And I, of ladies moft deject' and wretched,
That fuck'd the honey of his musick vows,
Now fee that noble and moft fovereign reafon,
Like fweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth,
Blafted with ecftafy: O, woe is me!

To have feen what I have feen, fee what I fee!

Re-enter King and POLONIUS.

KING. Love! his affections do not that way tend;

Nor what he fpake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madnefs. There's fomething in his foul,

O'er which his melancholy fits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,3

"

moft deject-] So, in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613:
What knight is that

"So paffionately deject?" STEEVENS.

out of tune-] Thus the folio. The quarto-out of time. STEEVENS.

Thefe two words in the hand-writing of Shakspeare's age are almoft indiftinguishable, and hence are frequently confounded in the old copies. See Vol. IV. p. 63, n. 8. MALONE.

-and feature-] Thus the folio. The quartos readftature. STEEVENS.

2

with ecftafy:] The word ecftafy was anciently used to fignify fome degree of alienation of mind.

So, Gawin Douglas, tranflating-ftetit acri fixa dolore: "In ecftafy the ftood, and mad almaist.”

See Vol. III. p. 113, n. 9; and Vol. VII. p. 464, n. 4.

3

STEEVENS,

the difclofe,] This was the technical term. So, in The Maid of Honour, by Maffinger:

"One aierie with proportion ne'er difclofes

The eagle and the wren." MALONE.

Will be fome danger: Which for to prevent,

I have, in quick determination,

Thus fet it down; He fhall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the feas, and countries different,
With variable objects, fhall expel

This fomething-fettled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains ftill beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Poz. It fhall do well: But yet I do believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.-How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet faid;
We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;

But, if you hold it fit, after the play,

Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To fhow his grief; let her be round with him;^
And I'll be plac'd, fo please you, in the ear
Of all their conference: If fhe find him not,
To England fend him; or confine him, where
Your wifdom beft fhall think.

KING.

It fhall be fo:

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

Again, in the fifth act of the play now before us: "Ere that her golden couplets are difclos'd." See my note on this paffage. STEEVENS. be round with him ;] reprimand him with freedom. by Middleton, 1608: “ She's

[Exeunt.

To be round with a perfon, is to So, in A Mad World, my Mafters, round with her i'faith." MALONE.

See Vol. VII. p. 229, n. 4. STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

A Hall in the fame.

Enter HAMLET, and certain Players.

HAM. Speak the fpeech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not faw the air too much with your hand, thus; but ufe all gently for in the very torrent, tempeft, and (as I may fay) whirlwind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it fmoothness. O, it offends me to the foul, to hear a robuftious perriwig-pated' fellow tear a paffion to tatters, to very rags, to fplit the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable

5-perriwig-pated-] This is a ridicule on the quantity of falfe hair worn in Shakspeare's time, for wigs were not in common ufe till the reign of Charles II. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Julia fays-"I'll get me fuch a colour'd perriwig."

Goff, who wrote feveral plays in the reign of James I. and was no mean fcholar, has the following lines in his tragedy of The Courageous Turk, 1632:

How now, you heavens,

"Grow you so proud you must needs put on curl'd locks, "And clothe yourselves in perriwigs of fire?"

Players, however, feem to have worn them most generally. So,

in Every Woman in her Humour, 1609: "

as none wear hoods but monks and ladies; and feathers but fore-horfes, &c;-none perriawigs but players and pictures. STEEVENS.

6—the groundlings;] The meaner people then feem to have fat below, as they now fit in the upper gallery, who, not well understanding poetical language, were fometimes gratified by a

of nothing but inexplicable dumb fhows, and noife:1

mimical and mute reprefentation of the drama, previous to the dialogue. JOHNSON.

