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11

To serve in such a difference. What devil was't,
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
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.12

13

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,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.

O Hamlet, speak no more:

soul;

Queen.
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very
And there I see such black and grained spots

As will not leave their tinct.14

Ham.

In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,15

Stew'd in corruption,

Queen.

Nay, but to live

O, speak to me no more!

These words like daggers enter in mine ears:
No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham.

A murderer and a villain;

16

A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
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!

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

You heavenly guards!-- What would your gracious figure?

11 Hoodman-blind is the old game of blindman's-buff.

12 To mope is to be dull and stupid.

18 Mutine for mutiny. This is the old form of the verb. Shakespeare ca.ls mutineers mutines in a subsequent scene.

14 "Grained spots" are spots ingrained, or dyed in the grain.

15 Enseamed is a term borrowed from falconry. It is well known that the seam of any animal was the fat or tallow; and a hawk was said to be en seamed when she was too fat or gross for flight.

16 An allusion to the old Vice or jester, a stereotyped character in the Moral-plays, which were going out of use in the Poet's time. The Vice wore a motley or patchwork dress; hence the shreds and patches applied in this instance. See page 233, note 15.

17 When the Ghost goes out, Hamlet says, - "Look, how it steals away! my father, in his habit as he liv'd." It has been much argued whether the

Queen. Alas, he's mad!

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps'd in time and passion,18 lets go by
Th' important acting of your dread command?
O, say!

Ghost. Do not forget: This visitation

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: 19
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 th' incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,20
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.21 Do not look upon me; Lest with this piteous action you convert

My stern affects: 22 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?

Queen.

Do you see nothing there?

No, nothing but ourselves.

Ghost should wear armour here, as in former scenes. The question is set at rest by the stage-direction in the first quarto: "Enter the Ghost, in his night-gown." See, however, note 23, of this scene.

18 The sense appears to be, having failed in respect both of time and of purpose. Or it may be, having allowed passion to cool by lapse of time. 19 Conceit again for conception, imagination.

20 That is, like excrements alive, or having life in them. Hair, nails feathers, &c., were called excrements, as being without life.

21 Would put sense and understanding into them. The use of capable for susceptible, intelligent, not peculiar to Shakespeare.

22 The old copies have effects, which was apt to be misprinted for affects. The latter was often used for affections, which might signify any mood or temper of mind looking to action. Mr. White and some other late editors retain effects, but I can find no meaning in it that will run smooth with the context. Hamlet is afraid lest the "piteous action" of the Ghost should make his stern mood or temper of revenge give place to tenderness, so that he will see the ministry enjoined upon him in a false light, and go to shed ding tears instead of blood.

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 ecstasy

Is very cunning in.23

Ham.

Ecstasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. "Tis not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,

And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.

Confess yourself to Heaven;

Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.24

Queen. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.

Good night but go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,25
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on.

28 The Ghost in this scene, as also in the banquet-scene of Macbeth, 18 plainly what we should call a subjective ghost; that is, existing only in the heated imagination of the beholder. As the Queen says, insanity is very fertile in such "bodiless creations." It is not so with the apparition in the former scenes, as the ghost is there seen by other persons. To be sure, it was part of the old belief, that ghosts could, if they chose, make themselves visible only to those with whom they were to deal; but this is just what we mean by subjective. The ancients could not take the idea of subjective visions, as we use the term. For this reason I have long thought that the introduction of the Ghost on the stage in this scene ought to be discontinued. 24 To curb is to curve, bend, or truckle; from the French courber.

25 The meaning is, that custom eats out all sense or consciousness of evil habits. The old copies have devil instead of evil; but the hopeless disagreement of editors about it, and the hard straining to justify it, show that devil can hardly be right. On the other hand, evil makes the whole passage orderly, coherent, and apt. Though custom is a monster in that it takes away all sense of evil habits, yet it is an angel in this respect, that it also works in a manner equally favourable to good actions.

For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the Devil or throw him out 26
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night;
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

[Pointing to POLONIUS

I do repent: but Heaven hath pleas'd it so,"
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.28
I will bestow him, and will answer well

27

The death I gave him. So, again, good night. —
I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind. -
One word more, good lady.

Queen.

What shall I do?

do:

Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you
Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,80

Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I essentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft. "Twere good you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,31
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,3

And break your own neck down.

82

29

Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

26 Curb is wanting in all the old copies. Sense and verse alike require that or some equivalent word.

27 It hath pleas'd Heaven so to punish.

28 The pronoun their refers to Heaven, which is here a collective noun, put for the heavenly powers.

29 Mouse was a term of endearment. Thus Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy: "Pleasant names may be invented, bird, mouse, lamb, puss, pigeon."

30 Reeky and reechy are the same word, and applied to any vaporous exhalation.

81 A paddock is a toad; a gib, a cat. See page 256, note 9.

82 To try conclusions is the old phrase for trying experiments, or putting a thing to the proof. The passage alludes, apparently, to some fable or story now quite forgotten. Sir John Suckling, in one of his letters, refers to "the story of the jackanapes and the partridges."

Ham. I must to England; you know that?
Queen.

I had forgot: 'tis so concluded on.

Alack,

Ham. There's letters seal'd: and my two school-fellows,—

Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,

They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer

Hoist with his own petar; 83 and 't shall

go hard

But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the Moon. O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing:

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I'll lug the [corse] into the neighbour room. —
Mother, good night. - Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.

[Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS.

ACT IV. SCENE I. Elsinore. A Room in the Castle. Enter the KING, the QUEEN, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDEN.

STERN.

King. There's matter in these sighs,

heaves,

these profound

You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son

?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.

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[Exeunt ROSE. and GUILD.

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Queen. Mad as the sea and wind when both contend

Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,

Behind the arras hearing something stir,

He whips his rapier out, and cries A rat! a rat!
And in his brainish apprehension kills

The unseen good old man.

83 Hoist for hoised. To hoyse was the old verb. A petar was a kind of 'mortar used to blow up gates. It shall go hard means I will try hard. See page 134, note 8.

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