Ham.So I do still, by these pickers and [Sidenote: And doe still] stealers.[2]
Rosin.Good my Lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do freely barre the doore of your [Sidenote: surely barre the door vpon your] owne Libertie, if you deny your greefes to your your Friend.
Ham.Sir I lacke Aduancement.
Rosin.How can that be, when you haue the [Sidenote: 136] voyce of the King himselfe, for your Succession in Denmarke?
[3]
Ham.I, but while the grasse growes,[4] the [Sidenote: I sir,] Prouerbe is something musty.
Enter one with a Recorder.[5]
O the Recorder. Let me see, to withdraw with, [Sidenote: ô the Recorders, let mee see one, to] you,[6] why do you go about to recouer the winde of mee,[7] as if you would driue me into a toyle?[8]
Guild.O my Lord, if my Dutie be too bold, my loue is too vnmannerly.[9]
Ham.I do not well vnderstand that.[10] Will you, play vpon this Pipe?
Guild.My Lord, I cannot.
Ham.I pray you.
Guild.Beleeue me, I cannot.
Ham.I do beseech you.
[Footnote 1: wonder, astonishment.]
[Footnote 2: He swears an oath that will not hold, being by the hand of a thief.
In the Catechism: 'Keep my hands from picking and stealing.']
[Footnote 3: Here in Quarto,Enter the Players with Recorders.]
[Footnote 4: '… the colt starves.']
[Footnote 5:Not in Q.The stage-direction of theFolioseems doubtful. Hamlet has called for the orchestra: we may either suppose one to precede the others, or that the rest are already scattered; but theQuartodirection and reading seem better.]
[Footnote 6:—taking Guildensterne aside.]
[Footnote 7: 'to get to windward of me.']
[Footnote 8: 'Why do you seek to get the advantage of me, as if you would drive me to betray myself?'—Hunters, by sending on the wind their scent to the game, drive it into their toils.]
[Footnote 9: Guildensterne tries euphuism, but hardly succeeds. He intends to plead that any fault in his approach must be laid to the charge of his love.Dutyhere meanshomage—so used still by the common people.]
[Footnote 10: —said with a smile of gentle contempt.]
[Page 156]
Guild. I know no touch of it, my Lord.
Ham. Tis as easie as lying: gouerne these [Sidenote: It is] Ventiges with your finger and thumbe, giue it [Sidenote: fingers, & the vmber, giue] breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most [Sidenote: most eloquent] excellent Musicke. Looke you, these are the stoppes.
Guild. But these cannot I command to any vtterance of hermony, I haue not the skill.
Ham. Why looke you now, how vnworthy a thing you make of me: you would play vpon mee; you would seeme to know my stops: you would pluck out the heart of my Mysterie; you would sound mee from my lowest Note, to the top of my [Sidenote: note to my compasse] Compasse: and there is much Musicke, excellent Voice, in this little Organe, yet cannot you make [Sidenote: it speak, s'hloud do you think I] it. Why do you thinke, that I am easier to bee plaid on, then a Pipe? Call me what Instrument you will, though you can fret[1] me, you cannot [Sidenote: you fret me not,] [Sidenote: 184] play vpon me. God blesse you Sir.[2]
Enter Polonius.
Polon. My Lord; the Queene would speak with you, and presently.
Ham. Do you see that Clowd? that's almost in [Sidenote: yonder clowd] shape like a Camell. [Sidenote: shape of a]
Polon. By'th'Misse, and it's like a Camell [Sidenote: masse and tis,] indeed.
Ham. Me thinkes it is like a Weazell.
Polon. It is back'd like a Weazell.
Ham. Or like a Whale?[3]
Polon. Verie like a Whale.[4]
Ham. Then will I come to my Mother, by and by: [Sidenote: I will] [Sidenote: 60, 136, 178] They foole me to the top of my bent.[5] I will come by and by.
[Footnote 1: —with allusion to thefretsorstop-marksof a stringed instrument.]
[Footnote 2: —to Polonius.]
[Footnote 3: There is nothing insanely arbitrary in these suggestions of likeness; a cloud might very well be like every one of the three; the camel has a hump, the weasel humps himself, and the whale is a hump.]
[Footnote 4: He humours him in everything, as he would a madman.]
[Footnote 5: Hamlet's cleverness in simulating madness is dwelt upon in the old story. See 'Hystorie of Hamblet, prince of Denmarke.']
[Page 158]
Polon.[1] I will say so.Exit.[1]
Ham.[1] By and by, is easily said. Leaue me Friends:'Tis now the verie witching time of night,When Churchyards yawne, and Hell it selfe breaths out[Sidenote: brakes[2]]Contagion to this world.[3] Now could I drink hot blood,And do such bitter businesse as the day[Sidenote: such busines as the bitter day]Would quake to looke on.[4] Soft now, to my Mother:Oh Heart, loose not thy Nature;[5] let not euerThe Soule ofNero[6] enter this firme bosome:Let me be cruell, not vnnaturall.[Sidenote: 172] I will speake Daggers[7] to her, but vse none:[Sidenote: dagger]My Tongue and Soule in this be Hypocrites.[8]How in my words someuer she be shent,[9]To giue them Seales,[10] neuer my Soule consent.[4][Sidenote:Exit.]
Enter King, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne.
King. I like him not, nor stands it safe with vs,To let his madnesse range.[11] Therefore prepare you,[Sidenote: 167] I your Commission will forthwith dispatch,[12][Sidenote: 180] And he to England shall along with you:The termes of our estate, may not endure[13]Hazard so dangerous as doth hourely grow [Sidenote: so neer's as]Out of his Lunacies. [Sidenote: his browes.]
Guild. We will our selues prouide:Most holie and Religious feare it is[14]To keepe those many many bodies safeThat liue and feede vpon your Maiestie.[15]
Rosin. The single And peculiar[16] life is bound With all the strength and Armour of the minde,
[Footnote 1: TheQuarto, not havingPolon., Exit, or Ham., and arranging differently, reads thus:—
They foole me to the top of my bent, I will come by and by,Leaue me friends.I will, say so. By and by is easily said,Tis now the very &c.]
[Footnote 2:belches.]
[Footnote 3: —thinking of what the Ghost had told him, perhaps: it was the time when awful secrets wander about the world. CompareMacbeth, act ii. sc. 1; also act iii. sc. 2.]
