[Falls, and dies. QUEEN. O me, what hast thou done? HAM. Is it the king? Nay, I know not: [Lifts up the arras, and draws forth POLONIUS. QUEEN. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! HAM. A bloody deed;-almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother. 3 How now! a rat?] This (as Dr. Farmer has obferved) is an expreflion borrowed from The Hiftory of Hamblet, a translation from the French of Belleforeft. STEEVENS. 4 Queen. As kill a king!] This exclamation may be confidered as fome hint that the queen had no hand in the murder of Hamlet's father. STEEVENS. It has been doubted whether Shakspeare intended to represent the queen as acceffary to the murder of her husband. The furprize the here expreffes at the charge feems to tend to her exculpation. Where the variation is not particularly marked, we may prefume, I think, that the poet intended to tell his story as it had been told before. The following extract therefore from The Hyftory of Hamblet, bl. 1. relative to this point, will probably not be unacceptable to the reader: Fengon [the king in the prefent play] boldened and encouraged by fuch impunitie, durft venture to couple himfelf in marriage with her, whom he used as his concubine during good Horvendille's life; in that fort fpotting his name with a double vice, inceftuous adulterie, and paracide murther. This adulterer and infamous murtherer flaundered his dead brother, that he would have flaine his wife, and that hee by chance finding him on the point ready to do it, in defence of the lady, had flaine him.-The unfortunate and wicked woman that had received the honour to be the wife of one of the valianteft and wifeft princes in the North, imbased herselfe in such HAM. Ay, lady, 'twas my word. [TO POLONIUS. vile fort as to falfifie her faith unto him, and, which is worse, to marrie him that had bin the tyrannous murtherer of her lawful husband; which made diverfe men think that he had been the caufer of the murther, thereby to live in her adulterie without controle." Hyft. of Hamb. fig. C 1. 2. In the conference however with her fon, on which the present fcene is founded, fhe ftrongly afferts her innocence with refpect to this fact: "I know well, my fonne, that I have done thee great wrong in marrying with Fengon, the cruel tyrant and murtherer of thy father, and my loyal fpoufe; but when thou fhalt confider the fmall means of resistance, and the treafon of the palace, with the little cause of confidence we are to expect, or hope for, of the courtiers, all wrought to his will; as alfo the power he made ready if I fhould have refused to like him; thou wouldst rather excufe, than accuse me of lasciviousness or inconftancy, much lefs offer me that wrong to suspect that ever thy mother Geruth once confented to the death and murther of her husband: fwearing unto thee by the majestie of the gods, that if it had layne in me to have refifted the tyrant, although it had beene with the loffe of my blood, yea and of my life, I would furely have faved the life of my lord and husband.” Ibid. fig. D 4. It is obfervable, that in the drama neither the king or queen make fo good a defence. Shakspeare wifhed to render them as odious as he could, and therefore has not in any part of the play furnished them with even the femblance of an excufe for their conduct. Though the inference already mentioned may be drawn from the furprize which our poet has here made the queen exprefs at being charged with the murder of her husband, it is obfervable that when the player-queen in the preceding scene fays, "In fecond husband let me be accurft! "None wed the fecond, but who kill'd the firft," he has made Hamlet exclaim-" that's wormwood." The prince, therefore, both from the expreffion and the words addressed to his mother in the prefent fcene, muft be fuppofed to think her guilty. -Perhaps after all this investigation, the truth is, that Shakspeare himself meant to leave the matter in doubt. MALONE. I know not in what part of this tragedy the king and queen could have been expected to enter into a vindication of their mutual conduct. The former indeed is rendered contemptible as well as I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune: Thou find'ft, to be too bufy, is fome danger.Leave wringing of your hands: Peace; fit you down, And let me wring your heart: for fo I fhall, guilty; but for the latter our poet feems to have felt all that tendernefs which the Ghoft recommends to the imitation of her fon. STEEVENS. Had Shakspeare thought fit to have introduced the topicks I have fuggefted, can there be a doubt concerning his ability to introduce them? The king's juftification, if to juftify him had been the poet's object, (which it certainly was not,) might have been made in a foliloquy; the queen's, in the prefent interview with her fon. MALONE. It might not unappofitely