Before each act of the tragedy of Jocafta, tranflated from Euripides, by Geo. Gafcoigne and Fra. Kinwelmerth, the order of thefe dumb fhows is very minutely described. This play was prefented at Gray's-Inn by them in 1566. The mute exhibitions included in it are chiefly emblematical, nor do they display a picture of one fingle fcene which is afterwards performed on the ftage. In fome other pieces I have observed, that they serve to introduce fuch circumstances as the limits of a play would not admit to be represented.

Thus, in Herod and Antipater, 1622:

Let me now

"Intreat your worthy patience to contain
"Much in imagination; and, what words
"Cannot have time to utter, let your eyes,

"Out of this DUMB SHOW, tell your memories."

In fhort dumb fhows fometimes fupplied deficiencies, and, at others, filled up the space of time which was neceffary to pafs while business was fuppofed to be transacted in foreign parts. With this method of preferving one of the unities, our ancestors appear to have been fatisfied.

Ben Jonfon mentions the groundlings with equal contempt." The understanding gentlemen of the ground here.'"

Again, in The Cafe is Alter'd, 1609:

-a rude barbarous crew that have no brains, and yet grounded judgements; they will hifs any thing that mounts above their grounded capacities." Again, in Lady Alimony, 1659: "Be your ftage-curtains artificially drawn, and fo covertly fhrowded that the fquint-ey'd groundling may not peep in ?"

In our early play-houfes the pit had neither floor nor benches. Hence the term of groundlings for thofe who frequented it. The groundling, in its primitive fignification, means a fish which always keeps at the bottom of the water. STEEVENS.

7 who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexpli cable dumb fbors, and noife: i. e. have a capacity for nothing but dumb fhows; understand nothing elfe. So, in Heywood's Hiftory of Women, 1624: "I have therein imitated our hiftorical and coinical poets, that write to the ftage; who, left the auditory should be dulled with ferious difcourfes, in every act prefent fome zany, with his mimick gefture, to breed in the lefs capable mirth and laughter. See Vol. X. p. 563, n. 4. MALONE.

I would have fuch a fellow whipp'd for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: Pray you, avoid it.

-inexplicable dumb fhows,] I believe the meaning is, bows, without words to explain them. JOHNSON.

Rather, I believe, shows which are too confufedly conducted to explain themselves.

I meet with one of these in Heywood's play of The Four Prentices of London, 1615, where the Prefenter fays:

"I must entreat your patience to forbear

"While we do feast your eye and starve your ear.
"For in dumb fhews, which, were they writ at large,
"Would ask a long and tedious circumftance,

"Their infant fortunes I will foon exprefs:" &c.

Then follow the dumb shows, which well deferve the character Hamlet has already given of this fpecies of entertainment, as may be feen from the following paffage: "Enter Tancred, with Bella Franca richly attired, the fomewhat affecting him, though the makes no fbow of it." Surely this may be called an inexplicable dumb fbow. STEEVENS,

8 Termagant;] Termagaunt (fays Dr. Percy) is the name given in the old romances to the god of the Sarazens; in which he is conftantly linked with Mahound, or Mohammed. Thus in the

legend of SYR GUY, the Soudan fwears :

"So helpe me Mahowne of might,

"And Termagaunt my God fo bright.”

So alfe, in Hall's firft Satire:

"Nor fright the reader with the Pagan vaunt "Of mightie Mahound, and greate Termagaunt." Again, in Marfton's 7th Satire:

let whirlwinds and confufion teare

"The center of our ftate; let giants reare
"Hill upon hill; let wefterne Termagant

"Shake heaven's vault" &c.

Termagant is alfo mentioned by Spenfer in his Faery Queen, and by Chaucer in The Tale of Sir Topas; and by Beaumont and Fletcher in King or no King, as follows: "This would make a faint fwear like a foldier, and a foldier like Termagant." Again, in The Picture, by Maffinger :

a hundred thoufand Turks

“Affail'd him, every one a Termagaunt." STEEVENS. Again, in Bale's Acts of English Votaries :

"Grennyng upon her, lyke Termagauntes in a play."

RITSON.