[Footnote 4: The assurance of his uncle's guilt, gained through the effect of the play upon him, and the corroboration of his mother's guilt by this partial confirmation of the Ghost's assertion, have once more stirred in Hamlet the fierceness of vengeance. But here afresh comes out the balanced nature of the man—say rather, the supremacy in him of reason and will. His dear soul, having once become mistress of his choice, remains mistress for ever. Hecoulddrink hot blood, hecoulddo bitter business, but he will carry himself as a son, and the son of his father,oughtto carry himself towards a guilty mother—motheralthough guilty.]
[Footnote 5: Thus he girds himself for the harrowing interview. Aware of the danger he is in of forgetting his duty to his mother, he strengthens himself in filial righteousness, dreading to what word or deed a burst of indignation might drive him. One of his troubles now is the way he feels towards his mother.]
[Footnote 6: —who killed his mother.]
[Footnote 7: His words should be as daggers.]
[Footnote 8:Pretenders.]
[Footnote 9:reproachedorrebuked—though oftenerscolded.]
[Footnote 10: 'to seal them with actions'—Actions are the seals to words, and make them irrevocable.]
[Footnote 11:walk at liberty.]
[Footnote 12:get ready.]
[Footnote 13: He had, it would appear, taken them into his confidence in the business; they knew what was to be in their commission, and were thorough traitors to Hamlet.]
[Footnote 14: —holy and religious precaution for the sake of the many depending on him.]
[Footnote 15: Is there not unconscious irony of their own parasitism here intended?]
[Footnote 16:private individual.]
[Page 160]
To keepe it selfe from noyance:[1] but much more,That Spirit, vpon whose spirit depends and rests[Sidenote: whose weale depends]The lives of many, the cease of Maiestie [Sidenote: cesse]Dies not alone;[2] but like a Gulfe doth drawWhat's neere it, with it. It is a massie wheele[Sidenote: with it, or it is]Fixt on the Somnet of the highest Mount,To whose huge Spoakes, ten thousand lesser things[Sidenote: hough spokes]Are mortiz'd and adioyn'd: which when it falles,Each small annexment, pettie consequenceAttends the boystrous Ruine. Neuer alone [Sidenote: raine,]Did the King sighe, but with a generall grone. [Sidenote: but a[3]]
King.[4] Arme you,[5] I pray you to this speedie Voyage;[Sidenote: viage,]For we will Fetters put vpon this feare,[6] [Sidenote: put about this]Which now goes too free-footed.
Both.We will haste vs.Exeunt Gent
Enter Polonius.
Pol. My Lord, he's going to his Mothers Closset:Behinde the Arras Ile conuey my selfeTo heare the Processe. Ile warrant shee'l tax him home,And as you said, and wisely was it said,'Tis meete that some more audience then a Mother,Since Nature makes them partiall, should o're-heareThe speech of vantage.[7] Fare you well my Liege,Ile call vpon you ere you go to bed,And tell you what I know. [Sidenote: Exit.]
King.Thankes deere my Lord.Oh my offence is ranke, it smels to heauen,It hath the primall eldest curse vpon't,A Brothers murther.[8] Pray can I not,Though inclination be as sharpe as will:My stronger guilt,[9] defeats my strong intent,
[Footnote 1: The philosophy of which self is the centre. The speeches of both justify the king in proceeding to extremes against Hamlet.]
[Footnote 2: The same as to say: 'The passing, ceasing, or ending of majesty dies not—is not finished or accomplished, without that of others;' 'the dying ends or ceases not,' &c.]
[Footnote 3: Thebutof theQuartois better, only the line halts.It is the preposition, meaningwithout.]
[Footnote 4:heedless of their flattery. It is hardly applicable enough to interest him.]
[Footnote 5: 'Provide yourselves.']
[Footnote 6: fear active; cause of fear; thing to be afraid of; the noun of the verbfear, tofrighten:
Or in the night, imagining some fear,How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
A Midsummer Night's Dream, act v. sc. i.]
[Footnote 7: Schmidt (Sh. Lex.) saysof vantagemeansto boot. I do not think he is right. Perhaps Polonius means 'from a position of advantage.' Or perhaps 'The speech of vantage' is to be understood as implying that Hamlet, finding himself in a position of vantage, that is, alone with his mother, will probably utter himself with little restraint.]
[Footnote 8: This is the first proof positive of his guilt accorded even to the spectator of the play: here Claudius confesses not merely guilt (118), but the very deed. Thoughtless critics are so ready to judge another as if he knew all they know, that it is desirable here to remind the student that only he, not Hamlet, hears this soliloquy. The falseness of half the judgments in the world comes from our not taking care and pains first to know accurately the actions, and then to understand the mental and moral condition, of those we judge.]
[Footnote 9: —his present guilty indulgence—stronger than his strong intent to pray.]
[Page 162]
And like a man to double businesse bound,[1]I stand in pause where I shall first begin,And both[2] neglect; what if this cursed handWere thicker then it selfe with Brothers blood,Is there not Raine enough in the sweet HeauensTo wash it white as Snow? Whereto serues mercy,But to confront the visage of Offence?And what's in Prayer, but this two-fold force,To be fore-stalled ere we come to fall,Or pardon'd being downe? Then Ile looke vp, [Sidenote: pardon]My fault is past. But oh, what forme of PrayerCan serue my turne? Forgiue me my foule Murther:That cannot be, since I am still possestOf those effects for which I did the Murther.[3]My Crowne, mine owne Ambition, and my Queene:May one be pardon'd, and retaine th'offence?In the corrupted currants of this world,Offences gilded hand may shoue by Iustice [Sidenote: showe]And oft 'tis seene, the wicked prize it selfeBuyes out the Law; but 'tis not so aboue,There is no shuffling, there the Action lyesIn his true Nature, and we our selues compell'dEuen to the teeth and forehead of our faults,To giue in euidence. What then? What rests?Try what Repentance can. What can it not?Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?[4]Oh wretched state! Oh bosome, blacke as death!Oh limed[5] soule, that strugling to be free,Art more ingag'd[6]: Helpe Angels, make assay:[7]Bow stubborne knees, and heart with strings of Steele,Be soft as sinewes of the new-borne Babe,All may be well.
[Footnote 1: Referring to his double guilt—the one crime past, the other in continuance.
