For this effect defective comes by cause: Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.(1)

I have a daughter;-have, while she is mine ; — Who, in her duty and obedience, mark, Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise. [Reads.]-To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia,—

That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase,―beautified is a vile phrase; but you shall hear :- -Thus t

In her excellent white bosom, these, &c.—

QUEEN. Came this from Hamlet to her?
POL. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be

faithful.

[Reads.] Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar,

But never doubt I love.

O, dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to reckon my groans: but that I love thee best, O, most best! believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,

HAMLET.

This, in obedience, hath my daughter show'd me:
And more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

KING. But how hath she receiv'd his love?
POL. What do you think of me?

KING. As of a man faithful and honourable.

POL. I would fain prove so. But what might you think,

When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
(As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,

Before my daughter told me) what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play'd the desk or table-book ;

Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb;
Or look'd upon this love with idle sight ;-

What might you think? No, I went round to

work,

And my young mistress thus I did bespeak;

Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star;

harping on my daughter:-yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger: he is far gone, far gone and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I'll speak to him again.-What do you read, my lord? HAM. Words, words, words!

POL. What is the matter, my lord?
HAM. Between who?

POL. I mean the matter that you read,* my lord.

HAM. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue+ says here, that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most § weak hams all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, should grow old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

POL. [Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.-Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAM. Into my grave?

POL. Indeed, that is out o' the air.-[Aside.] How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter. -My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

HAM. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal,-except my life, except my life, except my life.

POL. Fare you well, my lord.
HAM. These tedious old fools!

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. GUIL. Happy, in that we are not overhappy; on Fortune's cap we are not the very button. HAM. Nor the soles of her shoe? Ros. Neither, my lord.

HAM. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours* ?

GUIL. Faith, her privates we.

HAM. In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What's the news?

Ros. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

HAM. Then is dooms-day near: but your news is not true. Let me question more in particular : what have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

GUIL. Prison, my lord?
HAM. Denmark's a prison.
Ros. Then is the world one.

HAM. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one of the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

HAM. Why, then, 't is none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then, your ambition makes it one; 't is too narrow for your mind.

HAM. O, God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams.

GUIL. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAM. A dream itself is but a shadow. Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow. HAM. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay,

thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

GUIL. What should we say, my lord?

HAM. Why anything-but to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of* confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

Ros. To what end, my lord?

HAM. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no? Ros. [To GUILDENSTERN.] What say you' ? HAM. [Aside.] Nay, then, I have an eye of you. If you love me, hold not off.

GUIL. My lord, we were sent for.

HAM. will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have

of late, (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you,- -this brave o'erhanging firmament this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,-why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

f the humorous man-] By the "humorous man we are not to understand the funny man or jester,-he was termed "the clown," but the actor who personated the fantastic characters, known in Shakespeare's time as "humourists," and who, for the most part, were represented as capricious and quarrelsome.

g tickled o' the sere ;] "Tickled o' the sere,"-correctly, perhaps, tickle o' the sere"-appears to signify those easily moved to the expression of mirth.

h little eyases,-] Nestlings; unfledged hawks.

Ros. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAM. Why did you laugh, then,* when I said, man delights not me?

Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service.

HAM. He that plays the king shall be welcome, -his majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere ; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for 't.-What players are they?

Ros. Even those you were wont to take such † delight in, the tragedians of the city.

HAM. How chances it they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

Ros. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

HAM. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? are they so followed? Ros. No, indeed, they are not.

HAM. How comes it? do they grow rusty? Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: but there is, sir, an aiery of children, little eyases," that cry out on the top of question,' and are most tyrannically clapped for 't: these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages, (so they call them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.

HAM. What, are they children? who maintains them? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality' no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players," (as it is most like,§ if their means are no better) their writers do them

(*) First folio omits, then. (+) First folio omits, such. (1) First folio, be-ratled. (§) Old text, like most. which the boys declaimed! The phrase, derived perhaps from the defiant crowing of a cock upon his midden, really meant, we believe, like—

"Stood challenger on mount of all the age,"

to crow over or challenge all comers to a contention. In a subsequent scene, Hamlet, speaking of the play which "pleased not the million," observes, "but it was (as I received it, and others, whose judgment in such matters cried in the top of mine) an excellent play," &c.; where "cried in the top" evidently means crowed over. Again, in Armin's "Nest of Ninnies," the author, alluding to fencers or players at single stick, talks of "making them expert till they cry it up in the top of question."

kescoted?] Said to mean, paid; from the French escot, a shot or reckoning.

m

1-quality-] Profession, or calling. Here, Histrionale studium. -common players,-] As we now term them, "strolling players." "I prefix an epithite of common, to distinguish the base and artlesse appendants of our Citty companies, which often times start away into rusticall wanderers, and then (like Proteus) start backe again into the Citty number."-J. STEPHENS, Essayes and Characters, 1615, p. 301.

A A

GUIL. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAM. Do the boys carry it away?

Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too. (3)

HAM. It is not strange; for mine uncle is king of Denmark; and those that would make mowes at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little. 'S blood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

[Flourish of trumpets without.

GUIL. There are the players.

HAM. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands. Come; the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in the garb; lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUIL. In what, my dear lord?

HAM. I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.b

Enter POLONIUS.

POL. Well be with you, gentlemen! HAM. Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too; -at each ear a hearer; that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swathing-clouts.

Ros. Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an old man is twice a child.

HAM. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it. You say right, sir: for o' Monday morning 't was so, indeed.

POL. My lord, I have news to tell you. HAM. My lord, I have news to tell you. hen Roscius wast an actor in Rome,

POL. The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAM. Buz, buz!

POL. Upon mine honour,—

HAM. Then came* each actor on his ass,—

POL. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoricalcomical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene-individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

HAM. O, Jephthah, judge of Israel,—what a treasure hadst thou!

POL. What a treasure had he, my lord?
HAM. Why,

One fair daughter, and no more,

The which he loved passing well.

POL. [Aside.] Still on my daughter. HAM. Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah? POL. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well. HAM. Nay, that follows not. POL. What follows, then, my HAM. Why,

lord?

You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:—I am glad to see thee well:-welcome, good friends.O, my old friend! Thy face is valiant since I saw thee last; comest thou to beard me in Denmark?-What! my young lady and mistress! By 'r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine.(5) Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.(6)——— Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to 't like French falconers, fly at anything we see: we'll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.

(*) First folio, can.

alet me comply with you in the garb;] Let me fraternize or onjoin with you in the customary mode; and not, as modern ditors expound it,-"Let me compliment with you," &c. To omply, literally, means to enfold.

bI know a hawk from a handsaw.] An old proverbial saying; originally, "a hawk from a hernshaw, i.e. a heron; but corrupted before Shakespeare's day.

c Buz, buz!] An interjection of impatience used when any one began a story already known to the hearers.

d - for look, where my abridgment comes.] In the folio, - My abridgements come." Abridgment" was only another

(†) First folio, Pons Chanson. (1) First folio omits, to. word for pastime; so, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Act V. Sc. 1,

"Say, what abridgment have you for this evening."

e Thy face is valiant since I saw thee last :] The quartos have valanced. But compare the advice of Iago to Roderigo;-" Follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with an usurped beard;" i.e. assume a martial aspect; and also the context in Hamlet's speech," comest thou to beard me in Denmark," where the point is lost without the fierceness implied by "valiant."