They fool me to the top of my bent.^"^ — I will come by-and-by. Polo. I will say so. \_Exit Polonius. Ham. By-and-by is easily said. — Leave me, friends. — [^Exeunt all but Hamlet. 'Tis now the very witching-time of night. When churchyards yawn,^^ and Hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world : now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. Soft ! now to my mother. — 56 Hamlet keeps up the allusion to a musical instrument. T\\q. frets of a lute or guitar are the ridges crossing the finger-board, upon which the strings are pressed or stopped. A quibble is intended on /ret. 57 They humour me to the full height of my inclination. Polonius has been using the method, common in the treatment of crazy people, of assent- ing to all that Hamlet says. This is what Hamlet refers to. 58 Churchyards yawn to let forth the ghosts, who did all their walking in the night. And the crimes which darkness so often covers might well be spoken of as caused by the nocturnal contagion of Hell. SCENE III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 151 heart, lose not thy nature ; let not ever The soul of Nero ^^ enter this firm bosom : Let me be cruel, not unnatural. 1 will speak daggers to her, but use none ; My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites : How in my words soever she be shent,^^ To give them seals never, my soul, consent ! \^Exit. Scene HI. — A Room in the Castle. Enter the King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern. King. I like him not ; nor stands it safe with us To let hig madness range. Therefore prepare you : I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you. The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies. . Guild. We will ourselves provide : Most holy and religious fear it is To keep those many many bodies safe That live and feed upon your Majestv. Rosen. The single and peculiar life is bound, With all the strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from 'noyance ; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest 59 Nero is aptly referred to here, as he was the murderer of his mother, Agrippina. It may be worth noting that the name of the King in this play is Claudius; and that, after the death of Domitius her husband, Agrippina married with her uncle the Emperor Claudius. 60 To shend is to injure, whether by reproof, blows, or otherwise. Shake- speare generally uses shent for reproved, threatened with angry words. " To give his words seals " is therefore to carry his punishment beyond reproof. The allusion is to the sealing of a deed to render it effective. 152 HAMLET, ACT III, The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone ; 1 but like a gulf doth draw What's near it with it : 'tis a massy wheel, Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortised and adjoin'd ; which when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin. Ne'er alone Did the King sigh, but with a g^aneral groan. King. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage ; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-footed. y^ ■y] \ We will haste us. (jrUlld. ) \_Exezmt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Enter Polonius. Polo. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet. Behind the arras I'll convey myself, To hear the process ; I'll warrant she'll tax him home : ^ And, as you said, and wisely was it said, 'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear The speech of vantage. ^ Fare you well, my Uege : I'll call upon you ere you go to bed. And tell you what I know. 1 Tautological in word, but not in sense. The cease {decease) of majesty comes not alone. 2 Home as a general intensive, meaning thoroughly, to the utmost. 3 Speech having an advantage in that nature makes the speakers partial to each other. This favours the conclusion that the Queen was not privy and consenting to the murder of Hamlet's father. Both the King and Polo- nius have some distrust of her. SCENE III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 53 Ki7ig. Thanks, dear my lord. — \_Exit POLONIUS O, my offence is rank, it smells to Heaven ; It hath the primal eldest curse upon't, A brother's murder ! Pray can I not : Though inclination be as sharp as will, My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent \ '^ And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both^ neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood. Is there not rain enough in the sweet Heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offence ? And what's in prayer but this twofold force, — To be forstalled ere we come to fall. Or pardon'd being down ? ^ Then I'll look up j My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn ? Forgive me my foul murder ? That cannot be ; since I am still possess'd Of those effects for which I did the murder. My crown, mine own ambition, and my Queen. May one be pardon'd, and retain th' offence ? In the corrupted 'currents of this world Offence's gilded hand may shove -by justice ; * " Though I were not only wiUing but strongly inclined to pray, my guilt would prevent me." The distinction here implied is philosophically just. The inclination is the craving or the impulse to assuage his pangs of remorse ; the will is the determination of the reason or judgment in a ques- tion of duty and right. 5 Both refers to the two matters of business implied in double. 6 That is, either to h^ prevented from falling, or to be pardoned after we have fallen. Alluding to a part of the Lord's Prayer. 154 HAMLET, ACT III. And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law : but 'tis not so above ; There is no shuffling, — there the action lies In his true nature ; and we ourselves compell'd, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give-in evidence. What then? what rests?''' Try what repentance can ? what can it not ? Yet what can it when one cannot repent ? O wretched state ! O bosom black as death ! O limed soul,^ that struggling to be free Art more engaged ! Help, angels ! Make assay ! Bow, stubborn knees ; and, heart with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of a new-born babe ! All may be well.^ \Retires and kneels. Enter Hamle-r"- Ham. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying ; And now I'll do't, — And so he goes to Heaven ! — And so am I revenged? That would be scann'd : ^^ A villain kills my father ; and, for that, I, his sole son, do this same villain send To Heaven. Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge. 7 " What rejnains to be done ? " or, " What else can I do ? " 8 Alluding to an old mode of catching birds, by spreading upon the twigs, where they are likely to light, a sticky substance called bird-lime. The birds were thus caught and held by the feet, and the more they tried to get away, the more they couldn't. The thing grew to be a common figure for any sort of snare. Shakespeare often uses it so. ^ The final "All may be well" is remarkable; — the degree of merit attributed by the self-flattering soul to its own struggles, though baffled, and to the indefinite half promise, half command, to persevere in religious duties.— Coleridge. '^'^ T\i3X should \iQ scrutinized. See page 48, note ii. SCENE III. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 55 He took my father grossly, full of bread ; With all his crimes ^^ broad blown, as flush as May ; And how his audit stands who knows save Heaven ? But, in our circumstance and course of thought,!^ 'Tis heavy with him : and am I then revenged. To take him in the purging of his soul. When he is fit and season'd for his passage ? No! Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent : ^^ When he is drunk- asleep, or in his rage ; At gaming, swearing ; or about some act That has no relish of salvation in't : Then trip him, that his heels may kick at Heaven ; And that his soul may be as damn'd and black As Hell, whereto it goes.^"^ My mother stays : This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.^^ \_Exit 11 Crimes in the more general sense of sins. So twice before in this play : " The foul crimes done in my days of nature " ; and, " Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes the youth you breathe of." — In the preceding line, grossly goQ.% with father as an adjective. Perhaps it should be printed grossly-full. 12 " Circumstance and course of thought " seems to mean the particular data or circumstantial detail of things from which our thought shapes its course and draws its conclusions. 13 Hent, both noun and verb, was used in the sense of seizure, grasp, or hold. Hqre it has the kindred sense oi purpose. 14 Hamlet here flies off to a sort of ideal revenge, in order to quiet his filial feelings without violating his reason. Yet it is a very mark-worthy fact, that the King is taken at last in the perpetration of crimes far worse than any that Hamlet here anticipates. But that, to be sure, is the Poet's ordering of the matter, and perhaps should be regarded as expressing his sense of justice in this case ; though Hamlet may well be supposed to have a presentiment, that a man so bad, and so secure in his badness, will not rest where he is ; but will proceed to some further exploiting in crime, in the midst of which judgm'ent will at last overtake him. 15 This physic refers to the reasons Hamlet has been giving for not strik- 156 HAMLET, ACT III. King. \^Rising^ My words fly up, my thoughts remain below : Words without thoughts never to Heaven go. \_Exit. Scene IV. — The Queen's Closet. Enter the Queen and Polonius. Polo. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him : Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with ; And that your Grace hath screen'd and stood between Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here. Pray you, be round with him. Ham. [ Within.'] Mother, mother, mother ! Queen. I'll warrant you ; Fear me not. Withdraw ; I hear him coming. [Polonius hides behind the arras. Enter Hamlet. Ham. Now, mother, what's the matter? Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. Queen. Come, come ; you answer with an idle tongue. Ham. Go, go ; you question with a wicked tongue. Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet ! what's the matter now ? Have you forgot me ? Ham. No, by the rood,i not so : ing now ; a medicine that prolongs the King's sickness, but does not heal it ; that is, the purpose is delayed, not abandoned. 1 Rood is an old word for cross ; often used for an oath, as here. — in re- gard to what immediately follows in this scene. Professor Werder has the following : " Enraged, frantic, he rushes in wildly to his mother, and here, hearing the voice behind the tapestry, here, now supposing the King to be hidden there, he allows himself to be carried away by his hot blood, by rage, SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 157 You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife ; And — would it were not so ! — you are my mother. Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak. Hain, Come, come, and sit you down ; you shall not budge : You go not till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you. Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me? — Help, help, ho ! Polo. [^Behind.'] What, ho ! help, help, help ! Ham. \_Drawing.'\ How now ! a rat ? Dead, for a ducat, dead ! \_Makes a pass through the arras. Polo. \_Behind.~\ O, I am slain ! \Falls and dies. Queen. O me ! what hast thou done ? Ham. Nay, I know not : is it the King ? Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this ! Ham. A bloody deed ! almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother. Queen. As kill a king ! Ham, Ay, lady, 'twas my word, — \_Lifts up the arras and discovers Polonius. Thou wretched, rash-intruding fool, farewell ! I took thee for thy better : take thy fortune ; Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger. — here, where the worst personal dishonour which has been inflicted upon him, the hving son, by the seducer of his mother, comes so near to him ; here, where the whole air is full of it ; here the voice of the wretch calls up all his shame ; and, forgetting the strict obligation of his task, he gives full course to his thirst for vengeance ; he is carried away into the grave error of plunging his sword through the tapestry. A grave error indeed ! He ^a^ made the thrust at last, — and what is the consequence? Instead of being freed from the old burden, he has brought upon his soul a new one. Thus the error punishes itself," — See, also, the Introduction, page 25. 158 HAMLET, ACT III. Leave wringing of your hands : peace ! sit you down, And let me wring your heart : for so I shall, If it be made of penetrable stuff; If damned custom have not brass'd it so, That it is proof and bulwark against sense. Queen, What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me ? Ham. Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty ; Calls virtue hypocrite j^ takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there ; makes marriage -vows As false as dicers' oaths : O, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul ; ^ and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words : Heaven's face doth glow ; Yea, this solidity and compound mass,'* With tristful visage, as against the doom. Is thought-sick at the act. Queen. Ah me, what act, That roars so loud and thunders in the index P^ 2 A thing is often said to do that which it any way causes to be done. 3 Contraction here means the marriage contract ; of which Hamlet holds religion to be the life and soul, insomuch that without this it is but as a life- less body, and must soon become a nuisance. 4 This solid globe, the Earth. Hamlet in his high-wrought stress of pas- sion, kindling as he goes on, makes the fine climax, that not only the heavenly powers burn with indignation, but even the gross beings of this world are smitten with grief and horror, as if the day of judgment were at hand. 5 The index, or table of contents, was formerly placed at the beginning of books. In Othello, ii. i, we have, "an index and obscure prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts." SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 59 Ham. Look here upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment ^ of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on tliis brow ; Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself ; "^ An eye Hke Mars, to threaten and command ; A station^ like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ; A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man : This was your husband. Look you now what follows : Here is your husband ; like a mildew'd ear, Blasting his wholesome brother .^ Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten 1^ on this moor? Ha ! have you eyes? You cannot call it love ; for at your age The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble. And waits upon the judgment : and what judgment Would step from this to this ? Sense, sure, you have. Else could you not have motion ; but, sure, that sense Is apoplex'd : ^^ for madness would not err, 6 Counterfeit presentment, or counterfeit simply, was used for likeness. It is to be supposed that Hamlet wears a miniature of his father, while his mother wears one of the present King. 7 The statues of Jupiter represented him as the most intellectual of all the gods, as Apollo was the most beautiful ; while in Mercury we have the ideal of swiftness and despatch. 8 Station does not here mean the spot where any one is placed, but the act of standing, the attitude. So in Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 3 : " Her mo- tion and her station are as one." 9 The allusion is to the blasted ears of corn that destroyed the full and good ears, in Pharaoh's dream ; Genesis, xli. 5-7. 10 To batten is to feed rankly or grossly ; it is usually applied to the fat- tening of animals. 11 There is some confusion here, owing to the different meanings with l6o HAMLET, ACT III. Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd, But it reserved some quantity of choice/^ To serve in such a difference. What devil was't, That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-bhnd ? ^^ Eyes without feehng, feeling without sight, Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope.i^ O shame ! where is thy blush? Rebellious Hell, If thou canst mutine i^ in a matron's bones. To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her own fire : ^^ proclaim no shame, When the compulsive ardour gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn, i^.nd reason panders will. which serise is used. The first setise is sensation as necessary to bodily mo- tion ; the second refers to the mind, and comes pretty near meaning reason. The idea seems to be, that her reason must be not merely unseated, as in madness, but absolutely quenched. — In " madness would not err," the mean- ing is, " madness would not so err." 12 Sense was never so dominated by the delusions of insanity, but that it still retained some power of choice. We have before had quantity in much the same sense. See page 140, note 25. • 13 Hoodman-blind is the old game of blindman' s-huff. 14 To mope is to be dull and stupid. 15 Mutine for mutiny. This is the old form of the verb. Shakespeare calls mtitineers mutines in a subsequent scene. 16 The views here set forth by Hamlet are very different from those of Polonius in his advice to Laertes, as remarked upon in note 22, page 72. Hamlet seems to think that generous passions are the proper safety of youth, and he would keep the soul sweet by setting it on fire with moral beauty. The author of Ecce Homo has an apt passage in point : " How can warmth cleanse ? The answer is, that moral warmth does cleanse. No heart is pure that is not passionate ; no virtue is safe that is not enthusias- tic." The case is well-nigh desperate indeed, when the ardour of youth, which is the proper life of virtue, becomes itself the death of virtue. SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. l6l Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more ! Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul ; And there I see such black and grained ^'^ spots As will not leave their tinct. Ham. Nay, but to live Stew'd in corruption, — Queen. O, speak to me no more ! These words like daggers enter in mine ears : No more, sweet Hamlet ! Ham. A murderer and a villain ; A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord ; a Vice of kings ; ^^ A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,^^ And put it in his pocket '! Queen. No more ! Ham. A king of shreds and patches, — Enter the Ghost. Save me and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards ! — What would your gracious figure ? Queen. Alas, he's mad ! Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, 17 " Grained spots " are spots ingrained, or dyed in the grain, so that they will not part with their colour, or lose their tinct. 18 An allusion to the old Vice or jester, a stereot5^ed character in the Moral-plays, which were going out of usq in the Poet's time. The Vice wore a motley or patchwork dress ; hence the sJireds and patches applied in this instance. 19 This should not be taken as meaning that Claudius is not the lawful King of Denmark. He " stole the diadem," not by an act of usurpation, but by murdering the rightful holder of it. l62 HAMLET, ACT III. That, lapsed in time and passion^^o lets go by Tk' important acting of your dread command ? O, say ! Ghost. Do not forget. This visitation Is but to whet thy almost-blunted purpose. But, look, amazement on thy mother sits : O, step between her and her fighting soul ! Conceit in weakest bodies ^^ strongest works. Speak to her, Hamlet. Ham. How is 't with you, lady? Queen. Alas, how is't with you. That you do bend your eye on vacancy. And with th' incorporal air do hold discourse ? