The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,-
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye;'
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,2
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along:-For all our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,—
Holding a weak supposal of our worth;
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bands of law,

To our most valiant brother.-So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: We have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,―
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject:-and we here despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these related articles allow.

Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.
Cor. Vol. In that, and all things, will we show
Juty.

*

loubt it nothing; heartily farewell.
runt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.
tes, what's the news with you?
some suit; What is't, Laertes ?
ak of reason to the Dane,

voice: What would'st thou beg,

De my offer, not thy asking?

The head is not more native to the heart,

The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father."
What would'st thou have, Laertes ?

Laer.
My dread lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France;
.1 Thus the folio. The quarto reads:

With an auspicious and a dropping eye.'
The same thought occurs in The Winter's Tale :-
She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband,
another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled.' There
is an old proverbial phrase, To laugh with one eye,
and cry with the other.'

2 i. e. grief.

3 i. e. united to this strange fancy of, &c. 4 The folio reads, bonds; but bands and bonds signified the same thing in the poet's time.

5 Gait here signifies course, progress. Gait for road, way, path, is still in use in the north. We have this word again in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act

v. Sc. 2:

Every fairy takes his gait.'

6 The folio reads, More than the scope of these dilated articles allow.' I have not scrupled to read related, upon the authority of the first quarto, as more intelligible. Malone says, 'the poet should have written allows; but the grammar and practice of Shakspeare's age was not strict in the concordance of plural and singular in noun and verb: and numerous examples might be adduced from his contemporaries to prove this. The question is, Are the writers of that time to be tried by modern rules of grammar, with which they were not acquainted? Steevens, with a sweeping assertion, which no one conversant with MSS. of the time will allow, would attribute all such inaccuracies to illiterate transcribers or printers. We have Malone's assertion, that such errors are to be met with in almost every page of the first folio. The first quarto reads:

6 -no further personal power
To business with the king

Than those related articles do shew."

7 The various parts of the body enumerated are not more allied, more necessary to each other, than the throne of Denmark (i. e. the king) is bound to your father to do him service.

From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation;
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
King. Have you your father's leave? What saya

Polonius?

Pol. He hath, my lord, [wrung from me my slow
leave,

By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:]
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will.-
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,-
Ham. A little more than kín, and less than kind.”
[Aside.

King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Ham. Not so, my lord, I am too much i' the sun. 1o
Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids'1
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st, 'tis common; all, that live, must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen.

If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not

seems.

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: These, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within, which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of wo.12
King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your na-
ture, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:
But you must know your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his ;13 and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term

8 In the first quarto this passage stands thus:-
'King. With all our heart, Laertes, fare thee well.
Laert. I in all love and dutie take my leave. [Exit,

The king's speech may be thus explained :-'Take an
thy best virtues guide thee in spending of it at thy will.'
auspicious hour, Laertes; be your time your own, and
Johnson thought that we should read, 'And my best
graces.' The editors had rendered this passage doubly
obscure by erroneously placing a colon at graces.

9A little more than kin, and less than kind.' This passage has baffled the commentators, who are at issue about its meaning; but have none of them rightly exits true meaning. A little more than kin has been plained it. A contemporary of the poet will lead us to rightly said to allude to the double relationship of the by blood and kindred by marriage. By less than kind king to Hamlet, as uncle and step-father, his kindred Hamlet means degenerate and base. Going out of kinde, (says Baret,) which goeth out of kinde, which dothe or worketh dishonour to his kindred. Degener; 'Forligner, (says Cot forlignant.-Alvearie, K. 59. grave,) to degenerate, to grow out of kind, to differ in conditions with his ancestors.' That less than kind and out of kind have the same meaning, who can doubt? 10 It is probable that a quibble is intended between sun and son. The old spelling is sonne. 11 i. e. with eyes cast down.

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O, God! 0,
God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O, fie! 'tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in na-

4 Unprevailing was used in the sense of unavailing as late as Dryden's time, He may often prevail himself! of the same advantages in English.-Essay on Dra-model of beauty.

And dyvers noble victoryes, as the history doth express,

That he atchyved to the honour of the town, Could not him precante whan Fortune lyst to frown.' Metrical Visions by G. Cavendish, p. 81. 5 This was a common form of figurative expression. The Ghost, describing his affection for the Queen, says:

To me, whose love was of that dignity. 6 i. e. dispense, bestow. Thus Dryden :-High state and honours to others impart, But give me your heart.'

7 To bend is to incline. The moste parte bende to, &c.: In hoc consilium maxime inclinant,' &c.-Baret. 8 The quarto of 1603 reads:

"The rouse the king shall drink unto the prince.' A rouse appears to have been a deep draught to the health of any one, in which it was customary to empty the glass or vessel. Its etymology is uncertain; but I suspect it to be only an abridgment of carouse, which is used in the same sense. See Peacham's Complete Gentleman, 1627, p. 194.

