GUIL. But with much forcing of his difpofition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Moft free in his reply.+ QUEEN. To any paftime? Did you assay him Ros. Madam, it fo fell out, that certain players We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him; And there did feem in him a kind of joy To hear of it: They are about the court; 4 Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Mott free in his reply.] This is given as the defcription of the converfation of a man whom the fpeaker found not forward to be founded; and who kept alo:f when they would bring him to confen: but fuch a defcription can never pass but at cross-purposes. Shakspeare certainly wrote it just the other way: Moft free of question; but, of our demands, That this is the true reading, we need but turn back to the preceding scene, for Hamlet's conduct, to be fatisfied. WARBURTON. Warburton forgets that by question, Shakspeare does not usually mean interrogatory, but difcourfe; yet in which ever fenfe the word be taken, this account given by Rosencrantz agrees but ill with the fcene between him and Hamlet, as actually reprefented. M. MASON. Slow to begin converfation, but free enough in his answers to our demands. Guildenftern has juft faid that Hamlet kept aloof when they wished to bring him to confefs the cause of his diftraction: Rofencrantz therefore here muft mean, that up to that point, till they touch'd on that, he was free enough in his answers. MALONE. 5- o'er-raught on the way:] Over-raught is over-reached, that is, over-took. JOHNSON. So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, Book VI. c. iii: Having by chance a close advantage view'd, "He over-raught him," &c. Again, in the 5th Book of Gawin Douglas's translation of The Aneid: "War not the famyn mysfortoun me over-raucht.” STEEVENS. This night to play before him. POL. 'Tis moft true: And he befeech'd me to entreat your majefties, KING. With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him fo inclin'd. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, KING. [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Her father, and myfelf (lawful efpials,*) If't be the affliction of his love, or no, QUEEN. I fhall obey you: may here] The folio, (I fuppofe by an error of the prefs,) reads may there- STEEVENS. 7 Affront Ophelia :] To affront, is only to meet direaly. JOHNSON. Affrontare, Ital. So, in The Devil's Charter, 1607: 66 Affronting that port where proud Charles fhould enter." Again, in fir W. D'Avenant's Cruel Brother, 1630: "In fufferance affronts the winter's rage.' STEEVENS. 66 efpials,] i. e. spies. So, in King Henry VI. Part I: "By your efpials were discovered "Two mightier troops." See alfo Vol. IX. p. 535, n. 2. The words" lawful efpials," are found only in the folio. STEEVENS. And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish, To both your honours. OPH. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit QUEEN. POL. Ophelia, walk you here:-Gracious, fo please you, We will bestow ourselves:-Read on this book; [To OPHELIA. That fhow of fuch an exercise may colour Your lonelinefs.-We are oft to blame in this,'Tis too much prov'd,'-that, with devotion's vifage,' And pious action, we do sugar o'er The devil himself. KING. O, 'tis too true! how smart A lash that speech doth give my confcience! The harlot's cheek, beauty'd with plaft'ring art, Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,+ Than is my deed to my moft painted word: O heavy burden! [Afide. POL. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord. [Exeunt King and POLONIUS. And, for your part,] Thus the quarto, 1604, and the folio. The modern editors, following a quarto of no authority, readfor my part. MALONE. 2 Your loneliness.] Thus the folio. The first and second quartos read fowlinefs. STEEVENS. 