The hand more instrumental to the mouth, LAER. Dread my lord, Your leave and favour to return to France; From whence though willingly I came to Denmark, To show my duty in your coronation; Yet now, I must confess, that duty done, My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France, And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. KING. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius? POL. He hath, my lord, [wrung from me my slow leave, By laboursome petition; and, at last, KING. Take thy fair hour, Laertes! time be thine! ■ The head is not more native, &c.] i. e. " the principal parts of the body are not more natural, instrumental, or necessary to each other, than is the throne natural to, and a machine acted upon and under the guidance of, your father." b Your leave and favour to return "the favour Bow to your gracious leave and pardon.] i. e. of your leave, the kind permission." Two substantives with a copulative being here, as is the frequent practise of our author, used for an adjective and substantive: an adjective sense is given to a substantive. See "Law and Heraldry," sc. 1. Horatio. And in a more compressed, in a short-hand, though very intelligible, style the same idea is conveyed in Ant. & Cl. III. 6. Oct. "Whereon, I begg'd "His pardon for return.” And see "give me grace." Ib. III. 2. Th. " c Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent] i. e. at or upon his earnest and importunate suit, I gave my full and final, though hardly obtained and reluctant, consent." d Take thy fair hour! time be thine! And thy best graces spend it at thy will!] i. e. " catch the auspicious moment! and may the exercise of thy fairest virtues fill up those its hours, that are wholly at your command!" e But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son] See " Capulet." Rom. & Jul. I. 5. Cap. my cousin HAM. A little more than kin, and less than kind.(39) [Aside. KING. How is it that the clouds still hang on you ? HAM. Not so, my lord, I am too much i'the sun.(40) QUEEN. Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly coloura nighted. off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids," Seek for thy noble father in the dust: 4tos. Thou know'st, 'tis common; all that livest must + So 4tos. die, Passing through nature to eternity. HAM. Aу, madam, it is common. If it be, Why seems it so particular with thee? HAM. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems. "Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, eye, Nor the dejected haviour of the visage, nightly colour] The quartos read nighted: and in Lear, IV. 5, Regan speaks of the "nighted life," of " the dark and blinded Gloster." b vailed lids] i. e. cast down. See M. of V. I. 1. Salar. & L. L. L. V. 2. Boyet. Ay, madam, it is common] Similar examples of frailty, connected with such an event, are the things or occurrences, that, he would have it inferred, were common. d Kent. trappings] Trappings are furnishings,' as in Lear, III. 1. and 1623. live. 1632. ✰ shapes. 4tos. To give these mourning duties to your father: 3 To do obsequious sorrow: But to perséver Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief: That father lost, lost his] i. e. "that lost father (of your father, i. e. your grandfather) or father so lost, lost his." b do obsequious sorrow] i. e. "follow with becoming and ceremonious observance the memory of the deceased." See III. H. VI. II. 5. Father. & M. W. of W. IV. 2. Falst. We have Shed obsequious tears upon his trunk." Tit. Andr. V. 3. Luc. c obstinate condolement] i. e. ceaseless and unremitted ex As any the most vulgar thing to sense] To sense is as addressed to sense; in every hour's occurrence offering itself to our observation and feelings." "Most sure and vulgar." Lear, IV. 6. Gent. unprevailing] i. e. fruitless, unprofitable, or more directly rendered, unavailing. Such is Dryden's use of the word: "He may often prevail himself of the same advantages in English." Essay on dramatic Poetry. “Prevail yourself of what occasion gives." Abs. & Achit. This use of the word seems to have been borrowed immediately from the French ' se prévaloir.' a You are the most immediate to our throne; Than that which dearest father bears his son, QUEEN. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, I pray thee, stay with us, go not to Wittenberg. d [Exeunt King, Queen, Lords, &c. POLONIUS, HAM. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon (47) 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! Fye on't! O fye! 'tis an unweeded garden, * toward. 4tos. + seem. 4tos. So 4tos. fye, fye. That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature, 1623, 32. immediate] In Lear, IV. 3. Reg. he uses immediately for union the most direct and scarce divisible. bend you] i. e. dispose, incline. Sits smiling to my heart] i. e. gladdens to is at. d in grace whereof] i. e. respectful regard or honour. To grace which, would here be the prose reading. * merely] i. e. wholly. See Temp. I. 1. Anton. C let e'en. So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr:(48) so loving to my mother, So and That he might not beteem*(49) the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth! Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown 4tos. beteene. 1623,32. By what it fed on.(50) And yet, within a month,- woman! A little month; or ere those shoes were old, My father's brother; but no more like my father, Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears But break, my heart: for I must hold my tongue! Enter HORATIO, BARNARDO, and MARCELLUS. HOR. Hail to your lordship! HAM. I am glad to see you well: Horatio, or I do forget myself. HOR. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. a Discourse of reason] Faculty of discussing and reasoning, deduction or arrangement: as in Tr. & Cr. II. 2. Hect. and Haml. IV. 4. H. and discourse of thought. Othel. IV. 2. Desd. Boswell instances the preface to Davys's Reports: "And this idea have I conceived of him, not out of mine own imagination, or weak discourse of reason:" and Saville's Tacitus' Agricola, 1591. p. 292. "Agricola, though brought up in the field, upon a naturall wit and discourse of reason," (naturali prudentia) &c. cap. ix. |