Here is the corresponding passage in the1st Q., with the adultery plainly confessed:—
Enter the King.
King. O that this wet that falles vpon my faceWould wash the crime cleere from my conscience!When I looke vp to heauen, I see my trespasse,The earth doth still crie out vpon my fact,Pay me the murder of a brother and a king,And the adulterous fault I haue committed:O these are sinnes that are vnpardonable:Why say thy sinnes were blacker then is ieat,Yet may contrition make them as white as snowe:I but still to perseuer in a sinne,It is an act gainst the vniuersall power,Most wretched man, stoope, bend thee to thy prayer,Aske grace of heauen to keepe thee from despaire.]
[Footnote 2: both crimes.]
[Footnote 3: He could repent of and pray forgiveness for the murder, if he could repent of the adultery and incest, and give up the queen. It is not the sins they have done, but the sins they will not leave, that damn men. 'This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.' The murder deeply troubled him; the adultery not so much; the incest and usurpation mainly as interfering with the forgiveness of the murder.]
[Footnote 4: Even hatred of crime committed is not repentance: repentance is the turning away from wrong doing: 'Cease to do evil; learn to do well.']
[Footnote 5: —caught and held by crime, as a bird by bird-lime.]
[Footnote 6: entangled.]
[Footnote 7:said to his knees. Point thus:—'Helpe Angels! Make assay—bow, stubborne knees!']
[Page 164]
Enter Hamlet.
Ham.[1] Now might I do it pat, now he is praying,[Sidenote: doe it, but now a is a praying,]And now Ile doo't, and so he goes to Heauen, [Sidenote: so a goes]And so am I reueng'd: that would be scann'd, [Sidenote: reuendge,]A Villaine killes my Father, and for thatI his foule Sonne, do this same Villaine send [Sidenote: sole sonne]To heauen. Oh this is hyre and Sallery, not Reuenge.[Sidenote: To heauen. Why, this is base and silly, not]He tooke my Father grossely, full of bread, [Sidenote: A tooke][Sidenote: 54, 262] With all his Crimes broad blowne, as fresh as May,[Sidenote: as flush as]And how his Audit stands, who knowes, saue Heauen:[2]But in our circumstance and course of thought'Tis heauie with him: and am I then reueng'd,To take him in the purging of his Soule,When he is fit and season'd for his passage? No.Vp Sword, and know thou a more horrid hent[3]When he is drunke asleepe: or in his Rage,Or in th'incestuous pleasure of his bed,At gaming, swearing, or about some acte [Sidenote: At game a swearing,]That ha's no rellish of Saluation in't,Then trip him,[4] that his heeles may kicke at Heauen,And that his Soule may be as damn'd and blackeAs Hell, whereto it goes.[5] My Mother stayes,[6]This Physicke but prolongs thy sickly dayes.[7]Exit.
King. My words flye vp, my thoughts remain below, Words without thoughts, neuer to Heauen go.[8]Exit.
Enter Queene and Polonius. [Sidenote:Enter Gertrard and]
Pol. He will come straight: [Sidenote: A will] Looke you lay home to him
[Footnote 1: In the1st Q.this speech commences with, 'I so, come forth and worke thy last,' evidently addressed to his sword; afterwards, having changed his purpose, he says, 'no, get thee vp agen.']
[Footnote 2: This indicates doubt of the Ghost still. He is unwilling to believe in him.]
[Footnote 3:grasp. This is the only instance I know ofhentas a noun. The verbto hent, to lay hold of, is not so rare. 'Wait till thou be aware of a grasp with a more horrid purpose in it.']
[Footnote 4: —still addressed to his sword.]
[Footnote 5: Are we to take Hamlet's own presentment of his reasons as exhaustive? Doubtless to kill him at his prayers, whereupon, after the notions of the time, he would go to heaven, would be anything but justice—the murdered man in hell—the murderer in heaven! But it is easy to suppose Hamlet finding it impossible to slay a man on his knees—and that from behind: thus in the unseen Presence, he was in sanctuary, and the avenger might well seek reason or excuse for notthen, notthereexecuting the decree.]
[Footnote 6: 'waits for me.']
[Footnote 7: He seems now to have made up his mind, and to await only fit time and opportunity; but he is yet to receive confirmation strong as holy writ.
This is the first chance Hamlet has had—within the play—of killing the king, and any imputation of faulty irresolution therein is simply silly. It shows the soundness of Hamlet's reason, and the steadiness of his will, that he refuses to be carried away by passion, or the temptation of opportunity. The sight of the man on his knees might well start fresh doubt of his guilt, or even wake the thought of sparing a repentant sinner. He knows also that in taking vengeance on her husband he could not avoid compromising his mother. Besides, a man like Hamlet could not fail to perceive how the killing of his uncle, and in such an attitude, would look to others.
It may be judged, however, that the reason he gives to himself for not slaying the king, was only an excuse, that his soul revolted from the idea of assassination, and was calmed in a measure by the doubt whether a man could thus pray—in supposed privacy, we must remember—and be a murderer. Not even yet had he proofpositive, absolute, conclusive: the king might well take offence at the play, even were he innocent; and in any case Hamlet would desirepresentableproof: he had positively none to show the people in justification of vengeance.
As in excitement a man's moods may be opalescent in their changes, and as the most contrary feelings may coexist in varying degrees, all might be in a mind, which I have suggested as present in that of Hamlet.
To have been capable of the kind of action most of his critics would demand of a man, Hamlet must have been the weakling they imagine him. When at length, after a righteous delay, partly willed, partly inevitable, he holds documents in the king's handwriting as proofs of his treachery—proofs which can be shown—giving him both right and power over the life of the traitor, then, and only then, is he in cool blood absolutely satisfied as to his duty—which conviction, working with opportunity, and that opportunity plainly the last, brings the end; the righteous deed is done, and done righteously, the doer blameless in the doing of it. The Poet is not careful of what is called poetic justice in his play, though therein is no failure; what he is careful of is personal rightness in the hero of it.]
[Footnote 8:1st Q.
KingMy wordes fly vp, my sinnes remaine below.No King on earth is safe, if Gods his foe.Exit King.
So he goes to make himself safe by more crime! His repentance is mainly fear.]
[Page 166]
Tell him his prankes haue been too broad to beare with,And that your Grace hath scree'nd, and stoode betweeneMuch heate, and him. Ile silence me e'ene heere:[Sidenote: euen heere,]Pray you be round[1] with him.[2] [Sidenote:Enter Hamlet.]
