POL. It is back'd like a weafel. HAM. Or, like a whale? POL. Very like a whale. HAM. Then will I come to my mother by and by. They fool me to the of top come by and by. POL. I will fay so. friends. my bent."-I will Exit POLONIUS. HAM. By and by is eafily faid.-Leave me, [Exeunt Ros. GUIL. HOR. &c. 'Tis now the very witching time of night; When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: Now could I drink hot blood, And do fuch bufinefs as the bitter day Would quake to look on. Soft; now to my mother. "Ham. Do you fee yonder cloud, that's almoft in the shape of a weazel? "Pol. By the mass, and 'tis like a weazel, indeed. "Ham. Methinks, it is like a camel. "Pol. It is back'd like a camel. The protuberant back of a camel feems more to resemble a cloud, than the back of a weazel does. MALONE. 5 They fool me to the top of my bent. ] They compel me to play the fool, till I can endure it no longer. JOHNSON. Perhaps a term in archery; i. e. as far as the bow will admit of being bent without breaking. DoUCE. 6 And do fuch bufinefs as the bitter day-] Thus the quarto. The folio reads: And do fuch bitter bufinefs as the day &c. MALONE. The expreffion bitter business is ftill in ufe, and though at prefent a vulgar phrafe, might not have been fuch in the age of Shakspeare. The bitter day is the day rendered hateful or bitter by the commiffion of fome act of mifchief. Watts, in his Logick, fays, "Bitter is an equivocal word; there is bitter wormwood, there are bitter words, there are bitter enemies, and a bitter cold morning." It is, in fhort, any thing unpleafing or hurtful. STEEVENS. O, heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever I will speak daggers to her,' but use none; [Exit. SCENE III. A Room in the fame. Enter King, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. KING. I like him not; nor ftands it fafe with us, To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you; I your commiffion will forthwith despatch, I will speak daggers to her,] A fimilar expreffion occurs in The Return from Parnaffus, 1606: "They are peftilent fellows, they fpeak nothing but bodkins." It has been already observed, that a badkin anciently fignified a short dagger. STEEVENS. be fhent,] To fhend, is to reprove harshly, to treat with rough language. So, in The Coxcomb of Beaumont and Fletcher: "We fhall be bent foundly." STEEVENS. See Vol. XII. p. 212, n. 8. MALONE. Shent feems to mean fomething more than reproof, by the fol lowing paffage from The Mirror for Magiftrates: Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, is the fpeaker, and he relates his having betrayed the Duke of Gloucester and his confederates to the King, "for which (fays he) they were all tane and fhent." Hamlet furely means, "however my mother may be hurt, wounded, or punish'd, by my words, let me never confent" &c. HENDERSON. 9 To give them feals—] i. c. put them in execution. WARBURTON. And he to England shall along with you:' GUIL. We will ourselves provide: 2 I like him not; nor flands it fafe with us, And he to England fhall along with you:] In The Hyftory of Hamblett, bl. 1. the king does not adopt this fcheme of fending Hamlet to England till after the death of Polonius; and though he is defcribed as doubtful whether Polonius was flain by Hamlet, his apprehenfion left he might himself meet the fame fate as the old courtier, is affigned as the motive for his wifhing the prince out of the kingdom. This at first inclined me to think that this short fcene, either from the negligence of the copyift or the printer, might have been misplaced; but it is certainly printed as the author intended, for in the next fcene Hamlet fays to his mother, “ I muft to England; you know that?" before the king could have heard of the death of Polonius. MALONE. 3 Out of his lunes.] The old quartos, Out of his brows. [The folio reads-Out of his lunacies.] This was from the ignorance of Ce first editors; as is this unneceffary Alexandrine, which we owe to the players. The poet, I am perfuaded, wrote, —as doth hourly grow Out of his lunes. i. e. his madness, frenzy. THEOBALD. I take brows to be, properly read, frows, which, I think, is a provincial word for perverfe humours; which being, I suppose, not understood, was changed to lunacies. But of this I am not confident. JOHNSON. I would receive Theobald's emendation, becaufe Shakspeare uses the word lunes in the fame fenfe in The Merry Wives of Windfar and The Winter's Tale. I have met, however, with an inftance in fupport of Dr. Johnfon's conjecture; were you but as favourable as you are frowish—.” Tully's Love, by Greene, 1616. Perhaps, however, Shakspeare defigned a metaphor from horned Moft 'holy and religious fear it is, Ros. The fingle and peculiar life is bound, cattle, whose powers of being dangerous increase with the growth of their brows. STEEVENS. The two readings of brows and lunes-when taken in connection with the paffages referred to by Mr. Steevens, in The Winter's Tale and The Merry Wives of Windfor, plainly figure forth the image under which the King apprehended danger from Hamlet:-viz. that of a bull, which, in his frenzy, might not only gore, but push him from his throne." The hazard that hourly grows out of his BROWS" (according to the quartos) correfponds to "the SHOOTS from the ROUGH PASH," [that is the TUFTED PROTUBERANCE on the bead of a bull, from whence his horns Spring] alluded to in The Winter's Tale; whilft the imputation of impending danger to "bis LUNES" (according to the other reading) anfwers as obviously to the jealous fury of the hufband that thinks he has detected the infidelity of his wife. Thus, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "Why woman, your hufband is in his old lunes-he fo takes on yonder with my husband; fo rails againft all married mankind; fo curfes all Eve's daughters, and fo buffets himself on the forehead, crying peer out! peer out! that any madness, I ever yet beheld, feem'd hut tamenefs, civility, and patience, to this distemper he is now in." HENLEY. Shakspeare probably had here the following paffage in The Hiftory of Hamblett, bl. 1. in his thoughts: "Fengon could not content himfelfe, but ftill his minde gave him that the foole [Hamlet] would play him fome trick of legerdemaine. And in that conceit feeking to be rid of him, determined to find the meanes to do it, by the aid of a ftranger; making the king of England minifter of his maffacrous refolution, to whom he purpofed to fend him." MALONE. 4 That Spirit, upon whofe weal-] So, the quarto. The folio gives, That fpirit, upon whofe fpirit. STEEVENS. Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw age; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Ros. GUIL. We will hafte us. [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Enter POLONIUS. POL. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet; Behind the arras I'll convey myself," To hear the procefs; I'll warrant, fhe'll tax him home : And, as you faid, and wifely was it faid, 'Tis meet, that fome more audience, than a mo ther, Since nature makes them partial,' fhould o'erhear 3 it is a maffy wheel,] Thus the folio. The quarto reads, Or it is &c. MALONE. 6 Behind the arras I'll convey myself,] See Vol. VIII. p. 481, STEEVENS. n. 9. The arras-hangings in Shakspeare's time, were hung at fuch a diftance from the walls, that a perfon might eafily ftand behind them unperceived. MALONE. ↑ Since nature makes them partial, &c.] Matres omnes filiis "In peccato adjutrices, auxilii in paterna injuria STEEVENS. |