Much heat and him. I'll silence me e'en here."

Pray you, be round with him.

Queen.

Fear me not-withdraw, I hear him coming.

I'll warrant you;

[POLONIUS hides himself.*

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Now, mother; what's the matter?

Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?

Ham.

What's the matter now?

No, by the rood, not so:

Queen. Have you forgot me? Ham. You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife; And, 'would it were not so!-you are my mother. Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak. Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;

You go not, till I set you up a glass

Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?

Help, help, ho!

Pol. [behind.] What, ho! help!

Ham.

Dead, for a ducat, dead.

Pol. [behind.]

How now a rat?

[Draws.

[HAMLET makes a pass through the Arras. O, I am slain. ·

Queen. O me, what hast thou done?

Ham.

Is it the king?

[Falls, and dies.

Nay, I know not:

[Lifts up the Arras, and draws forth POLONIUS.

Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

I'll silence me e'en here.] i. e. I'll use no more words.-JOHNSON. z Polonius hides himself.] The concealment of Polonius, and the manner of his death, is from the History of Hamblet, bl. 1, sig. D. I.—MALONE.

.

Ham. A bloody deed;-almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Queen. As kill a king!

Ham. Ay, lady, 'twas my word.Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

[To POLONIUS.

I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune:
Thou find'st, to be too busy, is some danger.-
Leave wringing of your hands: Peace; sit you down,
And let me wring your heart: for so I shall,

If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not braz'd it so,

That it be proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy

tongue

In noise so rude against me?

Such an act,

Ham.
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows
As false as dicer's oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction' plucks
The very soul; and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: Heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this solidity, and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

Queen.

Ah me, what act,

That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ?c
Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow:

takes off the rose

From the fair forehead, &c.] In allusion to the ancient custom for those who were betrothed, to wear some flower as an external and conspicuous mark of their mutual engagement. In the morrice-dance depicted on Mr. Tollet's window, one of the figures has a flower fixed on the forehead, and seems to be meant for the paramour of the female character.-STEEVENS. - contraction—] For marriage contract.—WARBURTON.

index?]-is here used in one of its least common senses, as a preparatory sketch in dumb show, prefixed to the act of a play.-NARES.

Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:

This was your husband.-Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it, love: for, at your age,
The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; And what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else, could you not have motion :' But, sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err;

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd,
But it reserv'd some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference. What devil was't,
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?s
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.b

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,

And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge;

d

-station-] This word does not here mean the spot where any one is placed, but the act of standing.-STEEVENS.

e

— batten—] i. e. Grow fat. Bat is an ancient word for increase.STEEVENS.

f ·Sense, sure, you have,

Else could you not have motion :] Sense is sometimes used by Shakspeare for sensation or sensual appetite: as motion is the effect produced by the impulse of nature.-MALONE.

8

- hoodman-blind ?] i. e. Blindman's-buff.-NARES.

h Could not so mope.] i. e. Could not exhibit such marks of stupidity.— STEEVENS.

· mutine-] An ancient term, signifying to rise in mutiny.—MALONE.

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.

Queen.

O Hamlet, speak no more:

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots,
As will not leave' their tinct.

Ham.

Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an incestuous bed;

Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love

Over the nasty stye;

Queen.

These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;

No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham.

O, speak to me no more;

A murderer, and a villain :

A slave, that is not twentieth part of the tythe
Of
your precedent lord:-a vice of kings :

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;

That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!

Queen.

Ham.

No more.

Enter Ghost.

A king

Of shreds and patches:-P

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards !—What would your gracious figure?

Queen. Alas, he's mad.

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

q

That, laps'd in time and passion, let's go by

The important acting of your dread command?

O, say!

חן

Ghost. Do not forget: This visitation

grained-] Died in grain.-JOHNSON.

leave-] i.e. Resign, give up.-STEEVENS.

incestuous-] This is the reading of the quarto, 1611, and I have adopted it, instead of following the gross text of the folio, which gives enseamed, i.e. fat, greasy.

vice of kings:] A low mimick of kings. The vice is the fool of a farce; from whence the modern punch is descended.-JOHNSON.

p—A king

Of shreds and patches:-] This is said, pursuing the idea of the vice of kings. The vice was dressed as a fool, in a coat of party-coloured patches.-JOHNSON. laps'd in time and passion,] That, having suffer'd time to slip, and passion to cool, let's go, &c.-JOHNSON.

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look! amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul;
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham.

How is it with you, lady?

Queen. Alas, how is't with you?

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,"
Starts up and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.-Do not look upon me;
Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects:" then what I have to do

Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?
Ham.
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Do you see nothing there?

Queen.

No, nothing, but ourselves.

Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!*

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

[Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain:

This bodiless creation ecstacy'

Is very cunning in.

Conceit-] i. e. Imagination.

excrements,] From excresco. Every thing that appears to vegetate or grow upon the human body; as the hair, the beard, the nails.—NARES' Glossary.

t1

MALONE.

capable,]-here signifies intelligent; endued with understanding.—

effects:] i. e. Actions; deeds effected.-MALONE.

xin his habit as he liv'd!] i. e. In the dress he wore while alive.GIFFORD'S Ben Jonson, vol. viii. p. 75.

y ecstacy-] i. e. A temporary alienation of mind.-STEEVENS.