Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Fran. I think I hear them.

Stand, ho! who is

Hor. Friends to this ground. (4)

Mar. And liege men to the Dane.

Fran. Give you good night.

[there?

Mar. Oh, farewel, honest soldier; who hath

relieved you? (5)

Fran. Bernardo has my place; give you good

night.

Mar. Holla! Bernardo.

[Exit Francisco.

Ber. Say, what, is Horatio there?
Hor. A piece of him.

(4) Horatio has precisely the same prototype as Sidrophel, in Hudibras, drawn in fig. 38, ante, where a note points out his particular position. His name is derived from Hora, with reference to the shape of an hour-glass, exhibited by the lights and shadows which form his head; and as there is frequent allusion in the early part of the play to Horatio's sitting down, he is so represented in fig. 49, by an addition of some of the shadows adjoining to his person in the moon.

(5) Marcellus, (martial,) seems to have his prototype in the military figure, drawn in No. 50; which, if the south side of the moon be still kept uppermost, may be seen at the top of what made the head of Ralph in Hudibras, (drawn in fig. 2,) and looking directly towards the ghost, who is pointed out in the next note.

[blocks in formation]

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Mar

cellus.

[night? Mar. What, has this thing appeared again toBer. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says

'tis but our fantasy ;

And will not let belief take hold of him,

Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us :

Therefore I have intreated him along

With us, to watch the minutes of this night;
That if again this apparition come,

He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.
Hor. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
Ber. Sit down a while,

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we have two nights seen.
Hor. Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.
Ber. Last night of all,

When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heav'n
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

The bell then beating one,

Mar. Peace, break thee off;

Enter the Ghost. (6)

Look where it comes again.

(6) The ghost, made of the strong explosion of white

Ber. In the same figure, like the King that's dead. Mar. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio. (7)

light towards the south side of the moon, is drawn in Fig. 51.

(being the same space which constituted the figure of Fame, in Hudibras, fig. 25,) and the manner of representing the ghost at the theatre up to the present day conveys a confirmation of this explanation; for his beckoning to Hamlet would not be so well understood from his prototype in the moon, without a reference to the truncheon which he appears to hold in his hand there, and which he is always represented on the stage as waving in a beckoning posture.

(7) Horatio's being a scholar may be referable to the

Ber. Looks it not like the King? mark it, Horatio. Hor. Most like: it harrows me with fear and

wonder.

Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar. Speak to it, Horatio.

[night,

Hor. What art thou, that usurpest this time of Together with that fair and warlike form,

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometime march? by Heaven, I charge thee, Mar. It is offended.

Ber. See! it stalks away. (8)

[speak.

Hor. Stay; speak: I charge thee, speak.

[Exit Ghost.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

Ber. How now, Horatio, you tremble and look Is not this, something more than fantasy? [pale. What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

various uses to which the hour-glass, marked on his head, is applied, and particularly to that important one of keeping the reckoning of ships at sea: it is further referable, perhaps, to the appearance of a telescope, another scientific instrument, at his eye.

(8) It stalks away, i. e. it disappears with the side of the moon on which it is situate.

« AnteriorContinuar »