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To reafon moft abfurd; whofe common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cry'd,
From the first corfe, till he that died to-day,
This must be fo. We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe; and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And, with no lefs nobility of love,'

Than that which dearest father bears his fon,
Do I impart toward you." For
For your intent

• To reafon most abfurd;] Reafon is here ufed in its common fenfe, for the faculty by which we form conclufions from arguments. JOHNSON. And, with no less nobility of love,] Nobility, for magnitude. WARBURTON.

Nobility is rather generofity. JOHNSON. By nobility of love, Mr. Heath underftands, eminence and diftinction of love. MALONE.

So, afterwards, the Ghoft, defcribing his affection for the Queen: "To me, whose love was that of dignity" &c. STEEVENS. Do I impart toward you.] I believe impart is, impart myself, communicate whatever I can bestow. JOHNSON.

The crown of Denmark was elective. So, in Sir Clyomon Knight of the Golden Shield, &c. 1599:

"And me poffefs for fpoufed wife, who in election am

"To have the crown of Denmark here, as heir unto the fame." The king means, that as Hamlet ftands the fairest chance to be next elected, he will ftrive with as much love to enfure the crown to him, as a father would show in the continuance of heirdom to a fon. STEEVENS.

I agree with Mr. Steevens, that the crown of Denmark (as in moft of the Gothick kingdoms) was elective, and not hereditary; though it might be cuftomary, in elections, to pay fome attention to the royal blood, which by degrees produced hereditary fucceffion. Why then do the rest of the commentators so often treat Claudius as an ufurper, who had deprived young Hamlet of his right by heirship to his father's crown? Hamlet calls him drunkard, murderer, and villain; one who had carried the election by low and mean practices; had

"Popp'd in between the election and my hopes" VOL. XV.

D

In going back to school in Wittenberg,'
It is most retrograde to our defire:

And, we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefeft courtier, coufin, and our fon.

I

QUEEN. Let not thy mother lofe her prayers,
Hamlet;

pray thee, stay with us, go not to Wittenberg. HAM. I fhall in all my best obey you, madam.

KING. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply; Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come; This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet

had

"From a fhelf the precious diadem stole,

"And put it in his pocket:"

but never hints at his being an ufurper. His difcontent arose from his uncle's being preferred before him, not from any legal right which he pretended to fet up to the crown. Some regard was probably had to the recommendation of the preceding prince, in electing the fucceffor. And therefore young Hamlet had "the voice of the king himself for his fucceffion in Denmark;" and he at his own death prophecies that "the election would light on Fortinbras, who had his dying voice," conceiving that by the death of his uncle, he himself had been king for an inftant, and had therefore a right to recommend. When, in the fourth act, the rabble wished to choofe Laertes king, I understand that antiquity was forgot, and cuftom violated, by electing a new king in the life-time of the old one, and perhaps alfo by the calling in a ftranger to the royal blood. BLACKSTONE.

7 to School in Wittenberg,] In Shakspeare's time there was an univerfity at Wittenberg, to which he has made Hamlet propose

to return.

The univerfity of Wittenberg was not founded till 1502, confequently did not exist in the time to which this play is referred. MALONE.

Our author may have derived his knowledge of this famous univerfity from The Life of Lacke Wilton, 1594, or The Hiftory of Doctor Fauftus, of whom the fecond report (printed in the fame year) is faid to be "written by an English gentleman, ftudent in Wittenberg, an University of Germany in Saxony." RITSON.

8

-bend you to remain—] i. e. fubdue your inclination to go from hence, and remain, &c, STEEVENS.

Sits fmiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health,' that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds fhall tell;
And the king's roufe the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Exeunt King, Queen, Lords, &c. POLONIUS,
and LAERTES.

HAM. O, that this too too folid flesh would melt, Thaw, and refolve itself into a dew!3

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst felf-flaughter!+ O God! O God!

Sits fmiling to my heart:] Thus, the dying Lothario:
"That sweet revenge comes fmiling to my thoughts."

Sits fmiling to my heart:] Surely it should be-
Sits fmiling on my heart. RITSON.

STEEVENS.

To my heart, I believe, fignifies-near to, clofe, next to, my heart. STEEVENS. No jocund health,] The king's intemperance is very strongly impreffed; every thing that happens to him gives him occafion to drink. JOHNSON.

the king's roufe-] i. e. the king's draught of jollity. See Othello, A&t II. fc. iii. STEEVENS.