Ham. within. Mother, mother, mother.[3]
Qu. Ile warrant you, feare me not. [Sidenote:Ger. Ile wait you,] Withdraw, I heare him comming.
Enter Hamlet.[4]
Ham.[5] Now Mother, what's the matter?
Qu.Hamlet, thou hast thy Father much offended. [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham. Mother, you haue my Father much offended.
Qu. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham.Go, go, you question with an idle tongue. [Sidenote: with a wicked tongue.]
Qu. Why how nowHamlet?[6] [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham. Whats the matter now?
Qu. Haue you forgot me?[7] [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham. No by the Rood, not so:You are the Queene, your Husbands Brothers wife,But would you were not so. You are my Mother.[8][Sidenote: And would it were]
Qu. Nay, then Ile set those to you that can speake.[9][Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham. Come, come, and sit you downe, you shall not boudge: You go not till I set you vp a glasse, Where you may see the inmost part of you? [Sidenote: the most part]
Qu. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther [Sidenote:Ger.] me?[10] Helpe, helpe, hoa. [Sidenote: Helpe how.]
Pol. What hoa, helpe, helpe, helpe. [Sidenote: What how helpe.]
Ham. How now, a Rat? dead for a Ducate, dead.[11]
[Footnote 1:The Quarto has not'with him.']
[Footnote 2:He goes behind the arras.]
[Footnote 3:The Quarto has not this speech.]
[Footnote 4:Not in Quarto.]
[Footnote 5:1st Q.
Ham. Mother, mother, O are you here? How i'st with you mother?
QueeneHow i'st with you?
Ham, I'le tell you, but first weele make all safe.
Here, evidently, he bolts the doors.]
[Footnote 6:1st Q.
QueeneHow now boy?
Ham. How now mother! come here, sit downe, for you shall heare me speake.]
[Footnote 7: —'that you speak to me in such fashion?']
[Footnote 8:Point thus: 'so: you'—'would you were not so, for you aremymother.'—with emphasis on'my.' The whole is spoken sadly.]
[Footnote 9: —'speak so that you must mind them.']
[Footnote 10: The apprehension comes from the combined action of her conscience and the notion of his madness.]
[Footnote 11: There is no precipitancy here—only instant resolve and execution. It is another outcome and embodiment of Hamlet's rare faculty for action, showing his delay the more admirable. There is here neither time nor call for delay. Whoever the man behind the arras might be, he had, by spying upon him in the privacy of his mother's room, forfeited to Hamlet his right to live; he had heard what he had said to his mother, and his death was necessary; for, if he left the room, Hamlet's last chance of fulfilling his vow to the Ghost was gone: if the play had not sealed, what he had now spoken must seal his doom. But the decree had in fact already gone forth against his life. 158.]
[Page 168]
Pol.Oh I am slaine. [1]Killes Polonius.[2]
Qu.Oh me, what hast thou done? [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham.Nay I know not, is it the King?[3]
Qu.Oh what a rash, and bloody deed is this? [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham.A bloody deed, almost as bad good Mother, [Sidenote: 56] As kill a King,[4] and marrie with his Brother.
Qu.As kill a King? [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham.I Lady, 'twas my word.[5] [Sidenote: it was]Thou wretched, rash, intruding foole farewell,I tooke thee for thy Betters,[3] take thy Fortune, [Sidenote: better,]Thou find'st to be too busie, is some danger,Leaue wringing of your hands, peace, sit you downe,And let me wring your heart, for so I shallIf it be made of penetrable stuffe;If damned Custome haue not braz'd it so,That it is proofe and bulwarke against Sense. [Sidenote: it be]
Qu.What haue I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tong, [Sidenote:Ger.] In noise so rude against me?[6]
Ham.Such an ActThat blurres the grace and blush of Modestie,[7]Calls Vertue Hypocrite, takes off the RoseFrom the faire forehead of an innocent loue,And makes a blister there.[8] Makes marriage vowes[Sidenote: And sets a]As false as Dicers Oathes. Oh such a deed,As from the body of Contraction[9] pluckesThe very soule, and sweete Religion makesA rapsidie of words. Heauens face doth glow, [Sidenote: dooes]Yea this solidity and compound masse, [Sidenote: Ore this]With tristfull visage as against the doome,[Sidenote: with heated visage,]Is thought-sicke at the act.[10] [Sidenote: thought sick]
Qu.Aye me; what act,[11] that roares so lowd,[12] and thunders in the Index.[13]
[Footnote 1:Not in Q.]
[Footnote 2: —through the arras.]
[Footnote 3: Hamlet takes him for, hopes it is the king, and thinks here to conclude: he is not praying now! and there is not a moment to be lost, for he has betrayed his presence and called for help. As often as immediate action is demanded of Hamlet, he is immediate with his response—never hesitates, never blunders. There is no blunder here: being where he was, the death of Polonius was necessary now to the death of the king. Hamlet's resolve is instant, and the act simultaneous with the resolve. The weak man is sure to be found wanting when immediate action is necessary; Hamlet never is. Doubtless those who blame him as dilatory, here blame him as precipitate, for they judge according to appearance and consequence.
All his delay after this is plainly compelled, although I grant he was not sorry to have to await suchmore presentableevidence as at last he procured, so long as he did not lose the final possibility of vengeance.]
[Footnote 4: This is the sole reference in the interview to the murder. I take it for tentative, and that Hamlet is satisfied by his mother's utterance, carriage, and expression, that she is innocent of any knowledge of that crime. Neither does he allude to the adultery: there is enough in what she cannot deny, and that only which can be remedied needs be taken up; while to break with the king would open the door of repentance for all that had preceded.]
[Footnote 5: He says nothing of the Ghost to his mother.]
[Footnote 6: She still holds up and holds out.]
[Footnote 7: 'makes Modesty itself suspected.']
[Footnote 8: 'makes Innocence ashamed of the love it cherishes.']
[Footnote 9: 'plucks the spirit out of all forms of contracting or agreeing.' We have lost the social and kept only the physical meaning of the noun.]
