• НАМ.

I will watch to-night;

Perchance, 'twill walk again.

HOR.

I warrant, 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, I'll visit you.

ALL.

Our duty to your honour.

HAM. Your loves, as mine to you: Farewell. [Exeunt HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BER

NARDO.

My father's spirit in arms!2 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 [Exit.

eyes.

Let it be tenable in your silence still;] Thus the quartos, and rightly. The folio, 1623, reads-treble. STEEVENS.

2

My father's spirit in arms!] From what went before, I once hinted to Mr. Garrick, that these words might be spoken in this manner:

My father's spirit! in arms! all is not well;

WHALLEY.

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 fa

vour,

Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The pérfume and suppliance of a minute ;3
No more.

'The perfume and suppliance of a minute;] Thus the quarto, the folio has it:

-sweet, not lasting,

The suppliance of a minute.

It is plain that perfume is necessary to exemplify the idea of sweet, not lasting. With the word suppliance I am not satisfied, and yet dare hardly offer what I imagine to be right. I suspect that soffiance, or some such word, formed from the Italian, was then used for the act of fumigating with sweet scents. JOHNSON.

The perfume and suppliance of a minute;] i. e. what was supplied to us for a minute; or, as Mr. M. Mason supposes, 66 an amusement to fill up a vacant moment, and render it agreeable." This word occurs in Chapman's version of the ninth Iliad, of Homer:

"by my suppliance given." STEEVENS. The words-perfume and, which are found in the quarte, 1604, were omitted in the folio. MALONE.

ОРН.
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 cautel, doth besmirch
The virtue of his will:5 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

6

In thews,] i. e. in sinews, muscular strength. So, in King Henry IV. P. II: "Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature,' See Vol. XII. p. 141, n. 6. STEEVENS.

&c.

And now no soil, nor cautel, doth besmirch

The virtue of his will;] From cautela, which signifies only a prudent foresight or caution; but, passing through French hands, it lost its innocence, and now signifies fraud, deceit. And so he uses the adjective in Julius Cæsar:

"Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous."

WARBURTON. So, in the second part of Greene's Art of Coneycatching, 1592: "—and their subtill cautels to amend the statute." To amend the statute, was the cant phrase for evading the law.

STEEVENS.

Cautel is subtlety or deceit. Minsheu in his Dictionary, 1617, defines it, "A crafty way to deceive." The word is again used by Shakspeare, in A Lover's Complaint:

"In him a plenitude of subtle matter,

"Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives."

MALONE.

Virtue seems here to comprise both excellence and power, may be explained the pure effect. JOHNSON.

and

The virtue of his will means, his virtuous intentions. Cautel means craft. So, Coriolanus says:

66

-be caught by cautelous baits and practice."
M. MASON.

For he himself &c.] This line is not in the quarto.

MALONE.

The safety and the health of the whole state;7
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd
Unto the voice and yielding of that body,

Whereof he is the head: Then if he says he loves you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it,

As he in his particular act and place

8

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:

The safety and the health of the whole state;] Thus the quarto, 1604, except that it has this whole state, and the second the is inadvertently omitted. The folio reads:

The sanctity and health of the whole state.

This is another proof of arbitrary alterations being sometimes made in the folio. The editor, finding the metre defective, in consequence of the article being omitted before health, instead of supplying it, for safety substituted a word of three syllables.

9

MALONE.

May give his saying deed;] So, in Timon of Athens: "the deed of saying is quite out of use." Again, in Troilus and Cressida:

9

1

"Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue."

-unmaster'd—] i. e. licentious. JOHNSON.

MALONE.

keep you in the rear &c.] That is, do not advance so. far as your affection would lead you. JOHNSON.

The chariest maid-] Chary is cautious. So, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "Love requires not chastity, but that her soldiers be chary." Again: She liveth chastly enough, that liveth charily." STEEVENS.

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes :
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."

LAER.

I stay too long;-But here my

3

O fear me not.

father comes.

-recks not his own read.] That his, heeds not his own

lessons. POPE.

So, in the old Morality of Hycke Scorner:

66- I reck not a feder."

Again, ibidem:

"And of thy living, I reed amend thee."

Ben Jonson uses the word reed in his Catiline:

"So that thou could'st not move

"Against a publick reed."

Again, in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch: Dispatch, I read you, for your enterprize is betrayed." Again, the old proverb, in The Two angry Women of Abington, 1599:

"Take heed, is a good reed."

i. e. good counsel, good advice. STEEVENS.

So, Sternhold, Psalm i:

"To wicked rede his ear." BLACKSTONE.