3 'Tis too much prov'd,] It is found by too frequent experience. JOHNSON. more ugly to the thing that helps it,] That is, compared with the thing that helps it. JOHNSON. So, Ben Jonfon: "All that they did was piety to this." STEEVENS. Enter HAMLET. HAM. To be, or not to be,' that is the queftion:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to fuffer 5 To be, or not to be,] Of this celebrated foliloquy, which bursting from a man distracted with contrariety of defires, and overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes, is connected rather in the speaker's mind, than on his tongue, I fhall endeavour to discover the train, and to fhew how one fentiment produces another. Hamlet, knowing himself injured in the moft enormous and atrocious degree, and feeing no means of redrefs, but such as muft expofe him to the extremity of hazard, meditates on his fituation in this manner: Before I can form any rational scheme of action under this pressure of distress, it is neceffary to decide, whether, after our prefent fate, we are to be, or not to be. That is the queftion, which, as it fhall be answered, will determine, whether 'tis nobler, and more fuitable to the dignity of reafon, to fuffer the outrages of fortune patiently, or to take arms against them, and by oppofing end them, though perhaps with the lofs of life. If to die, were to fleep, no more, and by a fleep to end the miseries of our nature, fuch a fleep were devoutly to be wished; but if to fleep in death, be to dream, to retain our powers of fenfibility, we must paufe to confider, in that Sleep of death what dreams may come. This confideration makes calamity fo long endured; for who would bear the vexations of life, which might be ended by a bare bodkin, but that he is afraid of fomething in unknown futurity? This fear it is that gives efficacy to confcience, which, by turning the mind upon this regard, chills the ardour of refolution, checks the vigour of enterprize, and makes the current of defire ftagnate in inactivity. We may fuppofe that he would have applied these general obfervations to his own cafe, but that he discovered Ophelia. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnfon's explication of the first five lines of this paffage is furely wrong. Hamlet is not deliberating whether after our prefent flate we are to exist or not, but whether he should continue to live, or put an end to his life: as is pointed out by the second and the three following lines, which are manifeftly a paraphrafe on the first; "whether 'tis nobler in the mind to fuffer, &c. or to take arms." The question concerning our exiftence in a future ftate is not confidered till the tenth line:-"To fleep! perchance, to dream;" &c. The train of Hamlet's reafoning from the middle The flings and arrows of outrageous fortune;" of the fifth line, "If to die, were to fleep," &c. Dr. Johnson has marked out with his ufual accuracy. In our poet's Rape of Lucrece we find the fame question stated, which is propofed in the beginning of the prefent foliloquy: with herself the is in mutiny, 66 “To live or die, which of the twain were better." MALONE. 6 -arrows of outrageous fortune;] "Homines nos ut effe meminerimus, eà lege natos, ut omnibus telis fortuna propofita fit vita noftra." Cic. Epift. Fam. v. 16. STEEVENS. 1 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,] A fea of troubles among the Greeks grew into a proverbial ufage; xxxão daλacca, κακών τρικυμία. So that the expreffion figuratively means, the troubles of human life, which flow in upon us, and encompass us round, like a sea. THEOBALD. Mr. Pope propofed fiege. I know not why there fhould be fo, much folicitude about this metaphor. Shakspeare breaks his metaphors often, and in this defultory fpeech there was lefs need of preferving them. JOHNSON. 66 how A fimilar phrafe occurs in Rycharde Moryfine's translation of Ludovicus Vives's Introduction to Wyfedome, 1544: great a fea of euils euery day ouerunneth" &c. The change, however, which Mr. Pope would recommend, may be juftified from a passage in Romeo and Juliet, fcene the last: "You-to remove that fiege of grief from her—.” STEEVENS. One cannot but wonder that the fmalleft doubt should be entertained concerning an expreffion which is fo much in Shakspeare's manner; yet, to preferve the integrity of the metaphor, Dr. Warburton reads affail of troubles. In the Prometheus Vinctus of Æschylus a fimilar imagery is found: Δυσχείμερος με πέλαγος ατηρας δνης. "The ftormy fea of dire calamity." and in the fame play, as an anonymous writer has obferved, (Gent. Magazine, Aug. 1772,) we have a metaphor no lefs harsh than that of the text: Θολεροι δὲ λόγοι παίουσ' είκη Στυγνής προς κύμασιν ατης. 66 My plaintive words in vain confufedly beat Shakspeare might have found the very phrafe that he has em |