[Footnote 10: I cannot help thinking theQuartoreading of this passage the more intelligible, as well as much the more powerful. We may imagine a red aurora, by no means a very unusual phenomenon, over the expanse of the sky:—
Heaven's face doth glow (blush)O'er this solidity and compound mass,
(the earth, solid, material, composite, a corporeal mass in confrontment with the spirit-like etherial, simple, uncompounded heaven leaning over it)
With tristful (orheated,as the reader may choose) visage: as against the doom,
(as in the presence, or in anticipation of the revealing judgment)
Is thought sick at the act.
(thought is sick at the act of the queen)
My difficulties as to theFolioreading are—why the earth should be so described without immediate contrast with the sky; and—how the earth could be showing a tristful visage, and the sickness of its thought. I think, if the Poet indeed made the alterations and they are not mere blunders, he must have made them hurriedly, and without due attention. I would not forget, however, that there may be something present but too good for me to find, which would make the passage plain as it stands.
CompareAs you like it, act i. sc. 3.
For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.]
[Footnote 11: In Q. the rest of this speech is Hamlet's; his long speech begins here, taking up the queen's word.]
[Footnote 12: She still stands out.]
[Footnote 13: 'thunders in the very indication or mention of it.' But by 'the Index' may be intended the influx or table of contents of a book, at the beginning of it.]
[Page 170]
Ham.Looke heere vpon this Picture, and on this,The counterfet presentment of two Brothers:[1]See what a grace was seated on his Brow, [Sidenote: on this][Sidenote: 151]Hyperionscuries, the front of Ioue himselfe,An eye like Mars, to threaten or command [Sidenote: threaten and]A Station, like the Herald MercurieNew lighted on a heauen kissing hill: [Sidenote: on a heaue, a kissing]A Combination, and a forme indeed,Where euery God did seeme to set his Seale,To giue the world assurance of a man.[2]This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes.Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eareBlasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes?[Sidenote: wholsome brother,]Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed,And batten on this Moore?[3] Ha? Haue you eyes?You cannot call it Loue: For at your age,The hey-day[4] in the blood is tame, it's humble,And waites vpon the Judgement: and what IudgementWould step from this, to this? [A] What diuell was't,That thus hath cousend you at hoodman-blinde?[5] [Sidenote: hodman][B]O Shame! where is thy Blush? Rebellious Hell,If thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones,
[Footnote A:Here in the Quarto:—
sence sure youe haueEls could you not haue motion, but sure that senceIs appoplext, for madnesse would not erreNor sence to extacie[6] was nere so thral'dBut it reseru'd some quantity of choise[7]To serue in such[8] a difference,]
[Footnote B:Here in the Quarto:—
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight.Eares without hands, or eyes, smelling sance[9] all,Or but a sickly part of one true senceCould not so mope:[10]]
[Footnote 1: He points to the portraits of the two brothers, side by side on the wall.]
[Footnote 2: SeeJulius Caesar, act v. sc. 5,—speech ofAntonyat the end.]
[Footnote 3: —perhaps an allusion as well to the complexion ofClaudius, both moral and physical.]
[Footnote 4: —perhaps allied to the Germanheida, and possibly the Englishhoydenandhoity-toity. Or is it merelyhigh-day—noontide?]
[Footnote 5: 'played tricks with you while hooded in the game ofblind-man's-bluff?' The omitted passage of theQuartoenlarges the figure.
1st Q.'hob-man blinde.']
[Footnote 6: madness.]
[Footnote 7: Attributing soul to sense, he calls its distinguishmentchoice.]
[Footnote 8: —emphasis onsuch.]
[Footnote 9: This spelling seems to show how the English wordsansshould be pronounced.]
[Footnote 10: —'be so dull.']
[Page 172]
To flaming youth, let Vertue be as waxe,And melt in her owne fire. Proclaime no shame,When the compulsiue Ardure giues the charge,Since Frost it selfe,[1] as actiuely doth burne,As Reason panders Will. [Sidenote: And reason pardons will.]
Qu.O Hamlet, speake no more.[2] [Sidenote:Ger.]Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soule,[Sidenote: my very eyes into my soule,]And there I see such blacke and grained[3] spots,[Sidenote: greeued spots]As will not leaue their Tinct.[4] [Sidenote: will leaue there their]
Ham.Nay, but to liue[5]In the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed, [Sidenote: inseemed]Stew'd in Corruption; honying and making loue[Sidenote: 34] Ouer the nasty Stye.[6]
Qu.Oh speake to me, no more, [Sidenote:Ger.][Sidenote: 158] These words like Daggers enter in mine eares.[Sidenote: my]No more sweetHamlet.
Ham.A Murderer, and a Villaine:A Slaue, that is not twentieth part the tythe [Sidenote: part the kyth]Of your precedent Lord. A vice[7] of Kings,A Cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule.That from a shelfe, the precious Diadem stole,And put it in his Pocket.
Qu.No more.[8] [Sidenote:Ger.]
Enter Ghost.[9]
Ham.A King of shreds and patches.[Sidenote: 44] Saue me; and houer o're me with your wings[10]You heauenly Guards. What would you gracious figure?[Sidenote: your gracious]
Qu.Alas he's mad.[11] [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham.Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide, That laps't in Time and Passion, lets go by[12] Th'important acting of your dread command? Oh say.[13]
[Footnote 1: —his mother's matronly age.]
[Footnote 2: She gives way at last.]
[Footnote 3: —spots whose blackness has sunk into the grain, or final particles of the substance.]
[Footnote 4: —transition form of tint:—'will never give up their colour;' 'will never be cleansed.']
[Footnote 5: He persists.]
[Footnote 6: —Claudius himself—his body no 'temple of the Holy Ghost,' but a pig-sty. 3.]
[Footnote 7: The clown of the old Moral Play.]
[Footnote 8: She seems neither surprised nor indignant at any point in the accusation: her consciousness of her own guiit has overwhelmed her.]
[Footnote 9: The1st Q.hasEnter the ghost in his night gowne. It was then from the first intended that he should not at this point appear in armour—in which, indeed, the epithetgracious figurecould hardly be applied to him, though it might well enough in one of the costumes in which Hamlet was accustomed to see him—as this dressing-gown of the1st Q.A ghost would appear in the costume in which he naturally imagined himself, and in his wife's room would not show himself clothed as when walking among the fortifications of the castle. But by the words lower down (174)—
My Father in his habite, as he liued,
the Poet indicates, not his dressing-gown, but his usual habit,i.e.attire.]