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep \ And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm, Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,^^ Start up, and stand on end. O gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? Ham. On him, on him ! Look you, how pale he glares ! His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones. Would make them capable.^"^ — Do not look upon me ; Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern affects : ^^ then what I have to do . 20 The sense appears to be, having failed in respect both of time and of purpose. Or it rftky be, having allowed passion to cool by lapse of time. 21 Conceit, again, for conception, imagination. Bodies is here put for minds, or persons ; as corpora also is in classical Latin. 22 That is, like excrements alive, or having life in them. Hair, nails, feathers, &c., were called excrements, as being without life. 23 Would put sense and understanding into them. The use of capable for susceptible, intelligent, is not peculiar to Shakespeare. ** Affects is repeatedly used by Shakespeare for affections or passions» SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMMIK. 1 63 Will wapt true colour ; tears, perchance, for bloofl. Queen. To whom do you speak this ? Ham. Do you see nothing there ? Queen. Nothing at all ; yet all that is I see. Ha77i. Nor did you nothing hear? Queen, No, nothing but ourselves. Ham. Why, look you there ! look, how it steals away ! My father, in his habit as he lived ! Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal ! \^Exit Ghost. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain : This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in.^^ Ham. Ecstasy ! My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music : 'tis not madness That I have utter'd : bring me to the test. And I the matter will re-word ; which madness Would gambol from.^ Mother, for love of grace, and may signify any mood or temper of mind looking to action. Hamlet is afraid lest the " piteous action " of the Ghost should make his stern mood or temper of revenge give place to tenderness, so that he will see the minis- try enjoined upon him i^ a false light, and go to shedding tears instead of blood. 25 The Ghost in this scene, as al&o in the banquet-scene of Macbeth, is plainly what we should call a subjective ghost ; that is, existing only in the heated imagination of the beholder. As the Queen says, insanity is very fertile in such " bodiless creations." It is not so with the apparition in the former scenes, as the Ghost is there seen by other persons. To be sure, it was part of the old belief, that ghosts could, if they chose, make themselves visible only to those with whom they were to deal ; but this is just what we mean by subjective. The ancients could not take the idea of subjective visions, as we use the term. So that the words here put into the Ghost's mouth are to be regarded as merely the echo of Hamlet's own thoughts. 26 Mad people, if asked to repeat a thing that they have just said, are apt 1 64 HAMLET, ACT III, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, That not your trespass but my madness speaks : It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within. Infects unseen. Confess yourself to Heaven ; Repent what's past, avoid what is to come ; And do not spread the compost on the weeds. To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue ; For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, courb ^^ and woo for leave to do him good. Queen. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half. •Good night : but go not to my uncle's bed ; Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,^^ That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery. That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night. And that shall lend a kind of easiness , To the next abstinence : the next more easy ; For us,e almost can change the stamp of nature, to go on and say something else without knowing it ; thus gamboling from the matter which they undertake to re-word. But the test is far from being a sure one ; madmen being sometimes as firm and steady in the intellectual faculties as the sanest are, 2" To court is to bend, curve, or truckle ; from the French courber. 28 The rneaning appears to be, that, though custom is a monster that eats out all sensibility or consciousness of evil habits ; yet, on the other hand, it is an angel in this respect, that it works in a manner equally favourable to good actions. — In this passage custom, habit, and use all have about the same meaning ; I mean the second use, — " For use almost," &c. SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 65 And either shame the Devil or throw him out ^9 With wondrous potency. Once more, good night : And when you are desirous to be blest, I'll blessing beg of you.^^ For this same lord, \_Pointing to Polonius. I do repent : but Heaven hath pleased it so, To punish me with this and this with me, That I must be their ^^ scourge and minister. I will bestow him, and will answer well The death I gave him. So, again, good night. — • \^Aside.'] I must be cruel, only to be kind : Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind. — One word more, good lady. Queen. What shall I do ? Hai7i. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do : Let the bloat ^^ King tempt you again to bed ; Pinch wanton on your cheek ; call you his mouse j ^^ And let him, for a pair of reechy^^ kisses. Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, 29 The sense of out extends back over shavie as well as over throw ; the meaning being, " And either shame the Devil out or force him out." See Critical Notes. 30 How beautiful this is! Of course Hamlet means that, when he finds his mother on her knees to God, he will be on his knees to her. 31 The pronoun their refers to Heaven, which is here used as a collective noun, and put for heavefily powers. 32 Bloat for bloated. Many preterites were formed so. See page 56, note 7. 33 Mouse was a term of endearment. Thus Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy : " Pleasant names may be invented, bird, mouse, lamb, puss, pigeon." 34 jReeky and reechy are the same word, and applied to any vaporous exhalation. 1 66 HAMLET, ACT III. But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know ; For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise. Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,^^ Such dear concernings hide ? who would do so ! No, in despite of sense and secrecy. Unpeg the basket on the house's top. Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape. To try conclusions,^^ in the basket creep, And break your own neck down. Queen. Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me. Hmn, I must to England ; you know that ? Queen. Alack, I had forgot : 'tis so concluded on. . Ham. There's letters seal'd \ and my two schoolfellows, — Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, — They bear the mandate ; they must sweep my way. And marshal me to knavery. Let it work ; For 'tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petar : 37 and't shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines. And blow them at the Moon. O, 'tis most sweet'' When in one line two crafts directly meet ! This man shall set me packing : 35 K paddock is a toad; 2. gib, a cat. 36 To try conclusions is the old phrase for trying experiments, or putting a thing to the proof. — The passage alludes, apparently, to some fable or story now quite forgotten. Sir John Suckling, in one of his letters, refers to " the story of the jackanapes and the partridges." 37 Hoist for hoisted, as in note 32. — Petar, now spelt petard, is a kind of mortar used for blowing open gates and doors. — " It shall go hard" means " I will try hard." Repeatedly used so by the Poet. SCENE V. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 167 I'll lug the corse into the neighbour room. Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor Is now most still, most secret, and most grave, Who was in life a foolish-prating knave. — Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you. — • Good night, mother. \_Exeunt severally ; Hamlet draggmg in Polonius. Scene V. — Another Room in the Castle. Enter the King, the Queen, Rosencrantz, and Guilden- STERN. King. There's matter in these sighs : these profound heaves You must translate ; 'tis fit we understand them. Where is your son ? Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while. — \_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night ! King. What, Gertrude ? How does Hamlet ? Queen. Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend Which is the mightier : in his lawless fit. Behind the arras hearing something stir. He whips his rapier out, and cries A rat, a rat ! And in this brainish 1 apprehension kills The unseen good old man. King. O heavy deed ! It had been so with us, had we been there : His liberty is full of threats to all. To you yourself, to us, to every one. Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd ? 1 Brainish far brainsick ; that is, crazy. 1 68 HAMLET, ACT III. It will be laid to us, whose providence Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt,^ This mad young man : but so much was our love, We would not understand what was most fit ; But, like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulging, let it feed Even on the pith of life.^ Where is he gone ? Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd ; O'er whom his very madness, like fine ore Among a mineral ^ of metals base. Shows itself pure : he weeps for what is done. King. O Gertrude, come away ! The Sun no sooner shall the mountains touch, But we will ship him hence ; and this vile deed We must, with all our majesty and skill, Both countenance and excuse. — Ho, Guildenstern ! Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Friends both, go join you with some further aid : Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain. And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him : Go seek him out ; speak fair, and bring the body Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this. — \_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends ; 2 Out of haunt means out of company. 3 Certain diseases appear to be attended with an instinct of concealment. I have heard of persons dying of external cancer ; yet they had kept so secret about it that their nearest friends had not suspected it. * Mineral for mine ; in accordance with old usage. So Hooker, in Ecclesiastical Polity, i. 4, 3, speaks of the fallen Angels as "being dispersed, some on the earth, some in the water, some amongst the minerals, dens, and caves, that are under the earth." SCENE VI. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 69 And let them know both what we mean to do And what's untimely done : so, haply, slander — Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank,^ Transports his poison'd shot — may miss our name. And hit the woundless air. O, come away ! My soul is full of discord and dismay. \_Exeunf. Scene VI. — Another Room in the Castle, Enter Hamlet. Ham, Safely stowed. • Rosen. ) r '///ft ^i^^^^f^'l Hamlet ! Lord Hamlet ! Hani. What noise? who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come. E7iter RosENCRANTZ and Guildenstern. Rosen. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body? Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin. Rosen. Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence And bear it to the chapel. Ham. Do not believe it. Rosen. Believe what? Ham. That I can keep your counsel and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge,^ what repHcation should be made by the son of a king ? s As direct, or as sure-aimed, as the cannon to its mark. Direct is one of the old meanings of level. The blank was the white spot at which aim was taken in target-shooting. 1 That is, on being demanded by a sponge. An instance of the infinitive used gerundively, or like the Latin Gerund, and equivalent, in English, to a lyo HAMLET, ACT III. Rosen. Take you me for a sponge, my lord ? Ham. Ay, sir ; that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end : he keeps them, as an ape doth nuts, in the corner of his jaw; first mouth'd, to be last swallowed :^ when he needs what you have glean'd, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall ^ be dry again. Rosen. I understand you not, my lord. Ham. I am glad of it : a knavish speech sleeps in a fool- ish ear.^ Rosen. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go witlT us to the King. Ham. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.^ The King is a thing — Guild. A thing, my lord ! Ham. — of nothing : bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.6 Exeunt. participle and a preposition. The usage is very frequent in Shakespeare, and sometimes renders his meaning rather obscure. — Replication is the same as reply. 2 Apes are provided with a pouch on each side of the jaw, in which they stow away the food first taken, and there keep it till they have eaten the rest. 3 Shall for will ; the two being often used indiscriminately. 4 Perhaps this is best explained by a passage in Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2 : " A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it." ..^ 5 Hamlet is talking riddles, in order to tease and puzzle his questioners. The meaning of this riddle, to the best of my guessing, is, that the King's body is with the King, but not the King's soul : he's a king without kingli- ness. Perhaps, however, the passage should be regarded simply as a piece of intentional downright nonsense. 6 " Hide fox, and all after," was a juvenile sport, most probably what is now called hide a?id seek. SCENE VII. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 171 Scene VII. — Another Room in the Castle, Enter the King, attended. King, I have sent to seek him, and to find the body. How dangerous is it that this man goes loose ! Yet must not we put the strong law on him : He's loved of the distracted ^ multitude. Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes ; And where 'tis so, th' offender's scourge is weigh'd, But never the offence.^ To bear all smooth and even, This sudden sending him away must seem Deliberate pause : ^ diseases desperate grown By desperate appliance are relieved, Or not at all. — Enter Rosencrantz. How now ! what hath befall'n ? Rosen. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord. We cannot get from him. King. But where is he ? Rosen, Without, my lord ; guarded, to know your pleasure. King. Bring him before us. Rosen. Ho, Guildenstern ! bring in my lord. Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern. King. Now, Hamlet, where 's Polonius? Ham. At supper. 1 Distracted in the sense of discordant, or disagreeing ; sometimes called ■many-headed. Perhaps the sense oi fickle, i7iconsta?it, is also intended. 2 Who like not what their judgment approves, for they have none, but what pleases their eyes ; and in this case the criminal's punishment is con- sidered, but not his crime. 3 " To keep all things quiet and in order, this sudden act must seem a thing that we have paused and delibemted upon." See page 99, note ii. 172 HAMLET, ACT III. King. At supper ! where ? Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten : a cer- tain convocation of poHtic worms are e'en at him.'^ Your worm is your only emperor for diet : we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, — two dishes, but to one table : that's the end. King. Alas, alas ! Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. King. What dost thou mean by this ? Ham. Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through" a beggar.^ King. Where is Polonius ? Ham. In Heaven ; send thither to see : if your messen- ger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby. King. \To some Attendants.] Go seek him there. Ham. He will stay till ye come. \_Exeunt Attendants. King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety, — Which we do tender,^ as we dearly grieve For that which thou hast done, — must send thee hence With fiery quickness : therefore prepare thyself; 4 Alluding, probably, to the Diet of Worms, which Protestants regarded as a convocation of politiciajis. Here, again, I am indebted to Mr. Joseph Crosby, who aptly prompts me, that there is a further allusion to the char- acter of Polonius ; meaning such worms as might naturally be bred in the carcass of a defunct old political wire-puller. And he remarks, " Had the old gentleman been conspicuous for his ambition, it would have been just like Shakespeare to call the worms bred from him aspiring worms." 5 Alluding to the royal journeys of state, called progresses. To tender a thing is to be careful of it. See page'73, ^ote 27, SCENE VII. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 73 The bark is ready, and the wind at help, Th' associates tend,"^ and every thing is bent For England. Ham. For England ! King. Ay, Hamlet. Ham. Good. King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes. Ham. I see a cherub that sees them.^ — But, come; for England ! — Farewell, dear mother. King. Thy loving father, Hamlet. Ham. My mother : father and mother is man and wife ; man and wife is one flesh ; and so, my mother. — Come, for England ! S^Exit. King. Follow him at foot \ tempt him with speed aboard ; Delay it not ; I'll have him hence to-night : Away ! for every thing is seal'd and done That else leans on th' affair ; pray you, make haste. — \_Exetmt RosENCRANTZ and Guildenstern. And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught, — As my great power thereof may give thee sense, Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red After the Danish sword, and thy free awe Pays homage to us, — thou may'st not coldly set ^ Our sovereign process ; which imports at full, By letters conjuring ^^ to that effect, ' The associates of your voyage are waiting. — " The wind at help " means the wind serves, or is right, to forward you. 8 Hamlet means that he divines them, or has an inkling of them. 9 To set formerly meant to estimate. To set much or little by a thing, is to esfimate it much or little. 10 In Shakespeare's time the two senses of coiijure had not acquired each its peculiar way of pronouncing the word. Here conjuring has the first syllable long, with the sense of earnestly entreating. 1 74 HAMLET, ACT IV. The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England ; For like the hectic in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me : till I know 'tis done, Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.n \_Exit, ACT IV. Scene I. — A Plain in Denmark. Enter Fortinbras, a Captain, and Soldiers, marching. Fortin. Go, captain, from me greet the Danish King ; Tell him that by his license Fortinbras Claims the conveyance of a promised march Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.^ If that his Majesty would aught with us. We shall express our duty in his eye ; ^ And let him know so. Capt. I will do't, my lord. Fortin. Go softly on. \_Exeitnt Fortinbras and Soldiers. Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others. Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these? Capt. They are of Norway, sir. 11 Of course strict grammar would here require " will ne'er begin " ; the tense being changed for the rhyme. See page 96, note 26. 1 The rendezvous here meant is the place where Fortinbras is to wait for the Captain after the latter has done his message to the King. 2 In the Regulatio7ts for the Establishmeiitofthe Queen's Household, 1627 : "All such as doe service in the queen's eye." And in The Establishment of Prince Henry's . Household, 1610 : " All such as doe service in the prince s eye'.' Fortinbras means, " I will wait upon his presence, and pay my respects to him in person." SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 175 Ha7n. How purposed, sir, I pray you? Capt, Against some part of Poland. Ha77i. Who commands them, sir? Capt. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir. Or for some frontier ? Capt. