are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

King. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. 'Pray, let us have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:

Good morrow, 'tis Saint Valentine's day,'
All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,

To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,

And dupped the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia !

Oph. Indeed, without an oath, I'll make an end on't.

By Gis, and by Saint Charity,3

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do't if they come to it;

By cock, they are to blame.

owl-like noise probably induced our Savior to transform her into that bird for her wickedness." The story is related to deter children from illiberal behavior to the poor.

1 The old copies read :

"To-morrow 'tis Saint Valentine's day."

The emendation was made by Dr. Farmer. The origin of the choosing of Valentines has not been clearly developed. Mr. Douce traces it to a pagan custom of the same kind during the Lupercalia feasts in honor of Pan and Juno, celebrated in the month of February by the Romans. The anniversary of the good bishop, or Saint Valentine, happening in this month, the pious early promoters of Christianity placed this popular custom under the patronage of the saint, in order to eradicate the notion of its pagan origin. In France the Valantin was a movable feast, celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent, which was called the jour des brandons, because the boys carried about lighted torches on that day. It is very probable that the saint has nothing to do with the custom; his legend gives no clew to any such supposition. The popular notion that the birds choose their mates about this period, has its rise in the poetical world of fiction.

2 "To dup is to do up, as to don is to do on, to doff to do off," &c.

3 Saint Charity is found in the Martyrology on the first of August. "Romæ passio sanctarum virginum Fidei, Spei, et Charitatis, quæ sub Hadriano principe martyriæ coronam adeptæ sunt." Spenser mentions her in Eclog. v. 225. By gis and by cock are only corruptions, or rather substitutions, for different forms of imprecation by the sacred name.

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

King. How long hath she been thus?

Oph. I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i'the cold ground. My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night.

pray you.

[Exit. King. Follow her close! give her good watch, I [Exit HORATIO. O! this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father's death. And now behold, O Gertrude, Gertrude,1

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions! First, her father slain ;

Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove. The people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death; and we have done but
greenly,2

In hugger-mugger 3 to inter him. Poor Ophelia
Divided from herself, and her fair judgment;
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts.
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,

1 In the quarto 1603, the king says:

"Ah, pretty wretch! this is a change indeed:

O time, how swiftly runs our joys away!

Content on earth was never certain bred,
To-day we laugh and live, to-morrow dead."

2 Greenly is unskilfully, with inexperience.

3 i. e. secretly. "Clandestinare, to hide or conceal by stealth, or in hugger-mugger."-Florio.

4 The quarto reads " Keeps on his wonder;" the folio-" Feeds on this wonder."

And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggared,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece,' in many places
Gives me superfluous death!
Queen.

[A noise within. Alack what noise is this? 2

King. Attend.

Enter a Gentleman.

Let them guard the door.

Save yourself, my lord;

Where are my Switzers?

What is the matter?

Gent.

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste,

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O'erbears your officers! The rabble call him lord;

And, as the world were now but to begin,

Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry, Choose we; Laertes shall be king! 4
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,

Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry! O this is counter,5 you false Danish dogs. King. The doors are broke.

[Noise within.

1 A murdering-piece, or murderer, was a small piece of artillery; in French meurtrière. It took its name from the loop-holes and embrasures in towers and fortifications, which were so called. Case-shot, filled with small bullets, nails, old iron, &c., was often used in these murderers. 2 The speech of the queen is omitted in the quartos.

3 Switzers, for royal guards. The Swiss were then, as since, mercenary soldiers of any nation that could afford to pay them.

4 The meaning of this contested passage appears to me this :-"The rabble call him lord; and (as if the world were now but to begin, as if antiquity and custom, which are the ratifiers and props of every word, were forgotten) this rabble cry, Choose we," &c.

5 Hounds are said to run counter when they are upon a false scent, or hunt it by the heel, running backward and mistaking the course of the game.

Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following.

Laer. Where is this king?-Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes. No, let's come in.

pray you, give me leave.

[They retire without the door.

Laer. I thank you;-keep the door.-O thou vile

king,

Give me my father.

Queen.

Calmly, good Laertes.

Laer. That drop of blood that's calm, proclaims me

bastard;

Cries, cuckold, to my father; brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste, unsmirched1 brow
Of my true mother.

King.
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like ?—
Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person;
There's such divinity doth hedge 2 a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.-Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed.-Let him
Speak, man.

Laer. Where is my father?
King.

Queen.

go,

Gertrude ;

Dead.

But not by him.

King. Let him demand his fill.

Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with. To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience, and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,-
That both the worlds I give to negligence,3
Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.

King.

Who shall stay you?

1 Unsmirched is unsullied, spotless. See Act i. Sc. 3.

2 Quarto 1603-wall.

3"But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer."-Macbeth.

Laer. My will, not all the world's;

And, for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

If

King.

Good Laertes,

you desire to know the certainty

your

Of dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge, That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser?

Laer. None but his enemies.

King.

Will you know them, then? Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms; And like the kind, life-rendering pelican,

Repast them with my blood.'

King. Why, now you speak Like a good child, and a true gentleman. That I am guiltless of your father's death, And am most sensibly in grief for it, It shall as level to your judgment pierce 3 As day does to your eye.

3

Danes. [Within.] Let her come in.
Laer. How now! what noise is that?

Enter OPHELIA, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!—
By Heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia !

O Heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love; and where 'tis fine,

3 Pierce is the reading of the folio. The quarto has 'pear, an awkward contraction of appear.

4 "Nature is fine in love." The three concluding lines of this speech are not in the quarto. The meaning appears to be, Nature is refined by love, the senses are rendered more ethereal, and some precious portions of the mental energies fly off, or are sent after the beloved object.