[Footnote 10: —almost the same invocation as when first he saw the apparition.]
[Footnote 11: The queen cannot see the Ghost. Her conduct has built such a wall between her and her husband that I doubt whether, were she a ghost also, she could see him. Her heart had left him, so they are no more together in the sphere of mutual vision. Neither does the Ghost wish to show himself to her. As his presence is not corporeal, a ghost may be present to but one of a company.]
[Footnote 12: 1. 'Who, lapsed (fallen, guilty), lets action slip in delay and suffering.' 2. 'Who, lapsed in (fallen in, overwhelmed by) delay and suffering, omits' &c. 3. 'lapsed in respect of time, and because of passion'—the meaning of the prepositionin, common to both, reacted upon by the word it governs. 4. 'faulty both in delaying, and in yielding to suffering, when action is required.' 5. 'lapsed through having too much time and great suffering.' 6. 'allowing himself to be swept along by time and grief.'
Surely there is not another writer whose words would so often admit of such multiform and varied interpretation—each form good, and true, and suitable to the context! He seems to see at once all the relations of a thing, and to try to convey them at once, in an utterance single as the thing itself. He would condense the infinite soul of the meaning into the trembling, overtaxed body of the phrase!]
[Footnote 13: In the renewed presence of the Ghost, all its former influence and all the former conviction of its truth, return upon him. He knows also how his behaviour must appear to the Ghost, and sees himself as the Ghost sees him. Confronted with the gracious figure, how should he think of self-justification! So far from being able to explain things, he even forgets the doubt that had held him back—it has vanished from the noble presence! He is now in the world of belief; the world of doubt is nowhere!—Note the masterly opposition of moods.]
[Page 174]
Ghost.Do not forget: this VisitationIs but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.[1]But looke, Amazement on thy Mother sits;[2][Sidenote: 30, 54] O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule,[3][Sidenote: 198] Conceit[4] in weakest bodies, strongest workes.Speake to herHamlet.[5]
Ham.How is it with you Lady?[6]
Qu.Alas, how is't with you? [Sidenote:Ger.]That you bend your eye on vacancie, [Sidenote: you do bend]And with their corporall ayre do hold discourse.[Sidenote: with th'incorporall ayre]Forth at your eyes, your spirits wildely peepe,And as the sleeping Soldiours in th'Alarme,Your bedded haire, like life in excrements,[7]Start vp, and stand an end.[8] Oh gentle Sonne,Vpon the heate and flame of thy distemperSprinkle coole patience. Whereon do you looke?[9]
Ham.On him, on him: look you how pale he glares,His forme and cause conioyn'd, preaching to stones,Would make them capeable.[10] Do not looke vpon me,[11]Least with this pitteous action you conuertMy sterne effects: then what I haue to do,[12][Sidenote: 111] Will want true colour; teares perchance for blood.[13]
Qu.To who do you speake this? [Sidenote:Ger.To whom]
Ham.Do you see nothing there?
Qu.Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.[14] [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham.Nor did you nothing heare?
Qu.No, nothing but our selues. [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham.Why look you there: looke how it steals away: [Sidenote: 173] My Father in his habite, as he liued, Looke where he goes euen now out at the Portall.Exit.[Sidenote:Exit Ghost.]
[Sidenote: 114]Qu.This is the very coynage of your Braine,[Sidenote:Ger.]
[Footnote 1: The Ghost here judges, as alone is possible to him, from what he knows—from the fact that his brother Claudius has not yet made his appearance in the ghost-world. Not understanding Hamlet's difficulties, he mistakes Hamlet himself.]
[Footnote 2: He mistakes also, through his tenderness, the condition of his wife—imagining, it would seem, that she feels his presence, though she cannot see him, or recognize the source of the influence which he supposes to be moving her conscience: she is only perturbed by Hamlet's behaviour.]
[Footnote 3: —fighting within itself, as the sea in a storm may be said to fight.
He is careful as ever over the wife he had loved and loves still; careful no less of the behaviour of the son to his mother.
In the1st Q.we have:—
But I perceiue by thy distracted lookes,Thy mother's fearefull, and she stands amazde:Speake to her Hamlet, for her sex is weake,Comfort thy mother, Hamlet, thinke on me.]
[Footnote 4: —not used here for bareimagination, but imagination with its concomitant feeling:—conception. 198.]
[Footnote 5: His last word ere he vanishes utterly, concerns his queen; he is tender and gracious still to her who sent him to hell. This attitude of the Ghost towards his faithless wife, is one of the profoundest things in the play. All the time she is not thinking of him any more than seeing him—for 'is he not dead!'—is looking straight at where he stands, but is all unaware of him.]
[Footnote 6: I understand him to speak this with a kind of lost, mechanical obedience. The description his mother gives of him makes it seem as if the Ghost were drawing his ghost out to himself, and turning his body thereby half dead.]
[Footnote 7: 'as if there were life in excrements.' The nails and hair were 'excrements'—thingsgrowing out.]
[Footnote 8: Note the forman end—noton end. 51, 71.]
[Footnote 9: —all spoken coaxingly, as to one in a mad fit. She regards his perturbation as a sudden assault of his ever present malady. One who sees what others cannot see they are always ready to count mad.]
[Footnote 10: able totake, that is, tounderstand.]
[Footnote 11: —to the Ghost.]
[Footnote 12: 'what is in my power to do.']
[Footnote 13: Note antithesis here: 'your piteous action;' 'my stern effects'—the things, that is, 'which I have to effect.' 'Lest your piteous show convert—change—my stern doing; then what I do will lack true colour; the result may be tears instead of blood; I shall weep instead of striking.']
[Footnote 14: It is one of the constantly recurring delusions of humanity that we see all there is.]