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition, . We go to gain a little patch of ground That hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it ;3 Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole ^ ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it. Capt. Yes, 'tis already garrison'd. Ham. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats IVill not debate the question of this straw : This is th' imposthume^ of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies. — I humbly thank you, sir. Capt. God b' wi' you, sir. \_Exit, Rosen. Will't please you go, my lord ? Ham. I'll be with you straight. Go a little before. — \_Exeunt all but Hamlet. 3 The meaning is, " I would not pay five- ducats for the exclusive privi- lege of collecting all the revenue it will yield to the State. Ho farm ox farm out taxes is to sell commissions for collecting them, the buyers to have the privilege of making what they can by the process. Burke uses the word in a like sense in his Articles of Charge against Hastings : " The farming of the defence of a country, being wholly unprecedented and evidently abused, could have no real object but to enrich the contractors at the Company's expense." — To pay has the force of by paying. The infinitive again used gerundively. See page 169, note i. 4 Imposthume was in common use for abscess in Shakespeare's time. It is a corruption of apostem. 176 HAMLET, ACT IV. How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge ! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure, He that made us with such large discourse. Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust 5 in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th' event, — A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward, — I do not know Why yet I live to say This thing^s to do, Sith^ I have cause and will and strength and means To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me : Witness this army of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince ; Whose spirit, with divine ambition pufPd,''' Makes mouths at the invisible event ; Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, / Even for a egg-shell. Rightly to be great ts not to stir without great argument. But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour's at the stake. How stand I, then. That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd. Excitements of my reason and my blood,^ 5 To fust is to become mouldy ; an old word now quite obsolete. 6 Sith is merely an old form of since ; now quite out of use. 7 Puff'd, here, is inspired or animated. — To 7nake mouths at a thing is to scorn it, or hold it in contempt. 8 Provocations which excite both my reason and my passions. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 177 And let all sleep ? while, to my shame, I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds ; fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause ; Which is not tomb enough and continent ^ To hide the slain ? O, from this time forth. My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth ! 1^ \_Exit. Scene II. — Elsinore. A Room in the Castle, Enter the Queen and Horatio. Queen. I will not speak with her. Hora. She is importunate, indeed distract ; 1 Her mood will needs be pitied. Queen. What would she have ? Hora. She speaks much of her father ; says she hears 9 Continent means that which contains or encloses. " If there be no ful- nesse, then is the cofztinent gvea.ter than the content." — Bacon's Advance- ment of Learning. . 10 Weary is Hamlet, weary under his burden. Now, when he is shipped off to England, the charge of murder resting on him through his own fault, — comparing his lot, chained as he is to his task, with that of Fortinbras. who is so free in all his movements, — now comes the fear that, notwithi standing all his trouble, all his patient endurance, his task has at last be come impossible. This horrible dread penetrates him to the quick, and weighs down his soul. How, — considering the character of his task, — how he is to satisfy the reason of the thing, he cannot conceive ; but he can at least content his blood, should he strike the decisive blow. And how it shrieks in his ear, how it surges over his soul ! This horrible doubt, which has for its background the remorse he feels for the error he has made, — the doubt whether he shall throw all the dictates of reason to the winds, — this is the demon that rules in this soliloquy, and runs wild therein ; and therefore I have said it is the shriek of Hamlet's agony which here relieves itself. — Werder. 1 Distract for distracted ; just as bloat and hoist before. 1 78 HAMLET, ACT IV. There's tricks i' the world ; and hems, and beats her heart ; Spurns enviously at straws ; ^ speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense : her speech is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to collection ; ^ they aim at it, And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts ; Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them, Indeed would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily .^ 'Twere good she were spoken with ; for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds. Queen. Let her come in. — \_Exit Horatio. To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss : ^ So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. Re-enter Horatio, with Ophelia.^ • Ophe. Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark? Queen. How now, Ophelia ! 2 Kicks spitefully at straws. Such was the common use of spurn in the Poet's time. So in The Merchant, i. 3 : " And foot me as you spurn a stran- ger cur over your threshold." And in yulius Ccesar, iii. i : " I spurn thee like a cur out of my way." — E7ivy and its derivatives were commonly used in the sense of malice. 3 Collection is inference or conjecture. — Aim is guess. 4 Unhappily is here used in the sense of mischievously. 5 Shakespeare is not singular in the use of amiss as a substantive. " Each toy " is each trifle. 6 There is no part of this play in its representation on the stage more pathetic than this scene ; which, I suppose, proceeds from the utter insensi- bility Ophelia has to her own misfortunes. A great sensibility, or none at all, seems to produce the same effects. In the latter case the audience sup- ply what is wanting, and with the former they sympathize. — Sir J. REY- NOLDS, SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 79 Ophe. [Sings.] How should I your true love know From another one ? By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandle shoon? Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? Ophe. Say you ? nay, pray you, mark. [Sings.] He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone ; At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. Queen. Nay, but, OpheUa, — Ophe. Pray you, mark. [Sings.] White his shroud as the mountain snow, — Enter the King. Queen. Alas, look here, my lord. Ophe. [Sings.] — Larded"^ with sweet flowers ; Which bewept to the grave did go, With true-love showers. King. How do you, pretty lady ? Ophe. Well, God 'ield you ! ^ They say the owl was a baker's daughter. ^^ Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table ! ■7 These were the badges of pilgrims. The cockle shell was an emblem of their intention to go beyond sea. The habit, being held sacred, was often assumed as a disguise in love-adventures. 8 Larded is garnished. 9 God yield or reward you. 10 There was a tradition that the Saviour went into a baker's shop and asked for some bread. The baker put some dough in the oven to bake for Him, and was rebuked by his daughter for doing so. For this wickedness the daughter was transformed into an owl. l8o HAMLET, ACT IV. King. Conceit upon her father. Ophe. Pray you, let's have no words of this ; but when they ask you what it means, say you this : — [Sings.] To-morrow is Saint Valentine^ s day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine}^ King. How long hath she been thus ? Ophe. I hope all will be well. We must be patient ; but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it ; and so I thank you for your good counsel. — Come, my coach ! — Good night, ladies ; good night, sweet ladies ; good night, good night. \_Exit. King. Follow her close ; give her good watch, I pray you. — \_Exit Horatio. O, this is the poison of deep grief ; it springs All from her father's death. O, Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battaHas.12 First, her father slain : Next, your son gone ; and he most violent author Of his own just remove : the people mudded. Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers, 11 Of course Valentine stands for a person here ; and it means much the same as lover or sweet-heart. The old use of the name is well shown in Scott's Fair Alaid of Perth,\vhexe Simon Glover wishes to make a match be- tween his daughter Catharine and Henry Smith, the hero of the tale. He therefore so arranges matters, that Smith shall be the first person whom Catharine sees on the morning of St. Valentine's day. This makes him her Valentine for the year : as such, he may claim a kiss of her on the spot, and also as often as they meet during the year. 12 Men go out singly, or one by one, to act as spies ; when they go forth Xo fight, they go in armies. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. l8l For good Polonius' death ; and we have done but greenly. In hugger-mugger ^^ to inter him : poor Ophelia Divided from herself and her fair judgment, Without the which we're pictures, or mere beasts : Last, and as much containing as all these, Her brother is in secret come from France ; Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not buzzers to infect his ear With pestilent speeches of his father's death ; Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd. Will nothing stick our person to arraign In ear and ear.^^ O my dear Gertrude, this. Like to a murdering-piece,i^ in many places Gives me superfluous death. \^A noise within. Queen. Alack, what noise is this ? King. Where are my SwitzersP^^ Let them guard the door. — Enter a Gentleman. What is the matter ? Gent. Save yourself, my lord : The ocean, overpeering of his hst,i^ Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste 13 This phrase was much used, before and in the Poet's time, for any thing done hurriedly and by stealth. Thus Florio explains clandesiinare, "to hide or conceal by stealth, or m hugger-mugger." And in North's Plu- tarch Antony urges that Cesar's " body should be honourably buried, and not in hugger-mugger." 14 " In ear and ear" is used, apparently, to give a plural sense. 15 A murdering-piece, or murderer, was a small piece of artillery. Case- shot, filled with small bullets, nails, old iron, &c., was often used in these murderers. This accounts for the raking fire attributed to them in the text. 16 Switzers, for royal guards. The Swiss were then, as since, mercenary soldiers of any nation that could afford to pay them. 1'^ Overflowing his bou7tds, or limits. 1 82 HAMLET, ACT IV. Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord ; And — as ^^ the world were now but to begin. Antiquity forgot, custom not known. The ratifiers and props of every word — They cry, Choose we ; Laertes shall be king / Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds, Laertes shall be king, Laertes king I Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry ! — O, this is counter,^^ you false Danish dogs ! King. The doors are broke. \_Noise within. Enter Laertes, armed ; Danes following. Laer. Where is this King ? — Sirs, stand you all without. Danes. No, let's come in. Laer. I pray you, give me leave. Danes. We will, we will. \They retire without the door. Laer. I thank you : keep the door. — O thou vile King, Give me my father ! Queen. Calmly, good Laertes. Laer. That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bas- tard, And brands the harlot even here, between The chaste unsmirched^^ brows of my true mother. King. What is the cause, Laertes, 18 As has here the force of as if. The explanation sometimes given of the passage is, that the rabble are the ratifiers and props of every idle word. The plain sense is, that antiquity and custom are the ratifiers and props of every sound word touching the matter in hand, the ordering of human society, and the State. 19 Hounds are said to run counter when they are upon a false scent, or hunt by the heel, running backward and mistaking the course of the game. 20 Uhsmirched is unsullied, spotless. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 83 That thy rebeUion looks so giant-hke ? — Let him go, Gertrude ; do not fear our person : There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would, x\cts little of his will. — Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus incensed. — Let him go, Gertrude. — Speak, man. Laer. Where is my father ? King. Dead. Queen. But not by him. King. Let him demand his fill. Laer. How came he dead ? I'll not be juggled with : To Hell, allegiance'! vows, to the blackest devil 1 Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit ! I dare damnation : to this point I stand, — That both the worlds I give to negligence. Let come what comes ; only I'll be revenged Most throughly 21 for my father. King. Who shall stay you ? Laer. My will, not all the world : And for my means, I'll husband them so well, They shall go far with little. King. Good Laertes, If you desire to know the certainty Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge. That, swoopstake,^^ you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser ? 21 Throughly and thoroughly, as also ihrozigh and thorotigh, were used in- differently in the Poet's time. They are, in fact, only different forms of the same word ; as to be thorough in a thing is to go through it. 22 Swoopstake here means indiscriminately , A sweepstake is one who wins or sweeps in all the stakes, whether on the race-grounds or at the gam- ing-table. 184 HAMLET, ACT IV. Laer. None but his enemies. King. Will you know them, then ? Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms. And, like the kind life -rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood.^*^ King. Why, now you speak Like a good child and a true gentleman. That I am guiltless of your father's death, And am most sensibly in grief for it. It shall as level to your judgment pierce ^"^ As day does to your eye. Danes. [ Within.'] Let her come in. Laer. How now ! what noise is that ? — Re-enter Ophelia. O heat, dry up my brains ! tears seven-times salt. Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye ! — By Heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight, Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May ! Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia ! — O Heavens ! is't possible, a young maid's wits Should be as mortal as an old man's life ? Nature is fine in love ; and where 'tis fine It sends some precious instance of itself After the thing it loves. ^^ 23 The pelican is a fabulous bird, often referred to by the old poets for illustration. An old book entitled A Choice of Emblems and other Devices, by Geffrey Whitney, 1586, contains a picture of an eagle on her nest, tearing open her breast to feed her young. 24 Level, again, for direct. — Pierce, here, has the sense of penetrate, that is, go through or reach. 25 Here, as often, instance is proof, example, spechnen, assurance. The precious thing which Ophelia's fineness of nature has sent after her father is " her fair judgment," that is, her sanity. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. . 1 85 Ophe. [Sings.] They bore him barefaced on the bier ; Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny ; Aitd on his grave rained many a tear. — Fare you well, my dove ! Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move me thus. Ophe. You must sing, Down a-down, an you call him a-down-a. O, how the wheel ^^ becomes it ! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.^^ Laer. This nothing's more than matter.^s Ophe. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance ; pray you, love, remember : and there is pansies, that's for thoughts. 2i^ Laer. A document 2*^ in madness; thoughts and remem- brance fitted. 26 The wheel is the burden of a ballad ; from the Latin rota, a round, which is usually accompanied with a burden frequently repeated. 27 Meaning, probably, some old ballad, of which no traces have come to light. 28 He means that Ophelia's nonsense tells more, as to her condition, than speaking sense would. 29 The language of flowers is very ancient, and the old poets have many instances of it. In The Winter's Tale, iv. 3, Perdita makes herself delecta- ble in the use of it, distributing her flowers much as Opheha does here. Rosemary, being supposed to strengthen the memory, was held emblematic of remembrance, and in that thought was distributed at weddings and funer- als. — Pansies, from the French pensees, were emblems of pensiveness, thought being here again used for grief, the. same as in page 128, note 13. The next speech, " thoughts and remembrance fitted," is another instance of the same usage. 30 Docujnent, from the Latin doceo, was often used in the original sense of lesson, or something taught. So in The Faerie Queene, i. 10, ig, where Fidelia takes the Redcross Knight under her' tuition, and draws upon " her sacred booke," — And heavenly documents thereout did preach, That weaker witt of man could never reach. 1 86 HAMLET, ACT IV. Ophe. There's fennel for you, and columbines : ^^ — there's rue for you ; and here's some for me : we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays : — O, you must wear your rue with a difference.^2 There's a daisy : — I would give you some violets,^^ but they wither'd all when my father died : they say he made a good end, — [Sings.] For bonny sweet Robiii is all my joy ?^ Laer. Thought and affliction, passion,^^ Hell itself, She turns to favour and to prettiness. Ophe. [Sings.] And will he not co7?ie again ? And will he not come again ? No, no, he is dead, ■ Go7ie to his death-bed; He never will come again. His beard was white as snow, All flaxen was his poll : 31 Fennel and columbine were significant of cajolery and ingratitude ; so that Ophelia might fitly give them to the guilefiil and faithless King. 32 Rue was emblematic of sorrow or ruth, and was called herb-grace from the moral and medicinal virtues ascribed to it. — There may be some un- certainty as to Ophelia's meaning, when she says to the Queen, " you must wear your rue with a difference y Bearing a difference is an old heraldic phrase ; and the difference here intended is probably best explained in Co- gan's Haven of Health : " The second property is that rue abateth carnal lust, which is also confirmed by Galen." So that the difference in the Queen's case would be emblematic of her " hasty return to the nuptial state, and a severe reflection on her indecent marriage," 33 The daisy was an emblem of dissembling ; the violet, of faithfulness, and is so set down in The Lover's Nosegay. 34 Poor Ophelia in her madness remembers fragments of many old popu- lar ballads. Bonny Robiti appears to have been a favourite, for there were many others written to that tune. 35 Thought, again, for grief. — Passion for suffering ; the classical sense. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 87 He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away ?noan : God ha' mercy on his soul! And of 36 all Christian souls, I pray God. — God b' wi' ye. \^Exit, Laer. Do you see this, O God? King. Laertes, I must commune 37 with your grief, Or you deny me right. Go but apart ; Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me : If by direct or by collateral hand They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give, Our crown, our Hfe, and all that we call ours, To you in satisfaction ; but, if not. Be you content to lend your patience to us. And we shall jointly labour with your soul To give it due content. Laer. Let this be so : His means of death, his obscure burial,— No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones, No noble rite nor formal ostentation,^^ — Cry to be heard, as 'twere from Heaven to Earth, That 39 I must call't in question. Kin'y. So you shall ; And where th' offence is let the great axe fall. I pray you, go with me. \_Exeunt 36 Of, again, for on. See page 108, note 38. 