So madly hot, that no discourse of reason— Carmuse, seems to have come to us from the French, can qualify the same." who again appear to have derived it from the German In the language of the schools, Discourse is that gar-auss, to drink all out: at least so we may judge rational act of the mind by which we deduce or intercam from the following passage in Rabelais, B. iii. Prologue: thing from another. Discourse of reason therefore -Enfans, beuvez a plein godets. Si bon ne vous may mean ratiocination. Brutes have not this reame semble, laissez le. Je ne suis de ces importuns litre-ing faculty, though they have what has been cale? lofres, qui par force, par outrage, et violence con- instinct and memory. Hamlet opposes the disrenin traignent les gentils compagnons trinquer, boire caraus, power of the intellect of men to the instinct of triserv et allauz. Act iv. Sc. 4, which may tend to elucidate his pressa meaning, if the reader has any doubts. The first sco reads, a beast devoid of reason." We have disc 9 To resolve had anciently the same meaning as to of thought, for the discursive range of thea, kl. 1 dissolve. 'To thaw or resolve that which is frozen;] Othello, Act iv, Sc. 2.

The reader may consult Mr. Gifford's Massinger, vol i. p. 210.

And what make you' from Wittenberg, Horatio ?-
Marcellus?

Mar. My good lord,

Ham. I am very glad to see you; good even, sir.
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.

Han. I would not hear your enemy say so:
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
A gainst yourself: I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's fune-

ral.

Hor. Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear; till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

Ham.

For God's love, let me hear.
Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Armed to point, exactly, cap-à-pé,

Appears before them, and, with solemn march,
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd,
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distill'd'
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them, the third night kept the watch;
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes; I knew your father;
These hands are not more like."
Ham.

But where was this?

1 i. e. what do you. Vide note on Love's Labour's Lost, Act iv. Sc. 3.

His face.

In sorrow than in anger.

Ham.

Hor. Nay, very pale.
Ham.

A countenance more

Pale, or red?

And fix'd his eyes upon you?

Hor. Most constantly.
Ham.

I would, I had been there.

Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.
Ham.

Very like: Stay'd it long?

Very like,

Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell

a hundred.

Mar. Ber. Longer, longer

Hor. Not when I saw it.

Ham.

His beard was grizzled? no?

Hor. It was as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silver'd.10

Ham.

I will watch to-night;
Perchance, 'twill walk again.
Hor.

I warrant you, 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,
Pil visit you.

All.

Our duty to your honour. Ham. Your loves, as mine to you: Farewell. [Exeunt HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO. tending a quibble here between waist and waste. There 2 It was anciently the custom to give an entertain-appears to be nothing incongruous in the expression; on ment at a funeral. The usage was derived from the Roman cana funeralis; and is not yet disused in the North, where it is called an arcel supper.

Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind.'
Rape of Lucrece.
Chaucer has the expression in his Man of Lawe's
Tale:-

But it were with thilke eyen of his mind,
Which men mowen see whan they ben blinde.'
And Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Love's Triumphs
As only by the mind's eye may be seen.'
And Richard Rolle, in his Speculum Vitæ, MS. speak-
ing of Jacob's Dream :-

That Jacob sawe with gostly eye.'

i. e. the eye of the mind or spirit.

6 The first quarto, 1603, has:-

In the dead rast and middle of the night."

I suffer the following note to stand as I had written it

previous to the discovery of that copy.

the contrary, by the dead waste and middle of the night,' I think, we have a forcible image of the void stillness of midnight.

7 The folio reads, bestill'd.

8 It is a most inimitable circumstance in Shakspeare so to have managed this popular idea, as to make the Ghost, which has been so long obstinately silent, and of course must be dismissed by the morning, begin or rather prepare to speak, and to be interrupted at the very critical time by the crowing of a cock. Another poet, according to custom, would have suffered his ghost tamely to vanish, without contriving this start, which is like a start of guilt: to say nothing of the aggravation of the future suspense occasioned by this preparation to speak, and to impart some mysterious secret. Less would have been expected if nothing had been pro

mised-T. Warton.

9 That part of the helmet which may be lifted up Mr. Douce has given representations of the beaver, and other parts of a helmet, and fully explained them in his Illustrations, vol. i. p. 443.

10 And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white."
Shakspeare's Twelfth Sonnet.
11 The quarto of 1603 reads tenible. The other quar

We have that rast of night in The Tempest, Act i.
Sc. 2. Shakspeare has been unjustly accused of in-tos, tenable. The folio of 1623 treble.

My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;
I doubt 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' 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.
Oph.

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 suppliance of a minute;1
No more.
Oph.
Laer.

No more but so?

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 cautel3 doth besmirch4
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 health of the whole state;

And therefore must his choice be circumscribed

Unto the voice and yielding of that body,

The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd;
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.

Oph. I shall the 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;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.10
O, fear me not.
I stay too long;-But here my father comes.
Enter POLONIUS.

Laer.

A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

Pol. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for
shame;

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are staid for: There,-my blessing with
you;

[Laying his Hand on LAERTES' Head.
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel; iz
But do not dull thy palm13 with entertainment
Of each new hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware

Whereof he is the head: Then if he says he loves Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,

you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it,
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed; which is no further,
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
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.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,

If she unmask her beauty to the moon:

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes:

1 This is the reading of the quarto copy. The folio has

sweet, not lasting,

The suppliance of a minute."