[Page 176]
[Sidenote: 114] This bodilesse Creation extasie[1] is very cunning in.[2]
Ham.Extasie?[3]My Pulse as yours doth temperately keepe time,And makes as healthfull Musicke.[4] It is not madnesseThat I haue vttered; bring me to the TestAnd I the matter will re-word: which madnesse [Sidenote: And the]Would gamboll from. Mother, for loue of Grace,Lay not a flattering Vnction to your soule,[Sidenote: not that flattering]That not your trespasse, but my madnesse speakes:[Sidenote: 182] It will but skin and filme the Vlcerous place,Whil'st ranke Corruption mining all within, [Sidenote: whiles]Infects vnseene, Confesse your selfe to Heauen,Repent what's past, auoyd what is to come,And do not spred the Compost or the Weedes, [Sidenote: compost on the]To make them ranke. Forgiue me this my Vertue, [Sidenote: ranker,]For in the fatnesse of this pursie[5] times, [Sidenote: these]Vertue it selfe, of Vice must pardon begge,Yea courb,[6] and woe, for leaue to do him good.[Sidenote: curbe and wooe]
Qu.Oh Hamlet, [Sidenote:Ger.] Thou hast cleft my heart in twaine.
Ham.O throw away the worser part of it,And Liue the purer with the other halfe. [Sidenote: And leaue the]Good night, but go not to mine Vnkles bed, [Sidenote: my]Assume a Vertue, if you haue it not,[7][A] refraine to night[Sidenote: Assune | to refraine night,]And that shall lend a kinde of easinesse
[Footnote A:Here in the Quarto:—
[8]That monster custome, who all sence doth eateOf habits deuill,[9] is angell yet in thisThat to the vse of actions faire and good,He likewise giues a frock or LiueryThat aptly is put on]
[Footnote 1: madness 129.]
[Footnote 2: Here is the correspondent speech in the1st Q.I give it because of the queen's denial of complicity in the murder.
QueeneAlas, it is the weakenesse of thy braine.Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy hearts griefe:But as I haue a soule, I sweare by heauen,I neuer knew of this most horride murder:But Hamlet, this is onely fantasie,And for my loue forget these idle fits.
Ham. Idle, no mother, my pulse doth beate like yours,It is not madnesse that possesseth Hamlet.]
[Footnote 3:Not in Q.]
[Footnote 4: —timebeing a great part of music. Shakspere more than once or twice employsmusicas a symbol with reference to corporeal condition: see, for instance,As you like it, act i. sc. 2, 'But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking?' where thebroken musicmay be regarded as the antithesis of thehealthful musichere.]
[Footnote 5:swoln, pampered: an allusion to thepurseitself, whether intended or not, is suggested.]
[Footnote 6:bend, bow.]
[Footnote 7: Toassumeis to take to one: byassume a virtue, Hamlet does not meanpretend—but the very opposite:to pretendisto hold forth, to show; what he means is, 'Adopt a virtue'—that ofabstinence—'and act upon it, order your behaviour by it, although you may notfeelit. Choose the virtue—take it, make it yours.']
[Footnote 8: This omitted passage is obscure with the special Shaksperean obscurity that comes of over-condensation. He omitted it, I think, because of its obscurity. Its general meaning is plain enough—that custom helps the man who tries to assume a virtue, as well as renders it more and more difficult for him who indulges in vice to leave it. I will paraphrase: 'That monster, Custom, who eats away all sense, the devil of habits, is angel yet in this, that, for the exercise of fair and good actions, he also provides a habit, a suitable frock or livery, that is easily put on.' The play with the two senses of the wordhabitis more easily seen than set forth. To paraphrase more freely: 'That devil of habits, Custom, who eats away all sense of wrong-doing, has yet an angel-side to him, in that he gives a man a mental dress, a habit, helpful to the doing of the right thing.' The idea of hypocrisy does not come in at all. The advice of Hamlet is: 'Be virtuous in your actions, even if you cannot in your feelings; do not do the wrong thing you would like to do, and custom will render the abstinence easy.']
[Footnote 9: I suspect it should be 'Of habits evil'—the antithesis toangelbeingmonster.]
[Page 178]
To the next abstinence. [A] Once more goodnight,And when you are desirous to be blest,Ile blessing begge of you.[1] For this same Lord,I do repent: but heauen hath pleas'd it so,[2]To punish me with this, and this with me,That I must be their[3] Scourge and Minister.I will bestow him,[4] and will answer wellThe death I gaue him:[5] so againe, good night.I must be cruell, onely to be kinde;[6]Thus bad begins,[7] and worse remaines behinde.[8] [Sidenote: This bad]
Qu. What shall I do? [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham. Not this by no meanes that I bid you do:Let the blunt King tempt you againe to bed, [Sidenote: the blowt King]Pinch Wanton on your cheeke, call you his Mouse,And let him for a paire of reechie[9] kisses,Or padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers,Make you to rauell all this matter out, [Sidenote: rouell][Sidenote: 60, 136, 156] That I essentially am not in madnesse.But made in craft.[10] 'Twere good you let him know, [Sidenote: mad]For who that's but a Queene, faire, sober, wise,Would from a Paddocke,[11] from a Bat, a Gibbe,[12]Such deere concernings hide, Who would do so,No in despight of Sense and Secrecie,Vnpegge the Basket on the houses top:Let the Birds flye, and like the famous ApeTo try Conclusions[13] in the Basket, creepeAnd breake your owne necke downe.[14]
Qu. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, [Sidenote:Ger.]
[Footnote A:Here in the Quarto;—
the next more easie:[15]For vse almost can change the stamp of nature,And either[16] the deuill, or throwe him outWith wonderous potency:]
[Footnote B:Here in the Quarto:—
One word more good Lady.[17]]
[Footnote 1: In bidding his mother good night, he would naturally, after the custom of the time, have sought her blessing: it would be a farce now: when she seeks the blessing of God, he will beg hers; now, a plaingood nightmust serve.]
[Footnote 2: Note the curious inverted use ofpleased. It is here a transitive, not an impersonal verb. The construction of the sentence is, 'pleased it so,in order topunish us, that I must' &c.]
[Footnote 3: The noun to whichtheiris the pronoun isheaven—as if he had writtenthe gods.]
[Footnote 4: 'take him to a place fit for him to lie in.']
[Footnote 5: 'hold my face to it, and justify it.']
[Footnote 6: —omitting or refusing to embrace her.]
[Footnote 7: —looking at Polonius.]
[Footnote 8: Does this mean for himself to do, or for Polonius to endure?]
[Footnote 9: reeky, smoky, fumy.]
[Footnote 10: Hamlet considers his madness the same that he so deliberately assumed. But his idea of himself goes for nothing where the experts conclude him mad! His absolute clarity where he has no occasion to act madness, goes for as little, for 'all madmen have their sane moments'!]
[Footnote 11:a toad; in Scotland,a frog.]