37 Co7nmune has the accent on the first syllable. Generally used so by the English poets ; at least I have noted it so in Milton and Wordsworth. 38 The funerals of knights and persons of rank were made with great ceremony and ostentation formerly. Sir John Hawkins observes that " the sword, the helmet, the gauntlet, spurs, and tabard are still hung over the grave of every knight." 39 That is continually used by the old poets with the force of so that, or insomuch that. 1 88 HAMLET, ACT IV. Scene III. — Another Room in the Castle, Enter Horatio and a Servant. Nora. What are they that would speak with me ? Serv. Sailors, sir : they say they have letters for you. Hora. Let them come in. — \_Exit Servant. I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet. Enter Sailors. I Sail. God bless you, sir. Hora. Let Him bless thee too. I Sail. He shall, sir, an't please Him. There's a letter for you, sir, — it comes from the ambassador that was bound for England, — if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is. Hora. [Reads.] Horatio, when thou shall have over- look' d this, give these fellows some means to the King : they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment^ gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour ; in the grapple I boarded them : on the. instant they got clear of our ship ; so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me likeJhieves of mercy : but they knew what they did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the King have the letters I have sent ; and repair thou to me with as mitch speed as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb ; yet are they much too light for 1 Appointment, here, is armament, or equipment. Still used thus in mili- tary language. Also in " a well-appointed house " ; meaning, of course, well-furnished, or well-ordered. SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1^9 the bore^ of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where lam. Rosencrantz and Ginldenstern hold their cotcrse for England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farew^ell. He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet. « Come, I will make you way for these your letters ; And do't the speedier, that you may direct me To him from whom you brought them. \_Exeunt. Scene IV. — Another Room in the Castle. Enter the King and Laertes. King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for friend, Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, That he which hath your noble father slain Pursued my hfe. Laer. It well appears : but tell me Why you proceeded not against these |Seats, So crimeful and so capital in nature. As by your safety, wisdom, all things else. You mainly i were stirr'd up. Joiner, O, for two special reasons ; Which may to you perhaps seem much unsinew'd. But yet to me they're strong. The Queen his mother Lives almost by his looks \ and for myself, — My virtue or my plague, be't either-which, — She's so conjunctive to my life and soul, 2 The bore is the caliber or capacity of a gun ; as a ten-pounder, or a seventy-four pounder. _ ^t- •/ 1 The Poet sometimes uses mainly for greatly or strongly. So m Troilus and Cressida, iv. 4 : " I do not call your faith in question so mainly as my merit." IQO HAMLET, ACT IV. That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her. The other motive, Why to a pubhc count I might not go. Is the great love the general gender ^ bear him ; Who, dipping all his faults in their affection. Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone. Convert his gyves to graces : ^ so that my arrows. Too sHghtly timber'd for so loud a wind,'* Would have reverted to my bow again. And not where I had aim'd them.^ Laer. And so have I a noble father lost ; A sister driven into desperate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again,^ Stood challenger on mount of all the age ''' For her perfections. But my revenge will come. King. Break not your sleeps for that : you must not think That we are made of stuff so flat and dull. That we can let our beard be shook with danger, And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more :" I loved your father, and we love ourself ; And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine — Enter a Messenger. How now ! what news ? 2 " The ^^-nexsl gender" is the common race or sort of people ; the multi- tude. Shakespeare has the like phrase, " one^^;^^^r of herbs." 3 Punishment would invest him with more grace in the people's eye ; his fetters would make him appear the lovelier to them. 4 So in Roger Ascham's Toxophilus : " Weake bowes and lyghte shaftes cannot stande in a rough wynde." 5 Elliptical. " And would not have gone where I had aim'd them," is the meaning. 6 The meaning probably is, " If I may praise her for what she was, but has now ceased to be." 7 That is, " stood challenger of all the age." SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 1 91. ■M'ess. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet : This to your Majesty ; this to the Queen. King. From Hamlet ! who brought them ? Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say ; I saw them not : They were given me by Claudio ; he received them Of him that brought them. King. Laertes, you shall hear them. — Leave us. \^Exil Messenger. ' [Reads.] High and mighty: You shall know I atn set naked ^ on your kingdom. To-7norrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes ; when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return. Hamlet. What should this mean ? Are all the rest come back ? Or is it some abuse,^ and no such thing ? Laer. Know yoii the hand ? King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked! And in a postscript here, he says alone. Can you advise me ? Laer. I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come : It warms the very sickness in my heart, That I shall live and tell him to his teeth. Thus diddest thou. King. If it be so, Laertes, — As how should it be so, how otherwise? 10 — Will you be ruled by me ? 8 Naked, here, means destitute of attendants ; alone. 9 Abuse for cheat, deception, or delusion. 10 That is, " how should it be either true or not true ? " The thing seems Incredible either way; incredible that Hamlet should have returned; in- credible that the letter should not be in Hamlet's character, or hand-writing. 192 HAMLET, ACT IV. Laer. I will, my lord, So you will not o'errule me to a peace. King. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd, As checking ^^ at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him To an exploit now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall : And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe ; But even his mother shall uncharge the practice,^^ And call it accident. Laer. My lord, I will be ruled ; The rather, if you could devise it so, That I might be the organ. King. It falls right. You have been talk'd of since your travel much, And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality Wherein they say you shine : your sum of parts Did not together pluck such envy from him As did that one ; and that, in my regard, Of the unworthiest siege.i^ Laer. What part is that, my lord? King. A very ^^ riband in the cap of youth, Yet needful too ; for youth no less becomes The light and careless livery that it wears 11 To check at is a term in falconry, meaning to start away or fly off from the lure. So in Hinde's Bliosto Libidinoso, 1606 : " For who knows not, quoth she, that this hawk, which comes now so fair to the fist, may to-mor- row check at the lure ? " 12 Acquit the proceeding or the contrivance of all design. 13 The Poet again uses siege for seat, that is, place or rank, in Othello, i. 2 : " I fetch my hfe and being from men of royal siege" The usage was not uncommon. 14 The Poet repeatedly has very in the sense of mere. SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 193 Than settled age his sables and his weeds, Importing health and graveness.^^ Two months since, Here was a gentleman of Normandy : I've seen, myself, and served against, the French, And they can ^^ well on horseback : but this gallant Had witchcraft in't ; he grew unto his seat ; And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, A^ he had been incorpsed and demi-natured With the brave beast. So far he topp'd my thought, That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,i^ Come short of what he did. Laer. A Norman was't? King. A Norman. Laer. Upon my life, Lamond. King. The very same. Laer. I know him well : he is the brooch, ^^ indeed, And gem of all the nation. King. He made confession of you ; And gave you such a masterly report For art and exercise in your defence,!^ And for your rapier most especially, 15 The sense of health goes with the preceding clause ; the " light and careless livery " denoting health, as the black dress denotes gravity, Shake- speare has many instances of like construction. — Weeds was often used for clothes or dress in general. Here the sense of settled continues over weeds : staid or soder dress. 16 Can is here used in its original sense of ability or skill. 1'^ That is, in the imagination of shapes and tricks, ox feats. This use of forge ?ind/orge}y was not unfrequent. — To top is to surpass. 18 Brooch was used for any conspicuous ornament in general. So in The World runnes on Wheeles, 1630 : " These sonnes of Mars, who in their times were the glorious Brooches of our nation, and admirable terrour to our enemies." 19 Defence here m^zxis fencing or sword-practice. 194 HAMLET, Ar*- iv. That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed, If one could match you : the scrimers ^^ of their nation, He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you opposed them. Sir, this report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with your envy,^^ That he could nothing do but wish and beg Your sudden coming o'er, to play with him. Now, out of this, — Laer. What out of this, my lord ? King. Laertes, was your father dear to you ? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart ? Laer. Why ask you this ? King. Not that I think you did not love your father ; But that I know love is begun by time,^^ And that I see, in passages of proof,^*^ Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it ; And nothing is at a like goodness still ; For goodness, growing to a plurisy,-^ Dies in his own too-much. That we would do, We should do when we would ; for this would changes. And hath abatements and delays as many 20 Scrimer is from the French escrlmeur, which means fencer. 21 " With envy of yoti." The objective genitive, as it is called. Shake- speare often has both the objective and the subjective genitive in cases where present usage does not admit them. 22 As love is begun by time, and has its gradual increase, so time quali- fies and abates it. 23 Passages of proof xaeaxis i7tsta?tces of trial, or experience. 24 Plurisy is from the Latin plus, pluris, and must not be confounded \^\\h pleurisy. It means excess, much the same as Burns's " unco guid." So in Massinger's Unnatural Combat : " Plurisy of goodness is thy ill." SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 195 As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents ; And then this should is hke a spendthrift sigh, That hurts by easing.^^ But, to th' quick o' the ulcer : Hamlet comes back : what would you undertake, To show yourself your father's son in deed More than in words ? Laer. To cut his throat 1' the church. King. No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize ;2^ Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes, Will you do this,^'' keep close within your chamber. Hamlet return'd shali know you are come home : We'll put on^s those shall praise your excellence, And set a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you ; bring you, in fine, together. And wager on your heads. He, being remiss, Most generous, and free from all contriving. Will not peruse ^9 the foils ; str thai, with ease Or with a little shuffling, you may choose A sword unbated,^^ and in a pa^b of practice Requite him for your father. 25 It was anciently believed that sighing consumed the blood. The Poet has several allusions to this, as in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, iii. 2: " Sighs of love that cost the fresh blood dear." There is also a fine moral meaning in the figure. Jeremy Taylor speaks of certain people who take to a sentimental penitence, as " cozening themselves with their own tears," as if these would absolve them from " doing works meet for repentance." Such tears may be fitly said to " hurt by easing." 26 Murder should not have the protection or privilege of sanctuary in any place. The allusion is to the rights of sanctuary with which certain re- ligious places were formerly invested, so that criminals resorting to them were shielded not only from private revenge, but from the arm of the law. 27 That is, " i/you will do this " ; or, " If you would do this." 28 Put on, here, is stir up, incite, or, as we say, set on. 29 Peruse, for observe closely or scrutinize. 80 Unbated is unblunted : a foil without the cap, or button, which was 196 HAMLET, ACT IV. Laer. I will do't ; And, for that purpose, I'll annoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank,^! So mortal that, but dip a knife in it. Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples ^^ that have virtue Under the Moon, can save the thing from death That is but scratch'd withal : I'll touch my point With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, It may be death. King. Let's further think of this ; Weigh what convenience both of time and means May fit us to our shape. If this should fail. And that our drift look through our bad performance,^^ 'Twere better not assay 'd : therefore this project Should have a back or second, that might hold, If this should blast in proof ^^ Soft ! — let me see : — We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings, — I ha't : When in your motion you are hot and dry, — put upon the point, when fencers were to play or practise their art. — A pass of practice is a thrust made as in exercise of skill, and without any purpose of harm ; the thruster pretending to be ignorant of the button's being off the foil. SI Mountebank commonly meant a quack, but is here put, apparently, for druggist or apothecary. The word seems to have been used originally of a pedlar or pretender who mounted a bench, or a bank by the wayside, and hawked off his wares or his skill. — Here, as generally in Shakespeare, mor- tal \s, deadly ; that which kills. 32 Cataplasm is a soft plaster, or a poultice. — Simples is, properly, herbs ; but was used of any medicine. See page 144, note 39, 33 " If our purpose should expose or betray itself through lack of skill in the execution." 34 Should break down in the trial. The image is of proving guns, which of course sometimes burst in the testing. SCENE IV. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 197 As make your bouts more violent to that end, — And that he calls for drmk, I'll have prepar'd him A chalice for the nonce ; ^^ whereon but sipping, If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,^^ Our purpose may hold there. — Enter the Queen. How now, sweet Queen ! Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel. So fast they follow. — Your sister's drown'd, Laertes. Laer. Drown'd! O, where P^? Queen, There is a willow grows aslant a brook. That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream : There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples. That HberaPS shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead-men's fingers call them : There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke ; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide. And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up ; 35 " por the nonce " is for the occasion ; literally, for the once. — In the line before, instead of "And f/zai," we should say "And when'' See page 55, note I. 36 Stuck, a fencing-term, is thrust; the same as the Italian and Spanish stoccata and sfaccado. So in Twelfth Night, iii. 4 : " He gives me the stuck- in with such mortal motion, that it is inevitable." 3'^ That Laertes might be excused in some degree for not cooling, the Act concludes with the affecting death of Ophelia ; who in the beginning lay like a little projection of land into a lake or stream, covered with spray- flowers, quietly reflected in the quiet waters ; but at length is undermined or loosened, and becomes a fairy isle, and after a brief vagrancy sinks almost without an eddy. — Coleridge. 88 Liberal is repeatedly used by Shakespeare for loose-tongued. 198 HAMLET, ACT IV. Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable ^^ of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element : but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, PuU'd the poor wretch ^^ from her melodious lay- To muddy death. Laer. Alas, then is she drown 'd ! Queen. Drown'd, drown'd. Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears : but yet It is our trick ; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will : when these are gone, The woman will be out."*! — Adieu, my lord ; I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze. But that this folly drowns it. \_Exit. King. Let's follow, Gertrude : How much I had to do to calm his rage ! Now fear I this will give it start again ; Therefore let's follow. {Exeunt 39 Incapable for insensible or unconscious. The Poet has it so in one or two other places. So in As You Like It, iii. 5, we have capable in the oppo- site sense : " Lean but upon a rush, the cicatrice and capable impressure thy palm some moment keeps." 40 Wretch, again, as a strong term of endearment. See page 103, note 24. 41 " I shall have wept the woman's tenderness all out of me, and shall be again ready for a man's work." SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 199 ACT V. Scene I. — A Churchyard. Enter two Clowns, with spades, ^c. 1 Clown. Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wil- fully seeks her own salvation ? 2 Clown. I tell thee she is ; and therefore make her grave straight : ^ the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial. 1 Clown. How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own defence ? 2 Clown. Why, 'tis found so. 1 Clown. It must be se offendendo ;^ it cannot be else. For here lies the point : If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act j and an act hath three branches ; it is, to act, to do, and to perform : argal ^ she drown'd herself wittingly. 2 Clown. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver, — 1 Clown. Give me leave. Here hes the water ; good : here stands the man ; good : if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he,^ he goes, — mark you that ; but if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life. 2 Clown. But is this law? 1 straight iox straightway ; a common usage. 2 The Clown, in undertaking to show off his legal learning, blunders offendendo for de/ende?tdo. 3 Argal is an old vulgar corruption of the Latin e7go, therefore. •* " Will he, nill he," is will he, or will he not. 200 HAMLET, ACT V. 1 Clown. Ay, marry, is't ; crowner's-quest law.^ 2 Clown. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial. 1 Clown. Why, there thou say'st ; and the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even-Christian.^ — Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers ; they hold up Adam's profession. 2 Clown. Was he a gentleman ? 1 Clown. