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Confederate season, else no creature seeing ;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,28
Thy natural magic and dire property,

On wholesome life usurp immediately.

[Pours the Poison into the Sleeper's Ears.

Ham. He poisons him i' the garden for 's estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

Oph. The King rises.

Ham. What, frighted with false fire!

Queen. How fares my lord?

Pol. Give o'er the play.

King. Give me some light:-away!

All. Lights, lights, lights!

[Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO.

Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep:
Thus runs the world away.

27

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me,) with two Provincial roses on my raz❜d shoes,28 get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir? 29

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26 Poisonous weeds were supposed to be more poisonous if gathered in the night. Hecate was the name given to the Queen of the witches; and her banning or cursing brought the poison to the highest intensity.

27 Alluding, probably, to a custom which the London players seem to have had in Shakespeare's time, of flaunting it in gaudy apparel, and with plumes in their caps, the more the better. Some one calling himself a Soldier wrote to Secretary Walsingham in 1586, complaining,- "It is a woeful sight, to see two hundred proud players jet in their silks, where five hundred poor people starve in the streets." To turn Turk with any one was to desert or betray him, or turn traitor to him. A common phrase of the time.

28 Provincial roses took their name from Provins, in Lower Brie, and not from Provence. Raz'd shoes are most probably embroidered shoes. To race, or raze, was to stripe. So in Markham's County Farm, speaking of wafer cakes: "Baking all together between two irons, having within them many raced and checkered draughts after the manner of small squares."

29" A fellowship in a cry of players" is a partnership in a company of players. The Poet repeatedly uses cry thus for set, pack, or troop.

80 The players were paid not by salaries, but by shares or portions of the profit, according to merit.

81 The old copies, and modern editions generally, have I instead of ay. The affirmative ay was printed I in the Poet's time. See page 489, note 5.

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Of Jove himself; 82 and now reigns here
A very, very peacock.8

Hor. You might have rhym'd.34

Ham. O, good Horatio! I'll take the Ghost's word for thousand pound. Didst perceive?

Hor. Very well, my lord.

Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning,

Hor. I did very well note him.

Ham. Ah, ha!- Come; some music! come; the recorders! 85

For if the King like not the comedy,

Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.36.

Come; some music!

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Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
Ham. Sir, a whole history.

Guil. The King, sir,

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?

Guil. — is, in his retirement, marvellous distemper'd.
Ham. With drink, sir?

Guil. No, my lord, with choler.

Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into more choler.

Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

Ham. I am tame, sir:— - pronounce.

Guil. The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Ham. You are welcome.

Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome

82 The meaning is, that Denmark was robbed of a king who had the majesty of Jove. - Hamlet calls Horatio Damon, in allusion to the famous friendship of Damon and Pythias.

88 The old copies have paiock and paiocke. There being no such word known, Pope changed it to peacock; which is probably right, the allusion being, perhaps, to the fable of the crow that decked itself with peacock's feathOr the meaning may be the same as explained by Florio, thus: "Pavoneggiare, to court it, to brave it, to peacockize it, to wantonise it, to get up and down fondly, gazing upon himself as a peacock does."

ers.

84 If Hamlet had rhymed, peacock would have been ass.

85 The recorder was a soft-toned instrument, something like the flute So, in Paradise Lost, i.: " They move in perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders." To record was also used for to warble or sing. Thus, in Drayton's Eclogues: "Fair Philomel, night-music of the Spring, sweetly records her tuneful harmony."

86 Perdy is a corruption of the French par Dieu.

answer, I will do your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

Ham. Sir, I cannot.

Guil. What, my lord?

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseas'd: but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,

Ros. Then thus she says: Your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? impart.

Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.

Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

Ros. My lord, you once did love me.

Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.87

Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, bar the door of your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark? Ham. Ay, sir, but While the grass grows, is something musty.88

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Re-enter Players with Recorders.

The proverb

O, the recorders:- let me see one. To withdraw with you:39 why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil ? 40

Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly."

87 This is explained by a clause in the Church Catechism: "To keep my hands from picking and stealing."-The quartos have "And do still," in stead of "So I do still." The latter reading gives a different sense, so being emphatic, and strongly ironical.

88 The "musty proverb" probably is, "While the grass grows the horse will starve."

89 To withdraw was sometimes used as a hunting term, meaning to draw back, to leave the scent or trail.

40"To recover the wind of me" is a term borrowed from hunting, and means to take advantage of the animal pursued, by getting to the windward of it, that it may not scent its pursuers. Toil is snare or trap.

41 Hamlet may well say,

"I do not well understand that." The meaning, however, seems to be,-If I am using an unmannerly boldness with you, it is my love that makes me do so.

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon

this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.

Ham. I do beseech you.

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord.

Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.12

Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood! do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

God bless you, sir!

Enter POLONIUS.

43

Pol. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in shape of a camel?

Pol. By the Mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.

Pol. It is back'd like a weasel.

Ham. Or like a whale?

Pol. Very like a whale.

Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-and-by.

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Pol. I will say so.

I will come by-and-by.

[Exit.

Ham. By-and-by is easily said. Leave me, friends.

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[Exeunt all but HAMLET.

42 The ventages are the holes of the pipe. stopping the ventages so as to make the notes. lent music."

Stops signifies the mode of
The folio has "most excel.

48 Hamlet keeps up the allusion to a musical instrument. The frets of a lute or guitar are the ridges crossing the finger-board, upon which the strings are pressed or stopped. A quibble is intended on fret.

44 They humour me to the full-height of my inclination. Polonius has been using the method, common in the treatment of crazy people, of assent ing to all that Hamlet says. This is what Hamlet refers to.

'Tis now the very witching time of night,

When church-yards yawn,45 and Hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: 46
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:
How in my words soever she be shent,

To give them seals never, my soul, consent ! 47

SCENE III. The Same. A Room in the Same.

[Exit

Enter the KING, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENStern.

King. I like him not; nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you:
I your commission will forthwith despatch,
And he to England shall along with you.
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.

Guil.
We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear it is

To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your Majesty.

Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of Majesty
Dies not alone;1 but like a gulf doth draw
What's near it with it: 'tis a massy wheel,
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,

45 Church-yards yawn to let forth the ghosts, who did all their walk:ng in the night. And the crimes which darkness so often covers might well be spoken of as caused by the nocturnal contagion of Hell.

46 Nero is aptly referred to here, as he was the murderer of his mother, Agrippina. It may be worth noting that the name of the King in this play is Claudius; and that, after the death of Domitius her husband, Agrippina married with her uncle the Emperor Claudius.

To

47 To shend is to injure, whether by reproof, blows, or otherwise. Shakespeare generally uses shent for reproved, threatened with angry words. give his words seals" is therefore to carry his punishment beyond reproof. The allusion is the sealing a deed to render it effective.

1 Tautological in word, but not in sense. The death of Majesty comes

not alone.

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