But since, so jump upon this bloody question,

360

370

You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,

Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

Fortinbras.

Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Horatio. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more:
But let this same be presently perform'd,

Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance On plots and errors happen.

Fortinbras.

Let four captains

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;

For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war

Speak loudly for him.

Take up the bodies: such a sight as this

Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies;
after which a peal of ordnance is shot off.]

380

NOTES.

THE list of Dramatis Persone was first prefixed to the play by Rowe in 1709. It is not found in the quartos or folios.

ACT I.

Scene I.

In the quartos the play is not divided into acts and scenes.

The division was first made in the folio of 1623, 'Actus Primus, Scana Prima,' &c., but only as far as the second scene of the second act.

No indication of the place of each scene is given in the quartos and

folios.

2. me. Emphatic.

3. Long live the king! The watchword for the night.

6. upon your hour. An unusual phrase, meaning 'just as your hour is about to strike.' Compare Richard III, iii. 2. 5, upon the stroke of four,' and in the same play, iv. 2. 115, upon the stroke of ten.' See also Measure for Measure, iv. 1. 17, ‘much upon this time have I promised here As Francisco speaks the clock is heard striking midnight. 7. For now struck Steevens guessed new struck,' which Elze inserted in

to meet.'

his text.

8. much thanks. For this use of much' with a noun of plural form, compare Luke xii. 19, Thou hast much goods laid up for many years.' 'Much,' like the A. S. micel, mycel, mucel, from which it is derived, was once not used only, as it is now, with abstract or collective nouns, but generally in the sense of great.' So in Richard III, iii. 7. 159, Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,' and Measure for Measure, v. I. 534, Thy much goodness.' Abbott's Shakespeare Grammar, § 51.

Ib. bitter cold. Here' bitter' is used adverbially to qualify the adjective 'cold.' So we have daring hardy' in Richard II, i. 3. 43. Where the combination is likely to be misunderstood, modern editors generally put a hyphen between the two words.

9. sick at beart. So Macbeth, v. 3. 19, I am sick at heart.' We have also in Love's Labour's Lost, ii. 1. 185, sick at the heart,' and Romeo and Juliet, iii. 3. 72, 'heart-sick groans.'

13. rivals. It is remarkable that the quarto of 1603 gives 'partners,' which is the meaning of rivals' here. 'Rivals' originally meant those who dwelt by the same 'rivus' or stream, having a right to use it for purposes of irrigation. Hence frequent contentions, and hence the metaphorical sense of the word, so much more used both in Latin and modern languages. This is the only passage of Shakespeare in which the word is employed in its earlier and rarer sense. He has however rivality,' meaning 'partnership,' in Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 5. 8, Cæsar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey, presently denied him rivality; would not let him partake in the glory of the action.' Ritson quotes from Heywood's Rape of Lucrece (sig. E, recto, ed. 1630),

Tullia. Aruns, associate him.

Aruns. A riuall with my brother in his honours.'

And The Tragedy of Hoffman,

This seems a more probable ellipsis
We do not find the complete phrase

And make thee rival in those governments.' 15. the Dane, i. e. the chief Dane, the king of Denmark. So the Turk,' for the Grand Turk,' in Henry V, v. 2. 322. See i. 2. 44. 16. Give you, i. e. God give you.' than I,' which is suggested by Delius. 'I give you good night,' or 'I give you good morning,' but we have many examples of the other, as Romeo and Juliet, i. 2. 59, 'God gi' god-den,' i. e. God give good even,' and Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2. 84, God give you good morrow, master parson.' Compare Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, epilogus, God give you good night.' We have examples of this ellipsis in the phrases, 'Bless you,' 'Save you,' for 'God bless you,'' God save you.' The omission of 'I' before such words as 'pray' is not a parallel case.

19. A piece of him. This is, of course, said jestingly. But the German editor Tschischwitz finds a deeper meaning. The philosophic Horatio,' he says, 'regards the personality of a man in his merely physical aspect as only a part of himself." Another editor, Max Moltke, takes the same view. He supposes that Horatio, being a sceptic as to the reality of the Ghost, does not bring with him that belief which predominates in and fills the whole being of Bernardo and Marcellus, and thus the whole Horatio is not present but only a piece of him.

21. What. As in line 19, an exclamation, not interrogation. So Julius Cæsar, ii. 1. 1: What, Lucius, ho!'

23. fantasy, imagination. Both fantasy' and 'fancy' are commonly used by Shakespeare in this sense. The former is however found in the

modern sense of whim,'' caprice,' in Othello, iii. 3. 299: 'I nothing, but to please his fantasy.' 25. seen of us. The quarto of 1603 has seen by us.'

This use of the

preposition of' is frequent, as in 1 Corinthians xv. 5-8, ' seen of Cephas,' &c., and with other participles, Luke xiv. 8, and I Corinthians xi. 32. 29. approve, prove, attest, corroborate. See Merchant of Venice, iii. 2. 79: 'What damned error, but some sober brow

Will bless it and approve it with a text?'

33. What we have two nights seen. A comma is usually placed after 'story,' and the construction is as if 'let us tell you' had been used instead of 'let us assail your ears.' It is an instance of what the Greek grammarians called σχῆμα πρὸς τὸ σημαινόμενον. But we may omit the comma, and take what...seen as an epexegesis of 'story.'

36. yond. This word, used as an adjective or adverb, is spelt indifferently in either sense, 'yond' or 'yon.'

37. illume. Not used elsewhere by Shakespeare. We have however 'relume,' Othello, v. 2. 13.

39. beating, striking. The quarto of 1603 has '

'towling.'

42. a scholar, i. e. able to speak Latin, in which language the formulæ of exorcism prescribed by the Church were of course written. See Much Ado about Nothing, ii. 1. 264, ‘I would to God some scholar would conjure her.' Reed quotes Beaumont and Fletcher's Night Walker, ii. I,

It grows still longer;

"Tis steeple-high now . . . .

Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,

And that will daunt the devil.'

'In like manner,' continues Reed, the honest butler in Mr. Addison's Drummer recommends the steward to speak Latin to the ghost in that play.' In Guy Mannering, ch. xlvi, Dominie Sampson endeavours to exorcise Meg Merrilies by his Latin.

44. barrows. See i. 5. 16.

45. It would be spoke to. It wishes to be spoken to. There was, and is, a notion that a ghost cannot speak till it has been spoken to. For this form of the participle spoke,' see our note on Macbeth, i. 4. 3, and on Richard II, iii. 1. 13.

49. sometimes. Here used, as in Richard II, i. 2. 54, and v. 5. 75, in the sense of sometime.'

55. on't, of it. See King Lear, i. 4. 114, 'Why, this fellow has banished

two on's daughters.'

56. might not, could not. Compare Hamlet, i. 2. 141, ii. 2. 132, and Measure for Measure, ii. 2. 53:

Ang. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.

Isab. But might you do 't and do the world no wrong?

6

So may' for 'can,' Merchant of Venice, i. 3. 7, May you pleasure me?'

Abbott, § 312.