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2 Clown. Why, he had none. 1 Clown. What, art a heathen? How dost thou under- stand the Scripture ? The Scripture says Adam digg'd : could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee : if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thy- self — 2 Clown. Go to. I Clown. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter ? 5 Sir John Hawkins thinks the Poet here meant to ridicule a case re- ported by Plowden. Sir James Hales had drowned himself in a fit of in- sanity, and the legal question was whether his lease was thereby forfeited to the Crown, Much subtilty was expended in finding out whether Sir James was the agent or the patie7it ; that is, whether he went to the water or the water came to him. The following is part of the argument : " Sir James Hales was dead, and how came he to his death ? It may be answered, by drowning ; and who drowned him ? Sir James Hales ; and when did he drown him ? In his lifetime. So that Sir Jamec Hales being alive caused Sir James Hales to die, and the act of the living man was the death of the dead man." ^ Even- Christian iox fellow- Christian was the old mode of expression, and is to be found in Chaucer and the Chroniclers. Wiclifft. has even-se^ vant {qx fellow-servant. SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 201 2 Clown. The gallows -maker ; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants. / Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith : the gallows does well : but how does it well? it does well to those that do ill : now, thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church : argal the gallows may do well to thee. To't again \ come. 2 Clown. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter ? 1 Clown, Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.'^ 2 Clown, Marry, now I can tell. 1 Clown. To't. 2 Clown. Mass, I cannot tell. E7iter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance. I Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating ; and when you are asked this question next, say a grave-maker : the houses that he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan ] fetch me a stoup of liquor. {Exit 2 Clown. [He digs, and sings.] In youth, when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet, To contract— O — the time, for— ah — my behove — O— Methought there was nothing meet? 7 This was a common phrase for giving over or ceasing to do a thing, a metaphor derived from the unyoking of oxen at the end of their labour. 8 The original ballad from whence these stanzas are taken is prmted m Tottel's Miscellany, or Songes and Sonnettes by Lord Surrey and others, 1575. The ballad is attributed to Lord Vaux. and is printed by Dr. Percy m his Reliques of Ancient Poetry. The Gs and ahs are meant to express the Clown's gruntings as he digs. 202 HAMLET, ACT V. Ham, Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave -making ? Hora. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness. Ham. 'Tis e'en so : the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. I Clown. [Sings.] But age, with his stealing steps. Hath claw''d me in his clutch, And hath shipped me intil the land, As if I had never beeii such. [Throws up a skull. Ha7n. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once : how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw- bone, that did the first murder ! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'erreaches ; one that would cir- cumvent God, might it not?^ Hora. It might, my lord. Ham. Or of a courtier ; which could say Good morrow, sweet lord / How dost thou, good lord ? This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it, might it not ? ^ Hora. Ay, my lord. Ham. Why, e'en so ; and now my Lady Worm's ; ^^ chap- less, and knock'd about the mazzard with a sexton's spade : here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at log- gats 11 with 'em? mine ache to think on't. 9 Shakespeare uses politician for a plotter or schemer; one who is ever trying to out-craft and overreach his neighbour, and even Providence, and to intrigue his w^ay to popularity or profit. The equivoque in o'erreaches is obvious enough. 10 The skull that was my Lord Such-a-one s is now ony Lady Worm's. II Loggats are small logs or pieces of wood. Hence loggats was the SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 203 I Clown. [Sings.] A picJz-axe, and a spade, a spade, For and^"^ a shrouding sheet ; — O — ■ A pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet. [Throws up another skull. Ham. There's another : why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets/^ his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce i'* with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery ? Hum ! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries : ^^ is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of name of an ancient rustic game, wherein a stake was fixed in the ground at which loggats were thrown ; in short, a ruder kind of quoit-play. 12 " For and" says Dyce, " in the present version of the stanza, answers to And eke in that given by Percy." So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle : " Your squire doth come, and with him comes the lady, /or and the Squire of Damsels, as I take it." 13 Quiddits are quirks, or subtle questions ; and quillets are nice and friv- olous distinctions. The etymology of this last word has plagued many learned heads. Blount, in his Glossography, clearly points out quodlibet as the origin of it. Bishop Wilkins calls a quillet " a frivolousness." 14 Sconce was not unfrequently used for head. 15 Shakespeare here is profuse of his legal learning. Ritson, a lawyer, shall interpret for him : " A recovery with double voticher is so called from two persons being successively vozicher, or called upon to warrant the tenant's title. 'Qoih. fines and recoveries are fictions of law, used to convert an estate tail into a fee-simple. Statutes are (not acts of parliament but) statutes mer- chant and staple, particular modes of recognizance or acknowledgment for securing debts, which thereby become a charge upon the party's land. Statutes and recognizances are constantly mentioned together in the conve- nants of a purchase deed." 204 HAMLET, ACT V. fine dirt? 16 will his vouchers vouch him no more of his pur- chases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures P^^ The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box ; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha? Hora. Not a jot more, my lord. Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? Hora. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too. Ham. They are sheep and calves which seek out assur- ance in that.i^ I will speak to this fellow. — Whose grave's this, sirrah? I Clown. Mine, sir. — [Sings.] O — A pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet. Ham. I think it be thine indeed, for thou Hest in't. I Clown. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours : for my part, I do not lie in't and yet it is mine. Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine : 'tis for the dead, not for the quick ; therefore thou liest. I Clown. 'Tis a quick he, sir ; 'twill away again, from me to you. 16 Here we have fine used in four different senses : first, in the proper Latin sense, end; second, in the legal sense, to denote certain processes in law; third, in the sense of proud, elegant, or refined; fourth, in the ordinary sense of small. 1'^ Indenture, conveyance, and assurance axe all used here as equivalent terms, and mean what we call deeds ; instruments relating to the tenure and transfer of property. They were called indentures, because two copies were written on the same sheet of parchment, which was cut in two in a toothed or indented line, to guard against counterfeits, and to prove genuineness in case of controversy. — Inheritor, in the next line, is possessor or owner. The Poet often uses the verb to biherlt in the same sense. 18 A quibble is here implied upon parchment ; deeds, which were always written on parchment, being in legal language " common assurances." SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 205 Ham. What man dost thou dig it for? I Clown. For no man, sir. Ham. What woman, then ? I Clown. For none, neither. Ham. Who is to be buried in't ? I Clown. One that was a woman, sir ; but, rest her soul ! she's dead. Ham. How absolute the knave is ! we must speak by the card,^^ or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken a note of it ; the age is grown so picked,^^ that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.^i — How long hast thou been a grave-maker ? I Clown. Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that day that our last King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. Ham. How long is that since ? I Clown. Cannot you tell that ? every fool can tell that : it was the very day that young Hamlet was born ; he that is mad, and sent into England. Ham. Ay, marry; why was he sent into England? I Clown. Why, because he was mad : he shall recover his wits there ; or, if he do not, it's no great matter there. Ham. Why ? I Clown. 'Twill not be seen in him there ; there the men are as mad as he. Ham. How came he mad? I Clown. Very strangely, they say. 19 To speak by the card, is to speak precisely, by rule, or according to a prescribed course. It is a metaphor from the seaman's card or chart by which he guides his course. 20 Picked is curious, over-nice. 21 Kibe is an old word for chilblain. The Poet has it several times. 206 HAMLET, ACT V. Ham. How strangely ? I Clown. Faith, e'en with losing his wits. Ham. Upon what ground ? I Clown. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years. Ham. How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot? I Clown. V faith, if he be not rotten before he die, — as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in, — he will last you some eight year or nine year : a tanner will last you nine year. Ham. Why he more than another? I Clown. Why, sir, his hide is so tann'd with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while : and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now ; this skull has lain in the earth three-and-twenty years. Ham. Whose was it? I Clown. A whoreson mad fellow's it was : whose do you think it was ? Ha?n. Nay, I know not. I Clown. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue ! 'a pour'd a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the King's jester. Ham. This ? I Clown. E'en that. Ham. Let me see. \_Takes'lhe skull.~\ — Alas, poor Yor- ick ! — I knew him, Horatio ; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy : he hath borne me on his back a thousand times ; and now how abhorred in my imagination it is ! my gorge rises at it. Here hung .those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. — Where be your gibes now ? your gambols ? your songs ? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar ? Not one now, to mock SCENE L PRINCE OF DENMARK. 207 your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?. Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come : make her laugh at that ! — Pr'y- thee, Horatio, tell me one thing. Hora. What's that, my lord ? Ham. Dost thou think Alexander look'd o' this fashion i' the earth? Hora. E'en so. Ham. And smelt so ? pah ! . \_Puts down the skull. Hora. E'en so, my lord. Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio ! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole ? Hora. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so. Ha77i. No, faith, not a jot ; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likehhood to lead it ; as thus : Alex- ander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust ; the dust is earth ; of earth we make loam : and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel ? Imperial Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay. Might stop a hole to keep the wind away : O, that that earth which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall t' expel the Winter's flaw I^^ But soft ! but soft ! aside ! here comes the King, The Queen, the courtiers : — Enter Priests, ^'c, in pi-ocession ; the Corpse of Ophelia, Laertes aiid Mourners following ; the King, the Queen, their Trains, &^c. Who is that they follow ? 22 p^jlaw is a violent gust or blast of wind. 208 HAMLET, ACT V. And with such maimed rites ? This doth betoken, The corse they follow did with desperate hand Fordo its own life : 'twas of some estate.^^ Couch we awhile, and mark. \_Retiring with Horatio. Laer. What ceremony else ? Ham. That is Laertes, a very noble youth : mark. Laer. What ceremony else ? I Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarged As we have warrantise : her death was doubtful ; And, but that great command o'ersways the order, She should in ground unsanctified have lodged Till the last trumpet ; for charitable prayers, ^Shards,^^ flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her : Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,^^ Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home Of 26 bell and burial. Laer. Must there no more be done ? I Priest. No more be done : We should profane the service of the dead. To sing a requiem and such rest to her As to peace-parted souls.^"^ 23 Estate was a common term for persons of rank. — To fordo is to undo or destroy. See page 95, note 21. 24 Shards not only means fragments of pots and tiles, but rubbish of any kind. Our version of the Bible has preserved to us pot-sherds ; and brick- layers, in Surrey and Sussex, use the compounds tile-sherds, slate-sherds. — For, in the preceding line, has the force of instead of. 25 Grants is an old word iox garlands ; very rare, and not used again by Shakespeare. It was customary in some parts of England to have a gar- land of flowers and sweet herbs carried before a maiden's coffin. Johnson says it was the custom in rural parishes in his time. 26 O/has here the force oi with. 27 A requiem is a mass sung for the rest of the soul. So called from the words, Requiem ceternam dona eis, Domine. — " Peace-parted souls" is souls SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 209 Lae?'. Lay her i' the earth ; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring ! — I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling. Ham. What, the fair Ophelia ! Queen. Sweets to the sweet : farewell ! \_Scattering flowers . I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife ; I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, And not have strew'd thy grave. Laer. O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious '^'^ sense Deprived thee of ! — Hold off the earth awhile, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms. \_Leaps into the grave. Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, Till of this flat a mountain you have made T' o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head Of blue Olympus. Ham. \^Advancing^ What is he whose grief Bears such an emphasis ? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand Like wonder- wounded hearers ? This is I, Hamlet the Dane ! \_Leaps into the grave. Laer. The Devil take thy soul ! {^Grappling with him. that have departed in peace / or, as the Prayer-book has it, " in favour with Thee our God, and in perfect charity with the world." 28 Ingenious for ingenuous, guileless. Even Defoe has it so in his Colonel yack, 1738 : " But 'tis contrary to an ingenious spirit to delight in such ser- vice." 2IO HAMLET, ACT V. Ham. Thou pray'st not well. I pr'ythee, take thy fingers from my throat ; For, though I am not splenitive and rash, Yet have I something in me dangerous, Which let thy wisdom fear : hold off thy hand ! King. Pluck them asunder. Quten. Hamlet, Hamlet ! All. Gentlemen, — Hora. Good my lord, be quiet. \The Attendsints J^ar I l/iem, and they come out of the grave. Ham. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme Until my eyelids will no longer wag. Queen. O my son, what theme ? Hain. I loved Ophelia : forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love. Make up my sum. — What wilt thou do for her ? King. O, he is mad, Laertes. Queen. For love of God, forbear him. Ham. 'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do : Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself ? Woo't drink up Esill ? ^^ eat a crocodile ? I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine ? To outface me with leaping in her grave ? 29 What particular lake, river, frith, or gulf was meant by the Poet, is something uncertain. The more common opinion is, that he had in mind the river Yesel, which, of the larger branches of the Rhine, is the one nearest to Denmark. ' In the maps of our time, Isef is the name of a gulf almost surrounded by land, in the Island of Zealand, not many miles- west of Elsi-' nore. Either of these names might naturally enough have been spelt and pronounced Esitl or hell by an Englishman in Shakespeare's time. In strains of h)^erbole, such figures of speech were often used by the old poets. — Woo' I is a contraction of wouldst thou, said to be common in the northern counties of England. SCENE I. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 211 Be buried quick with her, and so will I ; And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone,^^ Make Ossa like a wart ! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou. Queen. This is mere^i madness : And thus awhile the fit will work on him ; Anon, as patient as the female dove. When that her golden couplets are disclosed,^^ His silence will sit drooping. Ham. Hear you, sir : What is the reason that you use me thus? I loved you ever : but it is no matter ; Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. \_Exit. King. I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him. — \_Exit Horatio. \_To Laertes.] Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech ; We'll put the matter to the present push. — Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son. — This grave shall have a Hving monument : An hour of quiet shortly shall we see ; Till then, in patience our proceeding be. \_Exeunt, 30 " The burning zone " is no doubt the path, or seeming path, of the Sun in the celestial sphere ; the Sun's diurnal orbit, 31 Here, as often, mere is absolute or downright. 32 The "golden couplets" are the two chicks of the dove; which, when first hatched, are covered with a yellow down ; and in her patient tenderness the mother rarely leaves the nest, till her little ones attain to some degree of dove-discretion. — Disclose was often used for hatch. 212 HAMLET, ACT v. Scene II. ^- A Hall in the Castle. Enter Hamlet and Horatio. Ham. So much for this, sir ; now shall you see the other : You do remember all the circumstance ? ^ Hora. Remember it, my lord ! Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, That would not let me sleep : ^ methought I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.^ Rashly, — And praised be rashness for it ; let us know, Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well. When our deep plots do pall ; "* and that should teach us There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will, — 1 Circumstance probably means the circuvistayitial account given by Ham- let in his letter to Horatio. — The other xeiers, no doubt, to the further matter intimated in that letter : " I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb." 2 Hamlet has from the first divined the King's purpose in sending him to England. Since the close of the interlude, when the King was " frighted with false fire," Hamlet knows that the King did indeed murder his father, and he also knows that the King suspects him of knowing it. Hence, on ship- board, he naturally has a vague, general apprehension of mischief, and this as naturally fills him with nervous curiosity as to the particular shape of danger which he is to encounter. 