He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

'Tis strange.

MAR. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour, With martial stalk he passed through our watch.

c

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
So nightly toils the subject of the land?
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart 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?

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 cov'nant,
And carriage of the article design'd,d

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

(*) First folio, my.

(†) First folio, on.

the sledded Polacks-] The sledged Polanders; though it may be doubtful whether the original "Pollax' was intended as the singular or plural: many editors read, "Polack."

b

and jump at this dead hour,-] So the quartos; the folio substitutes the more modern word, just but in Shakespeare's day, "jump" was the familiar term. So in Act V. Sc. 2, of this play,

"But since, so jump upon this bloody question."

So, also, in "Othello," Act II. Sc. 3,

c

bring him jump when he may Cassio find."

With martial stalk he passed through our watch.] The reading of the earliest quarto, and presenting a finer image than that of the subsequent editions, which have,

d

design'd,-] So the second folio; the previous editions having, designe.

=

e Of unimproved mettle hot and full,-] By unimproved unreproved, we apprehend

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

For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in 't: which is no other
(Ast it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsative, 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 romagea in the land.
BER. I think it be no other, but e'en 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 palmy 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 and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; (1) and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse:
And even the like precurse of fierce events,-
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,-
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-
But, soft! behold! lo, where it comes again!

Re-enter Ghost.

I'll cross it, though it blast me."-Stay, illusion !a

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

Speak to me:

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

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,'

(*) First folio, Landlesse.

(†) First folio, And.

is meant, insatiable, ungovernable, as in Chapman's "Homer's Iliads," Book the Eleventh,

66 the King still cride, Pursue, pursue,

And all his unreproved hands, did blood and dust embrue."

romage] Commotion, turmoil.

I think it be no other, but e'en so:] This and the seventeen succeeding lines are not in the folio.

e I'll cross it, though it blast me.-] It was an ancient superstition, that any one who crossed the spot on which a spectre was seen, became subjected to its malignant influence. See Blakeway's note ad l. in the Variorum edition.

d Stay, illusion!] Attached to these words in the 1604 quarto, is a stage direction,"It spreads his arms."

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,
Speak of it:-stay, and speak!-Stop it, Marcellus.
MAR. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
HOR. Do, if it will not stand.

BER.

HOR.

MAR. 'Tis gone!

"T is here!

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.

[Cock crows.

"T is here!

[Exit Ghost.

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

MAR. It faded on the crowing of the cock. (2)
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long :
And then, they say, no spirit dare 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 mantled clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill:*

(*) First folio, day.

(†) First folio, can walke.

• Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat-] This is the text of the folic and all the quartos, except the first, which reads, perhaps preferably,

66 - early and shrill-crowing throat."

b - extravagant and erring-] Wandering and erratic.

eNo fairy takes,-] The folio inadvertently prints talkes. To take has before been explained to mean, to paralyze, to deaden, to benumb.

in russet mantle clad,-] In the recapitulation of his labours at the conclusion of the Eneid, Gawin Douglas says,

"Quhen pale Aurora with Face lamentabill

Her Russet Mantill bordourit all with sabill."

yon high eastern hill:] The earliest quarto has,

We adopt the lection of the folio, as more in accordance with the poetical phraseology

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.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the same.

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,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 't were with a defeated joy,-
With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along:-for all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,"
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,-
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,

To our most valiant brother. So much for him.

Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting,
Thus much the business is:-we have here writ

To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,

of the period. Thus, in Chapman's translation of the Thirteenth Book of Homer's Odyssey,

66 Ulysses still

An eye directed to the eastern hill."

And Spenser charmingly ushers in the morn by telling us that—

Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose,-to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.

Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty..

COR., VOL. In that and all things will we show our duty.
KING. We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell.-

[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.

And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is 't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,

And lose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

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. (3)

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,

Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.a

KING. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,

And thy best graces spend it at thy will!—

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,

HAM. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind.
KING. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAM. Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

QUEEN. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,

(*) First folio, bearing.

■ I do beseech you, give him leave to go.] In the folio this speech is abbreviated to,— "He hath my Lord :

I do beseech you give him leave to go."

b A little more than kin, and less than kind.] The meaning may perhaps be gathered from what appears to have been a proverbial saying, in Rowley's Search for Money:'

"I would he were not so neere to us in kindred, then sure he would be neerer in kindnesse."

I am too much i' the sun.] By this, Hamlet may mean, I am too much in the way; a mote in the royal eye: but his reply is purposely enigmatical.