So, in Marlowe's Tragical Hiftorie of Doctor Fauftus:

"He tooke his roufe with stoopes of Rhennish wine." RITSON. 3 — refolve itself into a dew!] Refolve means the fame as diffolve. Ben Jonfon ufes the word in his Volpone, and in the famet fense:

"Forth the refolved corners of his eyes." Again, in The Country Girl, 1647:

"— my fwoln grief, refolved in thefe tears." STEEVENS. 4 Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainft felf-flaughter!] The generality of the editions read-cannon, as if the poet's thought were,-Or that the Almighty had not planted his artillery, or arms of vengeance, against felf-murder. But the word which I reftored (and which was efpoufed by the accurate Mr. Hughes, who gave an edition of this play) is the true reading, i. e. that he had not restrained suicide by bis exprefs law and peremptory prohibition. THEOBALD. There are yet those who suppose the old reading to be the true

How weary, ftale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the ufes of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to feed; things rank, and gross in na-

ture,

Poffefs it merely. That it fhould come to this! But two months dead!-nay, not fo much, not

two:

So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a fatyr: fo loving to my mother,

one, as they fay the word fixed feems to decide very strongly in its favour. I would advife fuch to recollect Virgil's expreffion: -fixit leges pretio, atque refixit." STEEVENS.

66

If the true reading wanted any fupport, it might be found in Cymbeline:

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'gainst felf flaughter

"There is a prohibition fo divine,
"That cravens my weak hand."

In Shakspeare's time canon (norma) was commonly spelt cannon.

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MALONE.

merely.] is entirely, abfolutely. See Vol. III. p. 9, n. 5;

and Vol. XII. p. 131, n. 6. STEEVENS.

6 So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a fatyr:] This fimilitude at firft fight feems to be a little far-fetched; but it has an exquifite beauty. By the Satyr is meant Pan, as by Hyperion, Apollo. Pan and Apollo were brothers, and the allufion is to the contention between those gods for the preference in mufick. WARBURTON.

All our English poets are guilty of the fame falfe quantity, and call Hyperion Hyperion; at leaft the only inftance I have met with to the contrary, is in the old play of Fuimus Troes, 1633:

66

Blow gentle Africus,

"Play on our poops, when Hyperion's fon

"Shall couch in weft."

Shakspeare, I believe, has no allufion in the prefent inftance, except to the beauty of Apollo, and its immediate oppofite, the deformity of a Satyr. STEEVENS.

Hyperion or Apollo is reprefented in all the ancient statues, &c. as exquifitely beautiful, the fatyrs hideously ugly.-Shakspeare may furely be pardoned for not attending to the quantity of Latin names, here and in Cymbeline; when we find Henry Parrot, the

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven' Vifit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!

author of a collection of epigrams printed in 1613, to which a Latin preface is prefixed, writing thus;

"Pofthumus, not the laft of many more,

"Asks why I write in fuch an idle vaine,” &c.

Laquei ridiculofi, or Springes for Woodcocks, 16mo. fign. c. 3.

MALONE.

7 That he might not beteem the winds of heaven-] In former editions:

That he permitted not the winds of heaven-.

This is a sophisticated reading, copied from the players in some of the modern editions, for want of understanding the poet, whofe text is corrupt in the old impreffions: all of which that I have had the fortune to fee, concur in reading:

—fo loving to my mother,

That he might not beteene the winds of heaven

Vifit her face too roughly.

Beteene is a corruption without doubt, but not fo inveterate a one, but that, by the change of a fingle letter, and the feparation. of two words mistakenly jumbled together, I am verily perfuaded, I have retrieved the poet's reading

That he might not let e'en the winds of heaven &C.

THEOBALD.

The obfolete and corrupted verb-beteene, (in the first folio) which should be written (as in all the quartos) beteeme, was changed, as above, by Mr. Theobald; and with the aptitude of his conjecture fucceeding criticks appear to have been fatisfied.

Beteeme, however, occurs in the tenth book of Arthur Golding's verfion of Ovid's Metamorphofis, 4to. 1587; and, from the correfponding Latin, muft neceffarily fignify, to vouchjafe, deign, permit, or fuffer:

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Yet could he not beteeme

"The shape of anie other bird than egle for to feeme.

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Sign, R. 1. b.

Dignatur, nifi quæ poffit fua fulmina ferre." V. 157. Jupiter (though anxious for the poffeffion of Ganymede) would not deign to affume a meaner form, or fuffer change into an humbler fhape, than that of the auguft and vigorous fowl who bears the thunder in his pounces.

The exiftence and fignification of the verb beteem being thus eftablished, it follows, that the attention of Hamlet's father to his queen was exactly such as is defcribed in the Enterlude of the

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