3 The bilboes were bars of iron with fetters annexed to them, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa, in Spain, where the things were made. To understand the allusion, it should be known that, as these fetters connected the legs of the offenders very closely together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as those of Hamlet, in whose mind thei-e was a kind of fighting that would not let him sleep. — Mutines is for mutineers. 4 Pall is from the old French palser, to fade or fall away. So in Antony and Cleopatra: " Fll never follow thy pall' d fortunes more." — Note that all after rashly, down to the beginning of Hamlet's next speech, is paren- thetical. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 213 Hora, That is most certain. Ham. — Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf d about me,^ in the dark Groped I to find out them ; had my desire ; Finger'd their packet ; and, in fine, withdrew To mine own room again : making so bold. My fears forgetting manners, to unseal Their grand commission ; where I found, Horatio, — O royal knavery ! — an exact command. Larded with many several sorts of reasons, — Importing Denmark's health, and England's too, With, ho ! such bugs and goblins in my life,^ — That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,'^ No, not to stay the grinding of the axe, My head should be struck off. Hora. Is't possible ? Ham. Here's the commission : read it at more leisure. But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed ? Hora. I beseech you. Ham. Being thus be-netted round with villainies, — Ere I could make a prologue to my brains. They had begun the play,^ — I sat me down, 5 Thrown, or gat/ietvd, loosely about me. 6 Such bugbears and fantastic dangets growing out of my life. The Poet has bug several times in that sense. So in The Winter's Tale, iii. 2 : " Sir, spare your threats : the bug, which you would fright me with, I seek." — Goblins were a knavish sort of fairies, perhaps ignes fatui, and so belonged to the genus Humbug. 7 The language is obscure, though the general sense is plain enough. I suspect bated is an instance of the passive form with the active sense ; no leisure a^a/««^ the speed ; or the haste not being lessened by any pause.— Supervise is looking over, perusal. 8 An allusion to the stage, where a play was commonly introduced by a prologue. Hamlet means that his thoughts were so fiery-footed as to start 214 HAMLET, ACT V. Devised a new commission ; wrote it fair : I once did hold it, as our statists do, A baseness to write fair,^ and labour'd much How to forget that learning ; but, sir, now It did me yeoman's service.'^ Wilt thou know Th' effect of what I wrote ? Hora. Ay, good my lord. Ham. An earnest conjuration from the King, — As England was his faithful tributary j As love between them like the palm might flourish ; As peace should still her wheaten garland wear, And stand a cement 'tween their amities ; And many such-like ases of great charge,^^ — That, on the view and knowing of these contents, Without debatement further, more or less. He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving-time ^^ allow'd. Hora. How was this seal'd ? Ham. Why, even in that was Heaven ordinant. I had my father's signet in my purse, off in. the play itself before he could get through with the introduction to it. 9 Statist is the old word for statesman. Blackstone says that " most of our great rnen of Shakespeare's time wrote very bad hands ; their secreta- ries, very neat ones." It was accounted a mechanical and vulgar accom- plishment to write a fair hand. 1" In the days of archery, the English yeomanry, with their huge bows and long arrows, were the most terrible fighters in Europe. 11 Of course " ases " refers to the use of As three times in the preceding lines. In Shakespeare's time as and that were often used interchangeably. So here; and, according to present usage, the second As and also the third should be That. — Great charge is great importance ; charged with great im' fort. 12 " Shriving-'iwiMi " is time for confession and absolution. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK, 215 Which was the model of that Danish seal ; Folded the writ up in form of th' other' ; Subscribed it ; gave't th' impression ; placed it safely, The changeling never known. Now, the next day Was our sea-fight ; and what to this was sequent Thou know'st already. Hora. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't. Ham. Why, man, they did make love to this employment ; They are not near my conscience ; their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow : ^'^ 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell-incensed points Of mighty opposites.'"* i3 Horatio seems to regret, as he well may, the fate of Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, who, of course, did not distinctly know the purpose of their commission, else they would have turned back, after the separation of Hamlet from them. Of course, too, Hamlet expected, at the time, to go to England with them ; and it has been suggested that, had he done so, he would have arrested the effect of the substituted commission. But I prefer the view taken by Professor Werder : "As surely as Rosencrantz and Guild- enstern deliver their letter, his head falls. That letter, then, they must not be alloioed to deliver ; they must deliver a different one. But do you say he could have spared them ? he could have written something that would en- danger neither him nor them ? Does he know, or can he discover from them so that he rnay depend upon their word, how far they are cognizant of the purport of their errand ? whether they are not charged with some oral message ? What if they should contradict what he might write of a harmless character ? What if the King of England, being in doubt, should send back to Denmark for further directions, detain all three, and then, as surely was to be expected, put Hamlet to death ? No, there is no expe- dient possible, no evasion, no choice between thus or otherwise. He must sacrifice them, a/^ii even without allowing them time to confess, — must do this even. For, if only they are allowed time for confession, after they are seized and made sensible of their position, there is no foreseeing what turn things may take for him." 14 When men of lower rank come between the thrusts and sword-points of great men engaged in fierce and mortal duel, or bent on fighting it out to 2l6 HAMLET, ACT V. Hora. Why, what a king is this ! Ham. Does it not, think'st thou, stand me now upon?*^ He that hath kill'd my King, and stain'd my mother ; Popp'd in between th' election and my hopes ; Thrown out his angle for my proper life, And with such cozenage, — is't not perfect conscience To quit ^^ him with this arm? and is't not to be damn'd, To let this canker of our nature come In further evil ? '^ Hora. It must be shortly known to him from England What is the issue of the business there. the death. — Here, as usual in Shakespeare, opposites is opponents, — I quote again from Professor Werder : " Whoever, from his position, or from his zeal and ofticiousness, undertakes the office of carrying the letter and Hamlet to England, must suffer whatever of harm to himself may be con- nected with such an errand. The business is dangerous ; such affairs always are. The baseness of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is their ruin : they promenade, so to speak, in the sphere of a fate which involves damna- tion, without scenting or wishing to scent the sulphur. Where such a king bears rule, his servants are always exposed to the very worst that can befall ; and at any moment their ruin may come through circumstances and causes, from which nothing may seem more remote than the catastrophe : for the main thing is overlooked, because it is always present, even the ground on which all concerned live and move, upon which all rests, and which is itself Destruction. Whoever serves such a king, and, without any misgiving of his crime, serves him with ready zeal ; upon him Hell has a claim ; and, if that claim be made good, he has no right to complain. — These are things in which Shakespeare knows no jesting, because he is so great an ex- pounder of the Law, the Divine Law ; and he holds to it as no second poet has done." 15 " It stands me upon" is an old phrase for "it is incumbent upon me," or, " it is my bounden duty." Shakespeare has it repeatedly. So in Kmg Richard II., ii. 3 : "It stands your Grace upon, to do him right." 16 Here, as in many other places, to quit is to requite. 1'^ " Is it not a damnable sin to let this cancer oi humanity proceed further in mischief and villainy ? " Canker, in one of its senses, means an eating, malignant sore, like ^ cancer; which word is from the same original. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 217 Ham. It will be short : the interim is mine ; 1^ And a man's life's no more than to say One. But I am very sorry, good Horatio, That to Laertes I forgot myself; For by the image of my cause I see The portraiture of his.^^ I'll court his favours ; 20 But, sure, the bravery of his grief did put me Into a towering passion. Hora. Peace ! who comes here ? Enter Osric. Osric. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark. Ham. I humbly thank you, sir. — \_Aside to Horatio.] Dost know this water-fly ? ^^ Hora. \_Aside to Hamlet.] No, my good lord. Ham.- \_Aside to Horatio.] Thy state is the more gra- cious ; for 'tis a vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile : let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the King's mess.^^ 'Tis a chough ; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt. 18 Hamlet justly looks forward to the coming of that news as the crisis of his task : it will bring things to a head, and give him a practicable twist on the King : he can then meet both him and the publie with justifying "proof oi his guilt. 19 Hamlet and Laertes have lost each his father, and both have perhaps lost equally in Ophelia ; so that their cause of sorrow is much the same. 20 Hamlet means " I'll solicit his good will; " the general meaning of favours in the Poet's time. 21 In Troiliis and Cressida, v. i, Thersites says of Patroclus : " How the poor world is pestered with such water-flies ; diminutives of nature." As Johnson says, " A water-fly skips up and down upon the surface of the water without any apparent purpose or reason, and is thence the proper emblem of a busy trifler." 22 This is meant as a sarcastic stroke at the King for keeping such a fin- ical sap-head near his person. Let even a biped puppy be rich, the lord pr 2l8 HAMLET, ACT V. Osric. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his Majesty. Ham. I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use ; 'tis for the head. Osric. I thank your lordship, it is very hot. Ham. No, believe me, 'tis very cold ; the wind is north- erly. Osric. It is indiiferent cold, my lord, indeed. Ham. But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion. Osric. Exceedingly, my lord ; it is very sultry, — as 'twere, — I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter, — Ham. I beseech you, remember^'* — [Hamlet moves him to put on his hat. Osric. Nay, in good faith ; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here is newly come to Court Laertes ; believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences,^^ of very soft society and great showing : indeed, to speak feel- ingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry ; for you owner of large herds of cattle, and he shall be the King's bosom friend, and feed at his table. — In what ioViosNS, chough is a bird of the jackdaw sort; and Osric is aptly so called because he chatters euphuistic jargon by rote. 2-1 The full phrase occurs in Love's Labours Lost, v. i : " I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy ; I beseech thee, apparel thy head." Aptly ex- plained by Dr. Ingleby : " If any one, from ill-breeding or over politeness, stood uncovered a longer time than was necessary to perform the simple act of courtesy, the person saluted reminded him of the fact, that, the re- moval of the hat was a courtesy; and this was expressed by the euphemism, ' Remember thy courtesy,' which thus implied, ' Complete your courtesy and replace your hat.' " 25 In the affected phrase-making of this euphuist, excellent differences probably means distinctive excellences. SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 219 shall find in him the continent of what part a gentlemen would see. Ham. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you ; ^6 though, I know, to divide him inventorially would dizzy the arithmetic of memory,27 and yet but yaw^s neither, in re- spect of his quick sail.29 But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article ; and his infusion of such dearth and rareness, as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror ; and who else would trace him, his umbrage,30 nothing more. Osric. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him. Ham. The concernancy,^! sir? why do we wrap the gen- tleman in our more rawer breath ? 26 " He suffers no loss in your description of him." 2'^ " To distinguish all his good parts, and make a schedule or inventory of them, would be too much for the most mathematical head." 28 This word occurs as a substantive in Massinger's Very Woman : " O, ihe.yaws that she will make ! Look to your stern, "dear mistress, and steer right." Where Gififord notes " A yaiv is that unsteady motion which a ship makes in a great swell, when, in steering, she inclines to the right or left of her course," Scott also has the word in the The Antiquary, " Thus escorted, the Antiquary moved along full of his learning, like a lordly man-of-war, and every now and then yawi??g to starboard and larboard to discharge a broadside upon his followers." — In the text, yaw is a verb, and is in the same construction with dizzy; "and yet would do nothing but yaw"; that is, vacillate, or reel hither and thither, instead of going straight ahead. 29 In respect of is equivalent to in comparison with. Such is the com- mon meaning of the phrase in old writers. So that the sense of the passage comes thus : " To discriminate the good parts of Laertes, and make a full catalogue of them, would dizzy the head of an arithmetician, and yet would be but a slow and staggering process, compared to his swift sailing." Ham- let is running Osric's hyperbolical euphuism into the ground, and is pur- posely obscure, in order to bewilder the poor fop. so To trace is to track, or keep pace with. Umbrage, from the Latin umbra, is shadow. So that the meaning here is, " The only resemblance to him is in his mirror ; and nothing but his shadow can keep up with him." 21 That is, " How does this concern us ? " 220 HAMLET, ACT V. Osric. Sir ? Hora. Is't not possible to understand in another tongue ?32 You will do't, sir, really. Ham, What imports the nomination of this gentleman ? ' Osric, Of Laertes ? Hora. \_Aside to Hamlet.] His purse is empty already : all's golden words are spent. Ham. Of him, sir. Osric. I know you are not ignorant — Ham. I would you did, sir ; yet, in faith, if you did, it would not much approve me. Well, sir? Osric. You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is — Ham. I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence : but to know a man well, were to know himself.^^ Osric. I mean, sir, for his weapon ; but in the imputation laid on him by them, in his meed he's unfellow'd.^^ Ham. What's his weapon? Osric. Rapier and dagger. Ham. That's two of his weapons ; but, well? 32 Horatio means to imply, that what with Osric's euphuism, and what with Hamlet's catching of Osric's style, they are not speaking in a tongue that can be understood ; and he hints that they try another tongue, that is, the common one. 33 The meaning is, that he will not claim to appreciate the excellence of Laertes, as this would imply equal excellence in himself; on the principle that a man cannot understand that which exceeds his own measure. Ham- let goes into these subtilties on purpose to maze Osric. — The words, " but to know," mean " only to know." 34 Unfellow'd is tmequalled. Fellow for eqtial is very frequent. — Meed for merit; also a frequent usage. — hnputation, also, for reputation. So in Troilus and Cressida, i. 3 : " Our imputation shall be oddly poised in this wild action." SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 221 Osric. The King, sir, hath wager'd with him six Barbary horses ; against the which he has imponed,^^ as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very- dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate car- riages, and of very liberal conceit. Ham. What call you the carriages ? Hora. \_Aside to Hamlet.] I knew you must be edified by the margent ^^ ere you had done. Osric, The carriages, sir, are the hangers. Ham. The. phrase would be more germane ^^ to the matter, if we could carry cannon by our sides : I would it might be hangers till then. But, on : Six Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three liberal-conceited car- riages ; that's the French bet against the Danish. Why is this imponed, as you call it ? Osric. The King, sir, hath laid, that in a dozen passes be- tween yourself and him he shall not exceed you three hits r he hath laid, on twelve for nine ; and it would come to im- mediate trial, if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.^s Ham. How, if I answer no ? Osric. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial. 35 Imponed is probably meant as an Osrician form of impawned. To impawn is to put in pledge, to stake or wager. 36 " I knew you would have to be instructed by a marginal commentary." The allusion is to the printing of comments in the margin of books. So in Ro7neo and Juliet, i. 3 : — And what obscured in this fair volume lies, Find written in the margent of his eyes. 37 Germane is kindred or akin ; hence, appropriate. 38 That is, vouchsafe to accept the proposition. Hamlet chooses to tak?" it in another sense, because he likes to quiz Osric. 2 22 HAMLET, ACT V. Ham. Sir, I will walk here in the hall : if it please his Majesty, 'tis the breathing-time ^^ of day with me; let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win for him if I can ; if not, I will gain noth- ing but my shame and the odd hits. Osric. Shall I re-dehver you e'en so? Ham. To this effect, sir ; after what flourish your nature will. Osric. I commend my duty to your lordship. Ham. Yours, yours. \_Exit Osric] — He does well to commend it himself; there are no tongues els,e for's turn. Hora. This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.^^ Ham. He did comply with his dug,"*! before he suck'd it. Thus has he — and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on — only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter ; a kind of yesty collection,^^ which carries them through and through the most fond and winnowed opinions ; ^"^ and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out. ^„^,^ „ Lord. ' Lord. My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by 39 " The breat/mtg-\\m.e " is the time for exercise. The use of to breathe for to exercise occurs repeatedly in Shakespeare. It was common. 40 Meaning that Osric is a raw, unfledged, foohsh fellow. It was a com- mon comparison for a forward fool. Thus in Meres's Wits Treasury, 1598 : " As the lapwing runneth away with the .shell on her head, as soon as she is hg.tched." 41 Comply is used in the same sense here as in note 59, page 113. In Ful- wel's Art of Flatter ie, 1579, the same idea occurs : " The very sucking babes hath a kind of a.dulation towards their nurses for the dug." 42 Yesty is frothy. A gathering of mental and lingual froth. 43 Here, fond is affected. The passage is well explained in the Clarendon edition : " Osric, and others like him, are compared to the chaff which mounts higher than the sifted wheat, and to the bubbles which rise to the surface through the deeper water." SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 223 young Osric, who brings back to him, that you attend him in the hall : he sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you will take longer time. Ham. I am constant to my purposes ; they follow the King's pleasure : if his fitness speaks, mine is ready ; now or" whensoever, provided I be so able as now. Lord. The King and Queen and all are coming down.. Ham. In happy time.