[Footnote 12: an old cat.]
[Footnote 13:Experiments, Steevens says: is it not ratherresults?]
[Footnote 14: I fancy the story, which so far as I know has not been traced, goes on to say that the basket was emptied from the house-top to send the pigeons flying, and so the ape got his neck broken. The phrase 'breake your owne neckedowne' seems strange: it could hardly have been writtenneck-bone!]
[Footnote 15: This passage would fall in better with the preceding with which it is vitally one—for it would more evenly continue its form—if the precedingdevilwere, as I propose above, changed toevil. But, precious as is every word in them, both passages are well omitted.]
[Footnote 16: Plainly there is a word left out, if not lost here. There is no authority for the suppliedmaster. I am inclined to propose a pause and a gesture, with perhaps aninarticulation.]
[Footnote 17: —interrogatively perhaps, Hamlet noting her about to speak; but I would prefer it thus: 'One word more:—good lady—' Here he pauses so long that she speaks. Or wemightread it thus:
Qu.One word more.Ham.Good lady?Qu.What shall I do?]
[Page 180]
And breath of life: I haue no life to breathWhat thou hast saide to me.[1]
[Sidenote: 128, 158]Ham.I must to England, you know that?[2]
Qu.Alacke I had forgot: Tis so concluded on. [Sidenote:Ger.]
Ham.[A] This man shall set me packing:[3]Ile lugge the Guts into the Neighbor roome,[4]Mother goodnight. Indeede this Counsellor [Sidenote: night indeed, this]Is now most still, most secret, and most graue,[Sidenote: 84] Who was in life, a foolish prating Knaue.[Sidenote: a most foolish]Come sir, to draw toward an end with you.[5]Good night Mother.
Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius.[6] [Sidenote:Exit.]
[7]
Enter King.[Sidenote: Enter King, and Queene, withRosencraus and Guyldensterne.]
King.There's matters in these sighes.These profound heauesYou must translate; Tis fit we vnderstand them.Where is your Sonne?[8]
Qu.[B] Ah my good Lord, what haue I seene to night?[Sidenote:Ger.| Ah mine owne Lord,]
King.WhatGertrude? How do'sHamlet?
Qu.Mad as the Seas, and winde, when both contend [Sidenote:Ger.| sea and] Which is the Mightier, in his lawlesse fit[9]
[Footnote A:Here in the Quarto:—
[10]Ther's letters seald, and my two Schoolefellowes,Whom I will trust as I will Adders fang'd,They beare the mandat, they must sweep my wayAnd marshall me to knauery[11]: let it worke,For tis the sport to haue the enginerHoist[12] with his owne petar,[13] an't shall goe hardBut I will delue one yard belowe their mines,And blowe them at the Moone: ô tis most sweeteWhen in one line two crafts directly meete,]
[Footnote B:Here in the Quarto:—
Bestow this place on vs a little while.[14]]
[Footnote 1:1st Q.
O mother, if euer you did my deare father loue,Forbeare the adulterous bed to night,And win your selfe by little as you may,In time it may be you wil lothe him quite:And mother, but assist mee in reuenge,And in his death your infamy shall die.
Queene. Hamlet, I vow by that maiesty,That knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts,I will conceale, consent, and doe my best,What stratagem soe're thou shalt deuise.]
[Footnote 2: The king had spoken of it both before and after the play:Horatio might have heard of it and told Hamlet.]
[Footnote 3: 'My banishment will be laid to this deed of mine.']
[Footnote 4: —to rid his mother of it.]
[Footnote 5: It may cross him, as he says this, dragging the body out by one end of it, and toward the end of its history, that he is himself drawing toward an end along with Polonius.]
[Footnote 6: —and weeping. 182. Seenote5, 183.]
[Footnote 7: Here, according to the editors, comes 'Act IV.' For this there is no authority, and the point of division seems to me very objectionable. The scene remains the same, as noted from Capell inCam. Sh., and the entrance of the king follows immediately on the exit of Hamlet. He finds his wife greatly perturbed; she has not had time to compose herself.
From the beginning of Act II., on to where I would place the end of ActIII., there is continuity.]
[Footnote 8: I would have this speech uttered with pauses and growing urgency, mingled at length with displeasure.]
[Footnote 9: She is faithful to her son, declaring him mad, and attributing the death of 'the unseen' Polonius to his madness.]
[Footnote 10: This passage, like the rest, I hold to be omitted by Shakspere himself. It represents Hamlet as divining the plot with whose execution his false friends were entrusted. The Poet had at first intended Hamlet to go on board the vessel with a design formed upon this for the out-witting of his companions, and to work out that design. Afterwards, however, he alters his plan, and represents his escape as more plainly providential: probably he did not see how to manage it by any scheme of Hamlet so well as by the attack of a pirate; possibly he wished to write the passage (246) in which Hamlet, so consistently with his character, attributes his return to the divine shaping of the end rough-hewn by himself. He had designs—'dear plots'—but they were other than fell out—a rough-hewing that was shaped to a different end. The discomfiture of his enemies was not such as he had designed: it was brought about by no previous plot, but through a discovery. At the same time his deliverance was not effected by the fingering of the packet, but by the attack of the pirate: even the re-writing of the commission did nothing towards his deliverance, resulted only in the punishment of his traitorous companions. In revising the Quarto, the Poet sees that the passage before us, in which is expressed the strongest suspicion of his companions, with a determination to outwit and punish them, is inconsistent with the representation Hamlet gives afterwards of a restlessness and suspicion newly come upon him, which he attributes to the Divinity.
Neither was it likely he would say so much to his mother while so little sure of her as to warn her, on the ground of danger to herself, against revealing his sanity to the king. As to this, however, the portion omitted might, I grant, be regarded as anaside.]
[Footnote 11: —to be donetohim.]
[Footnote 12:Hoised, from verbhoise—still used in Scotland.]
[Footnote 13: a kind of explosive shell, which was fixed to the object meant to be destroyed. Note once more Hamlet's delight in action.]
[Footnote 14: —said to Ros. and Guild.: in plain speech, 'Leave us a little while.']
[Page 182]
Behinde the Arras, hearing something stirre,He whips his Rapier out, and cries a Rat, a Rat,[Sidenote: Whyps out his Rapier, cryes a]And in his brainish apprehension killes [Sidenote: in this]The vnseene good old man.