Hor. Most like:-it harrows me with fear, and wonder. Ber. It would be spoke to..

Mar.

Speak to it, Horatio. Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak. Mar. It is offended.

Ber.

See! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay; speak: speak I charge thee, speak.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

[Exit Ghost.

Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale: Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe,

Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar.

Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on,
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
He smote the sledded' Polack on the ice.g
'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour," With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not; But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,.

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch

it harrows me, &c.] To harrow is to conquer, to subdue. The word is of Saxon origin.-STEEVENS.

f

sledded-] i. e. Borne on a sledge, or sled.

He smote the sledded Polack on the ice.] He speaks of a prince of Poland whom he slew in battle. Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland. Polaque, Fr.-POPE and JOHNSON.

hjump at this dead hour,] i. e. Just at this dead hour: jump and just were synonymous.

* In what particular thought to work,] i. e. What particular train of thinking to follow.-STEEVENS.

k · gross and scope—] General thoughts, and tendency at large.-JOHNSON.

So nightly toils the subject of the land?
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign marts for implements of war:
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me?

Hor.

That can I;

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him,)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law, and heraldry,'

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror :
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart,"
And carriage of the article design'd,"

His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,

For food and diet, to some enterprize

That hath a stomach in't:s which is no other

law, and heraldry,] When the right of property was to be determined by combat, the rules of heraldry were to be attended to as well as those of law. M. MASON.

gaged-] i. e. Laid as a wager.-NARES.

co-mart,] i. e. Joint bargain. The word does not occur in any other

carriage—] i. e. Import, tendency.

design'd,] i. e. Drawn up.

unimproved-] i. e. Uncensured, unimpeached. See GIFFORD's Ben Jonson, vol. i. 88.

Shark'd up a list, &c.] i. e. Collected in a banditti-like manner, a set of rogues and vagabonds; to shark is nearly equivalent to the modern word to swindle.-NARES.

That hath a stomach in't :] i. e. That hath a spirit, or excitement in it: an uncommon use of the word.

(As it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsatory, those 'foresaid lands
So by his father lost: And this, I take it,

Is the main motive of our preparations;

The source of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.
[Ber. I think," it be no other, but even so:
Well may it sort," that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.
Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy2 state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
As, stars with trains of fire shed dews of blood,
Disasters dimm'd the sun; and the moist star,"
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,-
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,d—
Have heaven and earth together démonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-]

-romage]-or rummage, i. e. Tumultuous movement.-JOHNSON. "[I think, &c.] These, and all other lines, confined within crotchets, throughout this play, and some others which we have not noticed, are omitted in the folio edition of 1623. The omissions leave the play sometimes better and sometimes worse, and seem made only for the sake of abbreviation.-JOHNSON. * Well may it sort,] The cause and effect are proportionate and suitable.JOHNSON.

—the question-] i. e. The theme or subject.

- palmy—] i. e. Victorious.

* As, stars with trains of fire shed dews of blood,

Disasters dimm'd the sun; &c.] The original reading of these lines is,
As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun; &c.]

These corrupted lines the commentators have attempted to put right: the reading I have adopted is the one which departs least from the letter of the text; disasters are the blasts or strokes of unfavourable planets.

с

the moist star, &c.] i. e. The moon.

omen coming on,Ji. e. Portentous event at hand. Omen was anciently used in the sense of fate.-FARMER.

Re-enter Ghost.

But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

Speak to me:

to me,

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

[Cock crows.

Speak of it :-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Marcellus.
Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partizan?

Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Ber.

Hor.

Mar. 'Tis gone!

'Tis here!

'Tis here!

[Exit Ghost.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea, or fire, in earth or air,d

Exit Ghost.] The moment of the evanescence of spirits was supposed to be limited to the crowing of the cock. This belief is mentioned as early as Prudentius, Cathem. Hymn. i. v. 40. But some of his commentators prove it to be of much higher antiquity.-T. WARTON.

e Whether in sea, &c.] According to the pneumatology of that time, every element was inhabited by its peculiar order of spirits, who had dispositions different, according to their various places of abode. The meaning therefore is, that all spirits extravagant, wandering out of their element, whether aërial spirits visiting earth, or earthly spirits ranging the air, return to their station, to their proper limits in which they are confined.--JOHNSON.

The extravagant and erringe spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say,
that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long :
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill:
Break we our watch up; and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet: for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him:
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

Mar. Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.

SCENE II.

The same. A Room of State in the same.

[Exeunt.

Enter the King, Queen, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERtes, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants.

King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green; and that it us befitted

To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,

extravagant and erring-] Extravagant means here, having got beyond his bounds; erring is wandering.-WARBURTON and STEEVENS.

takes,] i. e. Strikes with lameness or diseases. This sense of take is frequent in this author.-JOHNSON.

8- conveniently.] So quarto, 1603.