^^ Lord. The Queen desires you to use some gentle enter- tainment to Laertes before you fall to play. Ham. She well instructs me. \_Exii Lord. Hora. You will lose this wager, my lord. Ham. I do not think so : since he went into France, I have been in continual practice ; I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart j but it is no matter. Hora. Nay, good my lord, — Ha77i. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain- giving ^^ ag would perhaps trouble a woman.' Hora. If your mind disHke any thing, obey it : I will fore- stall their repair hither, and say you are not fit. Ham. Not a whit ; we defy ^^ augury : there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come ; if it be not to come, it will be now ; if it be not now, yet it will come ; the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes P^"^ 44 That is, in fittiitg time ; like the French a la bonne heure. 45 Gain-giving probably means misgiving; formed in the same way as gainsay and gainstrive. 46 To defy, here, is to renounce or disclaim. Often so. ^■^ Johnson interprets the passage thus : " Since no man knows aught of the state which he leaves ; since he cannot judge what other years may pro- duce ; why should we be afraid of leaving life betimes ? " 2 24 HAMLET, ACT V. Enter the King, the Queen, Laertes, Lords, Osric, and Attendants with foils, &€. King. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me. \The KmG puts Laertes's hand inio Hamlet's. Ham. Give me your pardon, sir : I've done you wrong ; But pardon't, as you are a gentleman. This presence knows. And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd With sore distraction. What I have done, That might your nature, honour, and exception Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet : If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away, And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes, Then Hamlet does it not ; Hamlet denies it. Who does it, then ? His madness. If the so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd ; His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy. Sir, in this audience, Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil Free me so far in your most generous thoughts, That I have shot mine arrow o'er the house. And hurt my brother. Laer. I am satisfied in nature. Whose motive, in this case, should stir me most To my revenge : but in my terms of honour I stand aloof ; and will no reconcilement Till by some elder masters, of known honour, I have a voice and precedent of peace,^^ 48 The meaning probably is, " till some experts in the code of honour give me the warrant of custom and usage for standing on peaceful terms SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. 225 To keep my name ungored. But, till that time, I do receive your offer'd love like love. And will not wrong it. H<^in. I embrace it freely ; And will this brother's wager frankly play. Give us the foils. — Come on. L^^f^' Come, one for me. Ham. I'll be your foil, Laertes :49 in mine ignorance Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed. Laer. You mock me, sir. Ham. No, by this hand. King. Give them the foils, young Osric. — Cousin Hamlet, You know the wager? ^^^^^' Very well, my lord ; Your Grace hath laid the odds ^o o' the weaker side. King. I do not fear it ; I have seen you both : But, since he's better'd, we have therefore odds.^i Laer. This is too heavy ; let me see another. Ham. This likes me well. —These foils have all a length? with you." Laertes thinks, or pretends to think, that the laws of honour require him to insist on a stern vindication of his manhood. Hamlet has before spoken of Laertes as " a very noble youth." In this part of the scene he has his faculties keenly on the alert against Claudius ; but it were a sin in him even to suspect Laertes of any thing so unfathomably base as the treachery now on foot. 49 Hamlet plays on the word foil-, which here has the sense of continst, or that which sets off a thing, and makes it show to advantage ; as a dark night sets off a star, "when only one is shining in the sky." 50 The odds here referred to is the value of the stakes, the King having wagered six Barbary horses against a few rapiers, poniards, &c. ; which was about as twenty to one. 61 Here the reference is to the three odd hits in Hamlet's favour, the num- bers being nine and twelve. The King affects to regard this as a fair oifset for Laertes's improved skill in the handling of his weapon. 2 26 HAMLET, ACT V. Osric. Ay, my good lord. \They prepare to play. King. Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.— If Hamlet give the first or second hit, Or quit ^^ in answer of the third exchange, Let all the battlements their ordnance fire : The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath ; And in the cup an union ^^ shall he throw, Richer than that which four successive kings In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups ; And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the cannoneer without. The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth. Now the King drinks to Hamlet! — Come, begin ; — And you, the judges,^^ bear a wary eye. Ham. Come on, sir. Laer. Come, my lord. \They play. Ham. One. Laer. No. Ham. Judgment. Osric. A hit, a very palpable hit. Laer. Well ; — again. King. Stay ; give me drink. — Hamlet, this pearl is thine j Here's to thy health. — \_Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within. Give him the cup. 52 Quit, again, for requite, or retaliate. See page 216, note 16. 63 Union was a name for the largest and finest pearls, such as were worn in crowns and coronets. So in Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598 : " Also a faire, great, orient pearle, called an tmion." A rich gem thus put into a cup of wine was meant as present to the drinker of the wine. Of course the u7tion in this case was a preparation of poison. 54 These Judges were the umpires appointed beforehand, with Osric at their head, to decide in case of any dispute arising between the fencers. -SCENE II. PRINCE OF DENMARK. -227 Ham. I'll play this bout first ; set it by awhile. — Come. \They play?^ Another hit ; what say you ? Laer. A touch, a touch, I do confess. King. Our son shall win. Queen. He's hot, and scant of breath. — Here, Hamlet, take my napkin,^^ rub thy brows : The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet. Ham. Good madam ! ^^ King. Gertrude, do not drink. Queen. I will, my lord ; I pray you, pardon me. King. \Aside7[ It is the poison'd cup \ it is too late. Ham. I dare not drink yet, madam ; by-and-by.^^ Queen. Come, let me wipe thy face. Laer. My lord, I'll hit him now. King. I do not think't. Lae7\ \Aside^ And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience. Ha77i. Come, for the third, Laertes : you but dally : I pray you, pass with your best violence ; I am afeard you make a wanton of me.^^ Laer. Say you so? come on. \They play, Osric. Nothing, neither way. 55 Napkin was continually used for handkerchief. 56 This exclamation is probably meant to hint that Hamlet suspects, or more than suspects, the contents of that cup. The same appears more clearly just after in " I dare not drink yet." 57 Hamlet now sees, or judges, that his time has come : the playing done, he will attend to that cup, and invite Claudius to drink it. Such is evidently his purpose. 58 To make a wanton of a man, as the phrase is here used, is to treat him as a child, to avoid playing your best with him, or rather to play the game into his hands. — This is a quiet, but very significant stroke of de- lineation. Laertes is not playing his best, and it is the conscience of what is at the point of his foil that keeps him from doing so; and the effects are perceptible to Hamlet, though he dreams not of the reason. 228 HAMLET, ACT V. Laer, ELave at you now ! [Laertes wounds Hamlet ; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes.^^ King. Part them ; they are incensed. Ham. Nay, come, again. \_The Q\j'EY,i(>, " But answer made it none ; yet once methought It lifted up its head," &c. The old copies have "lifted up it head." So, again, in v. i, of this play : " The corse they follow did with desperate hand fordo it own life." The Poet has as many as fourteen other instances of it thus used possessively; which is at least curious, as showing his reluctance to admit its, which was then just creeping into use. Some insist on keep- ing strictly to the old letter in all such cases ; but this, it seems to me, is conservatism in it dotage. P. 67. " Let it be tenable in your silence still." So the quartos. The folio has treble instead of tenable. ACT I., SCENE III. P. 69. " For on his choice depends The safety and the health of the whole State." The quartos read " The safety and health " ; the folio, " The sanc- tity and health." Probably, as Malone thought, safety was altered to sanctity merely because a trisyllable was wanted to complete the verse; the editor not perceiving that the article had dropped out before health. Hanmer reads, " The sanity and health." The reading in the text is Warburton's. P. 69. "As he in his particular act and place May give his saying deed." So the quartos. The folio reads " in his peculiar Sect 2iXidi force." 236 HAMLET. P. 70. " TK' iLnchariest maid is prodigal enough, If she unmask her beauty to the Moon." The old copies read " The chariest maid." This gives a very vreak sense, and one, it seems to me, not at all suited to the occasion or the character, "The c/?«rj/maid" would be far better ; but Laertes is apt to be superlative in thought and speech; and surely nothing less than tmchariest v\^ould be intense enough for him here. P. 71. " And they in France of the best rank and station Are most select and generous, chief in that." The first quarto reads " Are of a most select and generall chiefe in that." The other quartos have "Are of a most select and generous, chiefe in that"; the folio, "generous cheff m. that." A great variety of changes has been made or proposed. The reading in the text is Rowe's, and is adopted by many of the best editors. P. 73. " Or — not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, Running it thus — you'll tender me a fool." Instead -of Rtmning, the quartos have Wrong, and the folio Roam- ing. Rtcnning \N2.s conjectured by both Dyce and Collier independ- ently, and is also the reading of Collier's second folio. P. 74. " For they are brokers, — Not of that dye which their investments show, But mere implorators of unholy suits. Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds, The better to beguile." In the second of these lines, the quartos, after 1603, have "Not of that die " / the folio, " Not of the eye." Some editors have strongly insisted on eye ; whereupon Dyce asks, — " though our early writers talk of ' an eye of green,'' ' an eye of red,'' ' an eye of bhie^ &c., do they ever use eye by itself to denote colour ? " — In the fourth line, again, the old copies have bonds instead of bawds, which is the reading of Theobald, Pope, and Collier's second folio. The context, and especially the word brokers, is decisive that a noun signifying persons, and not things, is required. Broker was often used as a synonym of bawd^ and so it is here. CRITICAL NOTES. 237 ACT I., SCENE IV. P. 77. "By the o'ergrowth of some complexion." All this speech, after " More honour'd in the breach than the ob- servance," is wanting in the quarto of 1603 and the folio. The other quartos have " By their ore-grow'th " ; an error which the context readily corrects. P. 77. " Their virtues else — be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may undergo — Shall in the general censure take corruption From that particular fault ; the dram of leav'n Doth all the noble substance of ^em sour, To his own scandal." Not in the first quarto or the folio. In the first of these lines, the other quartos have His instead of Their ; another error which the con- text readily corrects. In the fourth and fifth lines, the quartos of 1604 and 1605 read "the dram of eale Doth all the noble substance of a doubts The later quartos have the same, except that they substitute ease for eale. This dreadful passage may, I think, be fairly said to have baffled all the editors and commentators. The Cambridge edition notes upwards of forty different readings which have been printed or proposed, all of them so unsatisfactory that the editors reject them, and give the old text, apparently regarding the corruption as hopeless. There is surely no possibility of making any sense out of it as it stands ; and so far, I believe, all are agreed. Lettsom, I think, was the first to perceive the reference to St. Paul's proverbial saying : " Shakespeare's meaning," says he, " evidently is, that a little leaven leavens the whole lump " ; and the same thought occurred to me before I lighted on his remark. This clew was not long in guiding me to the two other changes I have made : in fact, the present reading was suggested to me by the passage from Bacon quoted in foot-note li, which see. It gives a sense, I hope a natural and fitting one. And the language is in just accordance with what Hamlet says a little before, — " that too much d'tx-leavens the form of plausive manners." Nor was leaven; especially if written in the shortened form lev'n^ unlikely to be corrupted into 238 HAMLET, eale : at all events, we have many undoubted misprints much more em- phatic than that. I was at one time minded to substitute yeast for eale; but I doubt whether yeast was ever used for leaven in Shakespeare's time : certainly he does not use it so anywhere else. P. 81. "And each particular hair to stand on end." So the first quarto. The other old copies have " stand an end." P. 81. " List, list, O Hst ! " So the quartos, after 1603. The folio reads "List Hamlet, oh list." P. 82. "That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf." So the quartos. The folio has rots instead of roots. P. 82. "With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts," &c. The old copies have wits instead of wit. Corrected by Pope. P. 84. " Cut off even in the blossom of my sins.''^ The old copies read " the Blossomes of my sinned Dyce conjec- tured blossom : the reading in the text is Mr. P. A. Daniel's, The mis- printing of plurals and singulars for each other occurs very often. P. 84. " With all my imperfections on my head. Ham, O, horrible ! O, horrible ! most horrible ! Ghost. If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not ; " &c. The old copies, except the first quarto, give nothing tq Hamlet here, but print all three of these lines as spoken by the Ghost. The first quarto makes Hamlet exclaim " O God ! " It was suggested to Johnson, by " a very learned lady," that the second line should be given to Hamlet j and Garrick is said to have adopted that arrangement on the stage. Rann first printed as in the text. And surely so it ought to be. P. 85. " And shall I couple Hell? O, fie ! — Hold, hold, my heart ; " &c. So the second and third quartos. The fourth and fifth quartos and the folio omit the second hold. CRITICAL NOTES. 239 P. 89. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." So all the quartos. The folio has our instead of yotir. The latter has at least as good authority, and is, I think, the better reading of the two, inasmuch as it conveys a mild sneer, which is well in keeping with Hamlet's temper and cast of mind. Of course the stress is on philosophy, not on your. ACT II., SCENE I. P. 91. "And finding, By this encompassment and drift of question. That they do know my son, come you more nearer Than your particular demands will touch it." There is some doubt whether, in the last of these lines, we ought to print Than or Then. The old copies have Then ; but this determines nothing, as that form was continually used in both senses. It seemed to me very clear, at one time, that we ought to read " come you more nearer ; Then your particular demands," &c. ; on the ground that par- ticular inquiries would come to the point faster than general ones. If this notion be wrong, as it probably is, I am indebted to Mr. H. H. Furness for having set me right. See foot-note 3. P. 91. " You must not put another scandal on him Than he is open to incontinency." The old copies have That instead of Than. This is nowise recon- cilable with the context, and involves a contradiction too palpable, surely, to be put into the mouth of Polonius. Yet " another scandal than he is open," &c., sounds rather harsh : perhaps we should read "Than //^a^ he's open," &c. And it appears that, where two consecu- tive words begin with the same letters, as than and that, one of them is apt to drop out in the printing or transcribing. The reading in the text is Keightley's. 240 HAMLET. P. 94. " He falls to such perusal of my face As he would draw it. Long time stay'd he so." So Pope. The old copies are without time, thus untuning the rhythm. ACT II., SCENE II. P. 102. "You know, sometimes he walks /^r hours together Here in the lobby." So Hanmer and Collier's second folio. The old copies read " walkes foure houres together." P. 104. " For if the Sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a ^^(^"^ kissing carrion," &c. So all the old copies, and rightly, I have no doubt. Warburton sub- stituted god for good, and the change was most extravagantly praised by Johnson. I not only believe the old text to be right, but can get no fitting sense out of the modern reading. The latter, however, has been adopted by nearly all the leading editors : even the Cambridge editors adopt it, I understand the meaning of the old text to be, " a dead dog, which is a good carrion for the Sun to kiss, and thus im- pregnate with new life." " A good kissing person " for a person good to kiss, or good for kissing, is a very common form of speech, and one often used by Shakespeare. See foot-note 27. P. 107. "And sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear at a halfpenny." So Hanmer. The old copies read " too deare a halfpenny." P. 108. " What a piece of work is man ! " So the quarto of 1637. The earlier quartos have the a misplaced: "What peece of worke is a man." The folios have the a in both places : " What a piece of work is a man ! " P. 109. "The clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o' the sear." This is not in the quartos, and the folio has tickled instead of tickle. The correction (and it is of the first class) was proposed by Staunton. CRITICAL NOTES. 24 1 P. no. "I think their innovation comes by the means of the late inhibition^ In the old text, innovation and itihibition change places with each other. Johnson notes upon the passage as follows : " Hamlet inquires not about an ' inhibition,' but an ' innovation ' : the answer probably was, — * I think their innovation,' that is, their new practice of strolling, ' comes by means of the late inhibition.' " See foot-note 47. P, III. "These are now the fashion; and so b e flattie thQ common stages," &c. So the second folio. The first has be-ratled instead of berattte, — Of this and the six following speeches there are no traces in any of the quartos, except the first, and but slight traces there. P. III. "If they should grow themselves to common play- ers, — as it is most like^^ &c. The folio reads " as it is like juostP See preceding note. P. 114. " O Jephtha, what a treasure hadst thou ! Polo. What treasure had he, my lord? " So Walker. The old copies read " What a treasure had he." Prob- ably the a got repeated accidentally from the line above. Walker says, " What treasure^ surely, for grammar's sake." P. 115. " For look where my abridgements co7ne" So the folio. The quartos, " my abridgeinent comesP P. 115. "You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad to see ye well ; welcome, good friends." The old copies read " I am glad to see thee well." An error which the context rectifies. P. 117. "Nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation T So the folio. Instead of affectation^ the quartos have affection, Thich was sometimes used for affectation. 