Pol. Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl, Unsifted in such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his tenders, as you call them? Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think. Oph. My lord, he hath impórtun'd me with love 20 Pol. Ay, fashion you may call't; go to, go to. Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, With almost all the holy vows of Heaven. Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.21 I do know, When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter, Giving more light than heat, extinct in both, Even in their promise, as it is a-making, You must not take for fire. From this time, daughter, Set your entreatments at a higher rate Than a command to parley.22 For Lord Hamlet, young; And with a larger tether may he walk 23 Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia, 19 The quartos have wrong and the folio roaming, instead of running, which is Mr. Collier's correction, and is generally received. Polonius is comparing the phrase to a poor nag which, if run too hard, will be wind-broken. 20 Importun'd has the second syllable long here, as, I believe, it always has in Shakespeare. 21 This was a proverbial phrase. There is a collection of epigrams under that title: the woodcock being accounted a witless bird, from a vulgar notion that it had no brains. 66 Springes to catch woodcocks" means arts to entrap simplicity. 22 Be more difficult of access, and let the suits to you for that purpose be of higher respect than a command to parley. 23 That is, with a longer line; a horse, fastened by a string to a stake, is tethered. 24 So the quartos; the folio, eye instead of dye. Eye was sometimes ased in the sense of shade; as, in The Tempest, we have an eye of green," but never, I believe, by itself to denote colour. Both Knight and White retain eye here. 25 The Poet has other like instances of language. See page 42, note 3. This joining of words that are really incompatible, or qualifying of a noun with adjectives that literally quench it, sometimes gives great strength of expression. The old copies read "pious bonds," which can hardly be made The better to beguile. This is for all, I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet. [Exeunt SCENE IV. The Same. The Platform before the Castle Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS. Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. Ham. What hour now? Hor. I think it lacks of twelve. Mar. No, it is struck. Hor. Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. [A Flourish of Trumpets, and Ordnance shot off, within What does this mean, my lord? Ham. The King doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,' Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up-spring reels; 3 And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge. Hor. Ham. Ay, marry, is't: Is it a custom? But to my mind—though I am native here, And to the manner born it is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance. This heavy-headed revel east and west Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations: They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase to yield any sense. Theobald proposed the change; and the use of brokers, which formerly meant the same as pander, shows it to be right. 1 Eager was used in the sense of the French aigre, sharp, biting. 2 To wake is to hold a late revel or debauch. A rouse is what we now call a bumper. Wassel originally meant a drinking to one's health; from was hol, health be to you: hence it came to be used for any festivity of the bottle and the bowl. 8 Reels through the swaggering up-spring, which was the name of a rude, boisterous German dance, as appears from a passage in Chapman's Alphonsus: "We Germans have no changes in our dances; an almain and an up-spring, that is all." 4 This and the following twenty-one lines are wanting in the folio. 5 Clepe is an old Saxon word for call.. The Poet often uses addition for title; so that the meaning is, they sully our title by likening us to swine. The character here ascribed to the Danes appears to have had a basis of fact. From our achievements, though perform'd at height, So, oft it chances in particular men, That, for some vicious mole of nature in them, 6 By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, that these men, 8 Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may undergo, Shall in the general censure take corruption To his own scandal ; Hor. 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,10 That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet, King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me! Heywood, in his Drunkard Opened, 1635, speaking of "the vinosity of nations," says the Danes have made profession thereof from antiquity, and are the first upon record" that have brought their wassel bowls and elbow deep healths into this land." 6 Complexion was often used to denote, not the colour of the skin, but any constitutional aptitude or predisposition. See page 133, note 4. 7 Plausive, for approvable: another instance of the usage, so frequent in Shakespeare, of the active form with the passive sense. See page 66, note 4. 8 Alluding to the old astrological notion, of a man's character or fortune being determined by the star that was in the ascendant on the day of his birth. Observe the change of the subject here from these men to their virtues. 9 As already stated, this passage is not in the folio; and the quartos have" dram of eale" for "dram of vile," and of a doubt instead of oft abate. Eale is no word at all, and bale, base, ill, and vile, have all been proposed as substitutes for it. I prefer vile as being more likely to have been misprinted eale. Some editors change of a doubt to often doubt, construing doubt in the sense of throwing doubt or distrust upon; others change it to cften dout, taking dout in the sense of do out or destroy; as the Poet has a like ase if doff and don. I have ventured to change of into oft, and a doubt into abate, which was often used by old writers in the sense of cast down or depress. Perhaps attaint would give a slightly more congruous sense; but I prefer abate as more apt to have been misprinted a doubt. Mr. Dyce in his last edition changes" of a doubt" into "oft debase;" which may be right. 10 "A questionable shape" is a shape that may be questioned, or conversed with. In like manner the Poet often uses question for conversation. Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws [The Ghost beckons HAMLET. Hor. It beckons you to go away with it, As if it some impartment did desire To you alone. Mar. Look, with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ground: 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; And for my soul, what can it do to that, It waves me forth again: I'll follow it. Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea, 18 And there assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason," 14 11 Canoniz'd has the second syllable long, and means made sacred by the canonical rites of sepulture. - Cerements is a dissyllable. It is from a Latin word meaning wax, and was so applied from the use of wax or pitch in sealing up coffins or caskets so as to make them water-proof. 12" We fools of nature," in the sense here implied, is, we who cannot by nature know the mysteries of the supernatural world. Strict grammar would require us instead of we. The general idea of the passage seems to be, that man's intellectual eye is not strong enough to bear the unmuffled light of eternity. 13 Overhangs its base. Thus in Sidney's Arcadia: "Hills lift up their beetle brows, as if they would overlooke the pleasantnesse of their under prospect." 14 To "deprive your sovereignty of reason" signifies to take from you the government of reason. We have similar instances of raising the idea of virtues or qualities by giving them rank, in Banquo's "royalty of nature;" and in this play we have "nobility of love," and "dignity of love." Deprive was often thus used in the sense of take away. - Toys, second line after, means whims or fancies. And draw you into madness? think of it: - Go on, I'll follow thee. Ham. It waves me still. Hor. Be rul'd; you shall not go. Hold off your hands. My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in this body [Ghost beckons. [Breaking from them. By Heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me: 16 [Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET. Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination. Nay, let's follow him. [Exeunt. SCENE V. The Same. A more remote Part of the Platform. Enter the Ghost and HAMLET. Ham. Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further. Ghost. Mark me. My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself. Ham. Alas, poor ghost! 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, 15 It was anciently believed that evil spirits sometimes assumed the guise of departed persons, to do what is here apprehended of the Ghost, drawing men into madness and suicide. 16 To let, in old language, is to hinder or prevent. |