Soil our addition; and indeed it takes

From our achievements, though perform'd at height, It waves you to a more removed ground:

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,)
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,3
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o'erleavens
The form of plausive manners;-that these men,-
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect;
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,^—
Their virtues else, (be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,)

Shall in the general censures take corruption
From that particular fault: The dram of bale
Doth all the noble substance often doubt
To his own scandal.

Hor.

Enter Ghost.

Look, my lord, it comes!
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 com'st 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 canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,10
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel11
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,12
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

says, The Emperor of Germany, who had his head in
the glass five times as long as any of us, never drank
less than a good quart at once of Rhenish Wine.' See
also Howel's Letters, 8vo. 1726, p. 236. Muffet's Health's
Improvement, 4to. 1635, p. 294. Harington's Nugæ An.
tiquæ, 8vo. 1904, vol. i. p. 349.

1 i. e. characterize us by a swinish epithet. 2 i. e. spot, blemish.

3 Complexion for humour. By complexion our ancestors understood the constitutions or affections of the body.

4 i. e. the influence of the planet supposed to govern our birth, &c.

5 i. e. judgment, opinion.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action
But do not go with it.
Hor.

No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham.

Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee;13
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself;

[lord,

It waves me forth again ;-I'll follow it.
Hor. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,
That beetles14 o'er his base into the sea?
And there assume some other horrible form,

Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,11
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys1 of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain,
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
aArt thou a god, a man, or else a ghost?
Com'st thou from heaven, where bliss and solace
dwell?

Or from the airie cold-engendering coast?
Or from the darksome dungeon-hold of hell??
Acolastus, or After Wit, 1604.

9 Questionable most not be understood in its present acceptation of doubtful, but as conversable, inviting

6 The last paragraph of this speech stands in the question or conversation; this was the most prevalent quarto editions thus:

the dram of eale

The dram of base

Doth all the noble substance of worth dout
To his own scandal.'

I see no reason why dout should be substituted for
doubt. The editors have unwarrantably made the same
substitution in King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 2, and then
cite it as a precedent. Mr. Boswell has justly observed,
that to doubt may mean to bring into doubt or suspicion;
many words similarly formed are used by Shakspeare
and his cotemporaries. Thus to fear is to create fear;
to pale is to make pale; to cease is to cause to cease,
&c. I have followed the emendation in other respects,
though I have ventured to read bale (i. e. evil) instead
of base, as nearer to the reading of the first edition.

7 Hamlet's speech to the apparition of his father seems to consist of three parts. When he first sees the spectre, he fortifies himself with an invocation;

"Angels and ministers of grace, defend us! As the spectre approaches, he deliberates with himself,

meaning of the word in Shakspeare's time.

10 Quarto 1603-interr'd.

11 It appears from Olaus Wormits, cap. vii. that it was the custom to bury the Danish kings in their

armour.

12 Frame of mind.

13 'I do not estimate my life at the value of a pin.' 14 i. e. overhangs his base. Thus in Sidney's Arcadia, b. i.-Hills lift up their beetle brows, as if they would overlooke the pleasantnesse of their under prospect.'The verb to beetle is apparently of Shakspeare's

creation.

SCENE V.

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

A more remote Part of the Platform. | Would'st thou not stir in this.
Re-enter Ghost and HAMLET.

477

Now, Hamlet, hear: Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Den'Tis given out, that sleeping in mine orchard,

no further. Ghost. Mark me.

Ham.

Ghost.

I will.

My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself.

Alas, poor ghost!

Ham.
Ghost. 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, confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burn'd and purg'd 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;
7 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 porcupine:4
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, heaven!

Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural

murder."

Ham. Murder?

Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Ham. Haste me to know it; 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 should'st thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,

1 The first quarto reads:

'Confin'd in flaming fire.'

The spirit being supposed to feel the same desires and
appetites as when clothed in the flesh, the pains and
punishments promised by the ancient moral teachers
are often of a sensual nature. Chaucer in the Persones
Tale says, 'The misese of hell shall be in defaute of
inete and drinke.'

"Thou shalt lye in frost and fire,
With sickness and hunger,' &c.

The Wyll of the Devyll, blk. 1.

2 Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonic hell into the punytion of the saulis in purgatory.' Dr. Farmer thus compressed his account: It is a nedeful thyng to suffer panis and torment;-sum in the wyndis, sum under the watter, and in the fire uther sum: thus the mony vices,

Contrakkit in the corpis be done away
And purgit.'

mark

Is by a forged process of
Rankly abus'd: but know, thou noble youth,
my death
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,
(0, wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming virtuous queen:
O, 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
I made to her in marriage; and to decline
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!

But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,
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 mine orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secures hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of mine 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;
And with a sudden vigour, it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
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 despatch'd ;11
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

lubber, who looks as pale as the vizard of the Gnost, which cried so miserably at the theatre, Hamlet, revenge."