242 HAMLET. P. 123. "That I, the son of a A^2x father murder'd," &c. So the fourth, fifth, and sixth quartos. The other quartos and the foHo oxait father. ACT III., SCENE I. P. 125. ^^ Most free of question, but of our demands Niggard in his iQ^^ly.''^ The old text has Most free and Niggard transposed ; which nowise accords with the course of the dialogue referred to, nor with the first speech of Guildenstern in this scene. The correction is Warburton's, who notes upon the old reading thus : " This is given as the description of the conversation of a man whom the speaker found not forward to be sounded ; and who kept aloof vfYi^n they would bring him to con- fession. Shakespeare certainly wrote it just the other way." It has been suggested that perhaps " a correct account of the interview " was not intended. But I can see no reason why Rosencrantz should wish to misrepresent it. See foot-note 2. P. 126. "And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That your good beauty be the happy cause," &c. So Walker. Instead of beauty, the old copies have Beauties ; an easy misprint when the word was written beautie. P. 127. "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Walker says that " stings is undoubtedly the true reading." Perhaps ■he is right; but slings and arrows were often spoken of together in the language of ancient warfare. And the line, as it stands, is so much a household word, that it seems hardly well to make any change. P. 127. "The pangs of disprizedlovc, the law's delay," &c. So the folio. The quartos have despiz'd instead of disprized. The folio reading is the stronger; for if a love unprized \>q hard to bear, a love scorned must be much harder. P. 128. "When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin ? who'd these fardels bear," &c. The quartos read " who would fardels beare "; the folio, "who woul^ CRITICAL NOTES. 243 these fardles beare." The contraction of who would to who'd is Walk- er's. I prefer the folio reading, because it makes what follows more continuous with what precedes; and it seems more natural that Ham- let should still keep his mind on the crosses already mentioned. P. 129. " My honour'd lord, / know right well you did." So the folio. The quartos have '^ you know." The folio reading has, I think, more delicacy, and at least equal feeling. P. 130. "With more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in," &c. Collier's second folio changes beck to back, and Walker would make the same change. P. 131. "The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword." Such is the order of the words in the first quarto. The other old copies transpose scholar's and soldier's. This naturally connects tongue with soldier, and sword with scholar ; which is certainly not the mean- ing. ACT III., SCENE II. P. 134. "Now, this overdone, or come tardy of, though it make the unskilful laugh," &c. So the sixth quarto. The other old copies read "-tardy off'' Mason conjectured " tardy of" ; and Walker proposed the same. See foot- note 5. P. 134. "Nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor Turk." So the first quarto. Instead of Turk, the other quartos have man, and the folio Norman. P. 134. "That I have thought some of Nature's journey- men had made them, and not made them well," &c. The old copies read "had made men." Theobald conjectured them, and so Rann printed. Farmer proposed the men, which may be bet- 244 HAMLET. ter, but gives the same sense. Surely, at all events, men cannot be right ; for that must mean all men, or men in general; whereas the context fairly requires the meaning to be limited to the men that " imi- tated humanity so abominably." P. 138. " Nay, then let the Devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sabell.^^ The old copies read " a suite of SablesP As sable is itself a mourn- ing colour, the oppugnancy of the two clauses is evident. Warburton saw the discrepancy, and changed y&r to ^fore. This makes the mean- ing to be, " let the Devil put on mourning before I will." The reading in the text was proposed by a writer in The Critic, 1854, page 317. It seems to me to give just the sense wanted. See foot-note 16. P. 143. " Gonzago is the King's name." Here, instead of King, the old copies have Duke. But in the stage - directions for the dumb-show the same person is repeatedly called King, as he also is a little after : " This is one Lucianus, nephew to the KingP Probably the error crept in somehow from the first quarto, where the King and Queen of the interlude are called Duke and Duchess. P. 148. ^^ Rosen. My lord, you once did love me. Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers." So the folio. The quartos have " And do still," I think the former gives a characteristic shade of meaning which is lost in the latter. See foot-note 51. P. 150. "And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on." So the folio. The quartos read " such business as the bitter day^ CRITICAL NOTES. 245 ACT III., SCENE IV. P. 156. "I'll sconce me even here. Pray you be round with him." So Hanmer and Collier's second folio. The old copies, after 1603, have silence instead of sconce. The corresponding passage of the first quarto reads " I'll shrowde myselfe behinde the Arras." In The Merry Wives, iii., 3, Falstaff says, " I will ensconce me behind the arras." P. 156. Queen. " Why, how now, Hamlet ! what's the mat- ter now ? Have you forgot me ? " The old copies print these clauses as so many distinct speeches, assigning the second, "what's the matter now?" to Hamlet. Walker says "Perhaps all this belongs to the Queen" ; whereupon Dyce notes, " I do not think so." Nevertheless I am satisfied that Walker's con- jecture is right. P. 162. "Your bedded hairs, like Hfe in excrements, Start up and stand on end." The second and third quartos and the folio have ^^ start up and stand''' ; the later quartos, "starts up and stands''"' ; while all the old copies, except the first, where the passage is not found, have haire^ in- stead of hairs, which is Rowe's reading. P. 162. " Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern affects^ Instead of affects, the old copies have effects. The correction is Singer's ; who justly observes that " the ' piteous action ' of the Ghost could not alter things effected, but might move Hamlet to a less stern mood of mind." The same error occurs elsewhere. P. 164. "That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat Of habits evil, is angel yet in this," &c. So Thirlby proposed, and Theobald printed. The quartos have 246 HAMLET. devill instead of evil. The passage is not in the folio. With devil, the text seems to me quite insusceptible of any fair or fitting explanation ; and the hard shifts that have been resorted to for the purpose of mak- ing sense out of it, are to me strong argument of corruption. See foot-note 28. P. 165. "For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either shame the Devil or throw him out With wondrous potency." Not in the folio. The second and third quartos read " And either the devil " ; the later quartos, " And i7iaster the devil " ; thus leaving both sense and metre defective. Some editors combine the two read- ings, — "And either master the devil" ; but this, again, makes the line unmetrical. Pope and Capell read " And master even the devil " ; Malone, "And either curb the devil." But the Poet seems to have intended the alternative sense of either making the Devil glad to leave or compelling him to leave. And the phrase, " shame the Devil," was part of an old proverb, which Shakespeare quotes elsewhere. So in / Henry IV., iii., i : — " And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the Devil By telling truth ; tell truth, and shame the Devil ; If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither, And I'll be sworn I've power to shame him hence." ACT III., SCENE V. P. 167. Scene V. — Another Room in the Castle, Modern editions, generally, make the fourth Act begin here. None of the old copies have any marking of the Acts and Scenes, after the second Scene of the second Act ; and it seems very clear that there is no sufficient interval or pause in the action to warrant the beginning of a new Act in this place. I therefore agree with Caldecott and Elze that Act IV., ought to begin with the fourth Scene after. CRITICAL NOTES. 247 P. 168. "O'er whom his very madness, \\^<^ fine ore Among a mineral of metals base," &c. So Walker. The old text has some instead of fine. As so77ie would naturally be written with the long s, such a misprint might easily occur. P. 168. "But we will ship him hence ; and this vile deed We must, with all our majesty and skill, Both countenance and excuse." The quartos have " this vile deed," the folio, " this vilde deed." I strongly suspect it ought to be " this wild deed " ; that is, mad or crazy. The epithet zvild just suits the case : and, as the King knows that the Queen fully believes Hamlet to be mad, is it likely that in speaking to her of the act he would use the epithet vile ? And the King himself says, a little after, " Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain." The two words vilde and wilde ^txe often confounded. P. 169. "And let them know both what we mean to do And what's untimely done : so, haply, slander — Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter," &c. So Capell. The words so, haply, slander are wanting in all the old copies. This leaves the sentence without any subject ; and some inser- tion is imperatively required, Theobald reads "fior, haply, slander." Malone reads "So viperous slander," as the Poet has, in Cymbeline iii., 4, " the secrets of the grave this viperous slander enters." But in the present passage the sense of viperous is given in "poisoned shot." ACT III., SCENE VI. P. 1 70. " He keeps them, as an ape doth nuts in the cor- ner of his jaw." The words as an ape doth nuts are from the corresponding passage of the first quarto. The other quartos read " he keepes them like an apple in the corner," &c.; the folio, " He keepes them like an Ape in the corner." 248 HAMLET. ACT III., SCENE VII. P. 1 74. " And thou must cure me : till I know 'tis done, Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begmi.^^ So the folio. The quartos read "my joyes will nere beginP The change was doubtless made in the folio in order to have the scene end with a rhyme. But is the rhyme worth the breach of grammar which it costs? I should certainly read with the quartos, but that Walker, Dyce, the Cambridge editors, Singer, Staunton, and White all prefer the folio reading. ACT IV., SCENE I. P. 175. "Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition. We go to gain a little patch of ground," &c. So Capell. The old copies lack sir in the first line. Pope reads "Truly to speak zV," &c. ACT rV., SCENE II. P. 1 78. " 'Twere good she were spoken with ; for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds. Queen. Let her come in." The quartos assign all this to Horatio ; the folio gives it all to the Queen. The first two lines clearly ought not to be spoken by the Queen ; and there can be little doubt that, as Hanmer judged, her speech ought to begin with " Let her come in "; which of course marks her final yielding to Horatio's urgent request. P. 179. " Which bewepi to the grave did go With true-love showers^ So Pope, and most editors since. The old copies all read " to the grave did not go"; which is manifestly against all reason both of metre and of sense. CRITICAL NOTES. 249 P. 182. " Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brows Of my true mother." Instead of brotvs, the old copies have browe and brow. P. 184. " It shall as level to your judgment /zVr^^ As day does to your eye." So the folio. Instead of pierce, the quartos have peare, which Dyce eliangely prefers, printing it 'pear. P. 185. " Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge. It could not move me thus." So Walker. The old copies are without me. P. 186. ^' No, no, he is dead, Gone to his death-bed; He never will come again." So Corner's second folio. The old copies have ''go to thy ^ Death- bed." The correction is well approved by a similar passage in East- ward Ho, written by Jonson, Maiston, and Chapman : — " But now he is dead, and lain in his bed, And never will come again." ACT IV., SCENE IV. P. 192. " Will you be ruled by me? So you will not o'errule me to a peace." SoCapell. Not in the folio. The quartos, except the first, read *^ I my lord." /was commonly printed for the affirmative ay, as well as for the pronoun ; and so modern editors generally print Ay. But this leaves an ugly gap in the metre. The probability is, that will dropt out in the printing or the transcribing. P. 193. "Upon my life, Lamondr So Pope. The quartos have Lamord; the folio, Lamound. 250 HAMLET. P. 194. " Sir, this report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with your envy," &c. The old copies read "with his envy"; his having probably slipped in by mistake from the line above. At all events, as Walker observes, the old text can hardly have any meaning but that " Hamlet did enven- om this report " ; v^^hich I cannot easily believe to have been the Poet's thought. Of course, v^'ith your, the meaning is, " this report did so en- venom Hamlet vsrith envy of you." See foot-note 21. P. 195. "And then this should is Uke a spendthrift si^. That hurts by easing." So the quarto of 1637. The earlier quartos have " d>. spend-thrifts sigh." The passage is not in the folio. P. 197. "How now, sweet Queen !" So the second folio. The first omits now; accidentally, no doubt. The quartos, after 1603, have "but stay, whdX noyse." P. 198. " I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly df^owns it." So the quartos. Instead of drowns, the folio has doubts, which Knight changes to douts. ACT v., SCENE I. P. 206. "I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years." " This skull has lain in the earth three-djcid-twenty years." These statements, taken together with a preceding speech, infer Hamlet's age to be thirty years ; which cannot well be reconciled with what Laertes and Polonius say of him in i., 3. Mr. Halliwell substi- tutes dozen for three-and-twenty, and quotes from the first quarto, " Here's a skull hath bin here this dozen yeare." But, as Mr. Furness observes, it is by no means certain that the Clown refers to the same skull there as here : he may have just turned up another. I cannot help suspecting that the Poet wrote " 20 yeares," and " 3 & 10 yeares," CRITICAL NOTES. 2$ I and that the 2 and i got corrupted into 3 and 2. It would be not un- like the Clown's manner, to put three-and-ten for thirteen. This, of course, would make Hamlet twenty years old ; which is just about the age wanted, P. 206. " This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the King's jester." So the quartos, except that they have ^^ sir Yorick's," sir being doubtless repeated by mistake. The folio reads " This same Scull Sir, this same Scull sir, was Yoricks Scull." What should be the use or sense of this repetition, does not appear. P. 208. " Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants, Her maiden strewments," &c. So the quartos. The folio has rites instead of crants. P. 210. "Woo't drink up Esill? eat a crocodile?" So read all the quartos except the first, which has vessels. The folio has Esile, printed in Italic, as if to mark it as a proper name. This would naturally infer that some stream or body of water was meant. Theobald, and some others after him, read eisel, which is an old word for vinegar. With that word, we must take drijzk tip as simply equivalent to drijik ; and would Hamlet in such a case be likely to mention such a thing as drinking vinegar ? Surely not much of a feat to be coupled with eating a crocodile. So that I cannot reconcile myself to the reading eisel. See foot-note 29. ACT v., SCENE II. P. 212. "Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well. When our deep plots do /<:z//." So the second quarto. The other quartos have fall instead of pall. The folio has paule, which is probably but another spelling of pall. Pope substituted yfezV, and some editors have followed him. But what need of change? See foot-note 4. 252 HAMLET. P. 213. "Being thus be-netted round with villainies " ^c. The old copies have villaines. Corrected by Capell. P„ 214. "And stand a cement 'tween their amities." Instead of cement, which is Hanmer's reading, the old copies have co7nma. The image of peace standing as a comma between two per- sons, to hold them friends, goes rather hard. In Antony and Cleopatra, iii., 2, Cgesar speaks to Antony of Octavia, as " the piece of virtue which is set betwixt us as the cement of our love, to keep it builded." P. 216. "Does it not, think^st thou, stand me now upon?" The quartos have thinke thee ; the folio, thinkst thee. Rowe cor- rected thee to thou. P. 217. " For by the image of my cause I see The portraiture of his : I'll court his favours." This is not in the quartos, and the folio has count instead of court. Corrected by Rowe. P. 219. " To divide him inventorially would dizzy the arith- metic of memory, and yet but yaw neither," &c. So the quarto of 1604. The other quai^tos have ra^a instead of yaw. The context shows yaw to be right. Dyce undertakes to help the sense by substituting it for yet; which, to my thinking, just defeats the sense. Staunton proposes to substitute wit,- which would have the same effect. See foot-notes 28 and 29. — The speech is not in the folio; nor has the first quarto any traces of it. P. 2 2 2. "A kind of yesty collection, which carries them through and through the most /o7id and winnowed opin- ions j " &c. So the folio. The second and third quartos have "most prophane and trennowed o^vs\\oxi% ;" the later quartos the same, except that they substitute trennowned for trennowed. Warburton changed the folio reading to " most fanned and winnowed opinions," which several edit- ors have adopted. But surely fond gives a natural and fittirig sense, -^ CRITICAL NOTES. 253 affected or conceited; while the sense of fanned is fully expressed by winnowed. See foot-note 43. P. 223. "The readiness is all: since no man knows aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? " So Johnson. The quartos read " The readines is all, since no man of ought he leaves, knowes what ist to leave betimes, let be." The folio reads "The readinesse is all, since no man ha's aught of what he leaves. What is't to leave betimes?" Modern editors differ a good deal in their readings of the passage. The Cambridge editors print as follows : " The readiness is all ; since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be." P. 227. "He's hot, and scant of breath." Instead of hot, the old text has fat; which seems decidedly out of place here, as a word is required signifying something peculiar to Ham- let in his present situation or at the present moment. The reading in the text was lately proposed by Plehwe, a Gei-man Shakespearian, who justly quotes in support of it from iv., 4 : " When in your motion you are hot and dry." It has also been proposed, by " Mr, H, Wyeth, of Winchester," to x&z.^ faint, which is perhaps better in itself, but does not infer so. easy a misprint. — For this reading and reference I am indebted, immediately, to Mr. Furness's variorum edition. P. 230. ^^ Hora. The rest is silence : Now cracks a noble heart. — Good night, sweet Prince." The old editions print " The rest is silence " as the close of Ham- let's preceding speech. The words are evidently quite out of place there : it is simply incredible that the dying Prince should so spend his last breath. This has, apparently, been felt by some others ; but I am not aware that any one has made the change. I saw the need of it long ago. Press-icork by Rockioell d' Clim^chill,