It is plain that perfume is necessary to exemplify the idea of sweet not lasting. The suppliance of a mi. nute' should seem to mean supplying or enduring only that short space of time, as transitory and evanescent. The simile is eminently beautiful: it is to be regretted that it should be obscured by an unusual word.

2 i. e. sinews and muscular strength. Vide note on the Second Part of King Henry IV. Act iii. Sc. 2.

12

Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure,14 but reserve thy judg-

ment.

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's in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:

For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
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,

thy tables are within my brain Full character'd with lasting memory.'

12 The old copies read, with hoops of steel.'

de-pression means, do not blunt thy feeling by taking 13 But do not dull thy palm. This figurative exevery new acquaintance by the hand, or by admiting him to the intimacy of a friend.'

3 Cautel is cautious circumspection, subtlety, or ceit. Minsheu explains it, a crafty way to deceive.' Thus, in a Lover's Complaint:

'In him a plenitude of subtle matter, Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives.' And in Coriolanus:

be caught by cautelous baits and practice.' The virtue of his will,' means his virtuous intentions. 4 Besmirch is besmear, or sully.

The
But

5 The safety and health of the whole state.' Thus the quarto of 1604. In the folio it is altered to sanctity,' &c., supposing the metre defective. safety is used as a trisyllable by Spenser and others. Thus Hall, in his first Satire, b. iii. :

'Nor fish can dive so deep in yielding sea, Though Thetis self should swear her safety.'

6 If with too credulous ear you listen to his songs.' 7 Licentious.

14 i. e. judgment, opinion; censura, Lat. Thus in King Henry VI. Part II. :

The king is old enough to give his censure. 15,The quarto of 1603, reads:

Are of a most select and generall chief in this.
The folio:-

The other quartos give the line :—
Are of a most select and generous cheff, in that.

'As of a most select and generous, cheese in that.' 'Or of a most select and generous, cheese in that' Malone has tried to torture the passage into a meaning by supposing an allusion to the chief or upper part of a and discrepancy of the copies, evidently show it to be shield in heraldry. But the redundancy of the line 8 i. e. the most cautious, the most discreet. corrupt. The simple emendation by omiting of a, and Green's Never too Late, 1616: Love requires not The nobility of France are most select and highthe proper punctuation of the line, make all clear. chastity, but that her soldiers be chary. And again :-minded (generosus) chiefly in that; chief being an adShe lives chastly enough that lives charily. We have jective used adverbially. We have generous for highchariness in The Merry Wives of Windsor; and un-minded, noble, in Othello, and in Measure for Measure. chary in Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 4. 16 i. e. thrift, economical prudence.

In

Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do But to my mind,-though I am native here,

1 To season, for to infuse,' says Warburton. is more than to infuse, it is to infix in such a manner 12 The origin of the word wassel is thus related by that it may never wear out,' says Johnson. But hear Geoffrey of Monmouth: On Vortigern's first interone of the poet's contemporaries:- To season, to tent view with Rowena, she kneeled before him, and preper wisely, to make more pleasant and acceptable.'-senting a cup of wine, said to him, Lord king, was hal, Baret. This is the sense required, and is a beer com- i. e. be health, or health be to you! Vortigern, unacmentary than the conjectures of the learned critics, quainted with the Saxon language, inquired the meanWarburton and Johnson, could supply. Thus in Acting of these words, and being told that he should an ii. Sc. 1, Polonius says to Reynaldo. You may season it in the charge. And in a former scene Horatio

swer them by saying Drine heil, he did so, and commanded Rowena to drink; then taking the cup from her hand, he kissed the damsel and pledged her. From that time the custom remained in Britain that whoever drank to another at 'a feast said Was hal, and he that immediately after received the cup answered Drinc heil. The story is also told in the Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Brunne. To keep wassell, was to devote the time to festivity. Vide Love's Labour's Lost, Act v. Sc. 2. To wake, signified to revel at night. Vide Florio in voce Veggia.

13 I take upspring here to mean nothing more than up. start. Steevens, from a passage in Chapman's Alphon6 This was a proverbial phrase. There is a collec-sus, thought that it might mean a dunce. tion of epigrams under 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.'

14 This and the following twenty-one lines are omitted in the folio. They had probably been omitted in representation, lest they should give offence to Anne of Denmark.

15 Clepe, call, clypian, Sax. The Danes were indeed proverbial as drunkards, and well they might be, according to the accounts of the time. A lively French traveller, being asked what he had seen in Denmark, replied, "Rien de singulier sinon qu'on y chante tous les jours le Roi boit," alluding to the French mode of celebrating Twelfth Day.' See De Brieux Origines de quelques Coutumes, p. 56. Heywood, in his Philocothonista, or The Drunkard Opened,' &c. 1635, 4to. speaking of what he calls the vinosity of nations, says of the Danes, that they have made a profession thereof from antiquity, and are the first upon record that brought their wassel bowls and elbowe deepe healthes into this land.-Douce. Roger Ascham, in one of his Letters,