6 The folio reads-rots itself, &c. In the Humorous
Lieutenant, by Beaumont and Fletcher, we have:-
'This dull root pluck'd from Lethe's flood.'
Otway has a similar thought :-

like the coarse and useless dunghill weed
Fix'd to one spot, and rot just as I grow.'
7 Quarto 1603-heart.

8 This is also a Latinism, securus, quiet, or unguarded.

the oil of which, according to Pliny, dropped into the 9 Hebenon may probably be derived from henbane, ears, disturbs the brain: and there is sufficient evidence that it was held poisonous by our ancestors. In Anton's Satires, 1606, we have:

"The poison'd henbane, whose cold juice doth kill.'

3 How have mine eyes out of their spheres been And Drayton, in his Baron's Wars, p. 51:

fitted

In the distraction of this madding fever.'

Sh. Son. 108.
4 Vide note on The Comedy of Errors, Act iii. Sc. 2.
It is porpentine in the old editions in every instance,
Fretful is the reading of the folio; the quartos read
fearful. The irascible nature of the animal is noted in
a curious passage of the Speculum Vitæ, by Richard
Rolle, MS.:-

That beest is felle and sone is wrath,
And when he is greved he wol do scathe;
For when he tenes [angers] he launches out felly
The scharpe pinnes in his body.'

There is an allusion to the ghost in this play, or in an older one of the same name, by Lodge, in his Wit's Miserie and the World's Madness, 1596. He describes one of his Devils, by name Hate Virtue, as a foule

Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd ;3
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head;
O, horrible! O, herrible! most horrible!
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 pursu'st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glowworm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire :4
Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me.

[Exit.

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, from the tables 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,-meet it is, I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least, I am sure, it may be so in Denmark:

[Writing.

So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:"
It is, Adieu, adieu! remember me.

I have sworn't.

Heaven secure him!

So be it!

Mar.

Mar. [Within.] Illo, ho, ho, my lord!

Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Mar. How is't, my noble lord?

Hor.

Ham. O wonderful!

Hor.
Ham.

You will reveal it.

What news, my lord?

1 Unhousel'd is without having received the sacrament. Thus in Hormanni Vulgaria, 1519-He is departed without shryfte and housyll. And in Speculum Vitæ, MS. it is a sin

To receive nat once in the yeare

Howsel and schrifte with conscience clere.'
2 Disappointed is the same as unappointed, and may
be explained unprepared. A man well furnished for an
enterprise is said to be well appointed. In Measure for
Measure, Isabella addresses her brother, who is con-
demned to die, thus:-

"Therefore your best appointment make with speed.'
3 Unanel'd is without extreme unction. Thus in Ca-
vendish's Life of Wolsey, edit. 1824, p. 824:-Then
we began to put him in mind of Christ's passion; and
sent for the abbot of the place to anneal him.' The
fyfth sacrament is anoynting of seke men, the whiche
oyle is halowed of the bysshop, and mynystred by
preestes that ben of lawfull age, in grete peryll of
dethe: in lyghtnes and abatynge of theyr sikenes, yf
God wyll that they lyve; and in forgyveynge of their
venyal synnes and releasynge of theyr payne, yf they
shal deye.-The Festyval, fol. 171.

4 Uneffectual, i. e. shining without heat. The use of to pale as a verb is rather unusual, but not peculiar to Shakspeare. It is to be found in Chaucer and our elder

writers.

5 i. e. in this head confused with thought.

6 Thus in the Second Part of King Henry IV. Act iv. Bc. 1:

And therefore will he wipe his tables clean,
And keep no tell-tale in his memory.'

We have sworn, my lord, already.

Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

Ghost. [Beneath.] 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.

Hor.
Propose the oath, my lord.
Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.10

'Tables or books, or registers for memorie of things. were then used by all ranks, and contained prepared leaves from which what was written with a silver style could easily be effaced.

7 The quarto 1603 has- Now to the words." By Now to my word,' Hamlet means now to my moths, ny word of remembrance; or as it is expressed by King Richard III. word of courage. Steevens asserted that the allusion is to the military watchword. A word, mox. or motto, was any short sentence, such as is inscribed on a token, or under a device or coat of arms. I w common phrase. See Ben Jonson's Works, by Mr. Gifford, vol. ii. p. 102.

8 This is the call which falconers use to their hawk in the air when they would have him come down them. Thus in Tyro's Roaring Megge, 1599:"Yet ere I journie, le go to see the kye,

Come, come, bird, come: pox on you, you can mute.' 9 Warburton has ingeniously defended Shakspe observing that the whole northern world had their lear for making the Danish prince swear by St. Patrick, ing from Ireland. It is, however, more probable the the poet seized the first popular imprecation that came to his mind, without regarding whether it suited the country or character of the person to whom he cave it the cross at the upper end of it, is very ancient. It 10 The custom of swearing by the sword, or rather br Soliloquy of Roland, addressed to his sword, the cross which the guard and handle form is not forgenes

Capulo eburneo candidissime, cruce aurez spend dissime,' &c.-Turpini de Gestis Carol. Mag.cap. The name of Jesus was not unfrequently inscribed the handle. The allusions to this custom are very

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

Ham. Hic ei ubique! then we'll shift our ground :-
Come hither, gentlemen,

And lay your hands again upon my sword:
Swear by my sword,

1

- Never to speak of this that you have heard.
Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear by his sword.
Ham. Well said, old mole! canst work i' the
earth so fast?

A worthy pioneer!-Once more remove, good

friends.

Hor. 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 could, an if we
would;-or, If we list to speak;-or, There be, an
if they might ;—

Or such ambiguous giving out, to note

That you know aught of me :-This not to do,
swear ;1

So grace and mercy at your most need help you!
Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! So, gentle-
men,

With all my love I do commend me to you:
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, to express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint ;-0, cursed spite!
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let's go together.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Room in Polonius' House.
POLONIUS and REYNALDO.

[Exeunt.

479

What company, at what expense; 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:
Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of
him;

And, in part, him ;-Do you mark this, Reynaldo ?
As thus,-I know his father, and his friends,
Rey. Ay, very well, my lord.

Pol. And, in part, him ;—but, you may say, not
well:

But, if't be he I mean, he's
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
Addicted so and so;-and there put on him
very wild;
As may dishonour him; take heed of that;
But, sír, such wanton, wild, and usual slips,
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.
Rey.
As gaming, my lord.
Pol. Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quar-
relling,

Drabbing:-You may go so far.

Rey. My lord, that would dishonour him.
Pol. 'Faith, no; as you may season it in the
charge.

You must not put another scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency;

That's not my meaning: but breathe his faults so
quaintly,

That they may seem the taints of liberty;
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind;
Of general assault.
A savageness in unreclaimed blood,

Rey.

But, my good lord,-
Pol. Wherefore should you do this?
Rey.

I would know that.

Ay, my lord,

my drift ;

Pol.
Marry, sir, here's
And, I believe, it is a fetch of warrant :
You laying these slight sullies on my son,
As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' the working,
Mark you,
Your party in converse,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes,
him you would sound,
Enter He closes with you in this consequence;
The youth you breathe of, guilty, be assur'd,
Good sir, or so; or friend, or gentleman,-
According to the phrase, or the addition,

Pol. Give him this money, and these notes, Rey- Of man, and country.

Pol. And then, sir, does he this,-He does-
Very good, my lord.

Pol. You shall do marvellous wisely, good Rey-What was I about to say?-By the mass, I was

about to say something :-Where did I leave?
Rey. At, closes in the consequence.

I saw him yesterday, or t'other day,
Pol. At, closes in the consequence,—Ay marry ;
He closes with you thus :-I know the gentleman;

There fulling out at tennis: or, perchance,
Or then, or then; with such, or such; and, as you say,
There was he gaming; there o'ertook in his rouse;

I saw him enter such a house of sale,

Hamlet's late interview with the spectre must in particular he regarded as a stroke of dramatic artifice. The phantom might have told his story in the presence of the officers and Horatio, and yet have rendered itself as inaudible to them as it afterwards did to the queen. But suspense was the poet's object and never was it more effectually created than in the present inbut till now has been withheld from speaking. For The stance. Six times has the royal semblance appeared, unaccompanied by lassitude, or remitted attention.'this event we have waited with impatient curiosity, Steevens.

Thou wilt perform my bidding." 1 The quarto 1604 reads-this do swear.' construction of this passage is rather embarrassed, but the sense is sufficiently obvious without explanation.

3 i. e. Danes. Warner, in his Albion's England,

2 Shakspeare has riveted our attention to the ghost by a succession of forcible circumstances: by the previous report of the terrified sentinels,-by the solemnity of the hour at which the phantom walks,-by its mar-calls Denmark Danske. tial stride and discriminating armour, visible only per incertam lunam, by the glimpses of the moon,-by its relling: they thinke themselves no men, if for stirring 4 The cunning of fencers is now applied to quar long taciturnity, by its preparation to speak, when in-of a straw, they prove not their valure uppon some terrupted by the morning cock,-by its mysterious re- bodies ileshe.Gosson's Schole of Abuse, 1579. serve throughout its first scene with Hamlet,--by his resolute departure with it, and the subsequent anxiety of his attendants,--by its conducting him to a solitary angle of the platform, by its voice from beneath the earth, and by its unexpected burst on us in the closet.

generally assailed by.'
5 A wildness of untamed blood, such as youth is

rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle,
6 So, for so forth, as in the last act-Six French
hanger, and so.'

8This must be made known to the king, for Being 3 Hanging down like the loose cincture which con-kept secret,) the hiding Hamlet's love might cerasaa fines the fetters or gyves round the ancles. more mischief to us from him and the queen, then the uttering or revealing it will occasion hate and resca ment from Hamlet.' Johnson, whose explication d' is, attributes the obscurity to the poet's affectation concluding the scene with a couplet. There would surely have been more affectation in deviating from the universally established custom.