be obferved, that every new commentator, like Sir T. Hanmer's Othello, muft often "make the meat he feeds on." Some flight objection to every opinion already offered, may be found; and, if in doubtful cafes we are to prefume that "the poet tells his flories as they have been told before," we muft put new conftructions on many of his fcenes, as well as new comments on their verbal obfcurities. For inftance-touching the manner in which Hamlet difpofed of Polonius's body. The black-letter history tells us he cut it in pieces, which he caused to be boiled, and then caft it into an open vault or privie." Are we to conclude therefore that he did fo in the play before us, because our author has left the matter doubtful? Hamlet is only made to tell us that this dead counsellor was fafely ftowed." He afterwards adds " you shall nofe him" &c.; all which might have been the cafe, had the direction of the aforefaid history been exactly followed. In this tranfaction then (which I call a doubtful one, because the remains of Polonius might have been rescued from the forica, and afterwards have received their hugger-mugger" funeral) am I at liberty to suppose he had had the fate of Heliogabalus, in cloacam miffus? That the Queen (who may ftill be regarded as innocent of murder) might have offered fome apology for her "over-hafty marriage," can eafily be fuppofed; but Mr. Malone has not fuggefted what defence could have been fet up by the royal fratricide. My acute predeceffor, as well as the novellift, must have been aware that though female weaknefs, and an offence against the forms of the world, will admit of extenuation, fuch guilt as that of the ufurper, could not have been palliated by the dramatick art of Shakspeare; even if the father of Hamlet had been reprefented as a wicked instead of a virtuous character. STEEVENS. If it be made of penetrable ftuff; If damned cuftom have not braz'd it so, In noise fo rude against me? HAM. takes off the rofe &c.] Alluding to the cuftom of wearing rofes on the fide of the face. See a note on a paffage in King John, A&I. WARBURTON. I believe Dr. Warburton is mistaken; for it must be allowed that there is a material difference between an ornament worn on the forehead, and one exhibited on the fide of the face. Some have understood thefe words to be only a metaphorical enlargement of the fentiment contained in the preceding line: blurs the grace and blush of modefty:" but as the forehead is no proper fituation for a blush to be displayed in, we may have recourfe to another explanation. It was once the custom for those who were betrothed, to wear fome flower as an external and confpicuous mark of their mutual engagement. So, in Spenfer's Shepherd's Calendar for April: 66 Bring coronations and fops in wine, "Worn of paramours." Lyte, in his Herbal, 1578, enumerates fops in wine among the fmaller kind of fingle gilliflowers or pinks. Figure 4, in the Morrice-dance (a plate of which is annexed to the First Part of King Henry IV.) has a flower fixed on his forehead, and feems to be meant for the paramour of the female character. The flower might be defigned for a rofe, as the colour of it is red in the painted glafs, though its form is expreffed with as little adherence to nature as that of the marygold in the hand of the lady. It may, however, conduct us to affix a new meaning to the lines in queftion. This flower, as I have fince difcovered, is exactly fhaped like the fops in wine, now called the Deptford Pink. An Addrefs" To all Judiciall cenfurers," prefixed to The Whipper of the Satyre his pennance in a white Sheete, or the Beadle's Confutation, 1601, begins likewife thus: "Brave fprited gentles, on whofe comely front From the fair forehead of an innocent love, A rhapsody of words: Heaven's face doth glow; Sets a blifter there, has the fame meaning as in Measure for Measure: "Who falling in the flaws of her own youth, "Hath blifter'd her report." See Vol. IV. p. 247 and 248, n. 9. STEEVENS. I believe, by the rofe was only meant the rofeate hue. The forehead certainly appears to us an odd place for the hue of innocence to dwell on, but Shakspeare might place it there with as much propriety as a mile. In Troilus and Creffida we find these lines: "So rich advantage of a promis'd glory, "As fmiles upon the forehead of this action." That part of the forehead which is fituated between the eyebrows, feems to have been confidered by our poet as the feat of innocence and modefty. So, in a subsequent scene: 66 brands the harlot, "Even here, between the chafte unfmirched brow In the foregoing quotation from Troilus and Crefida, I underftand that the forehead is fmiled upon by advantage, and not that the forehead is itself the fmiler. Thus, fays Laertes in the play before us: "Occafion fmiles upon a second leave." But it is not the leave that smiles, but occafion that smiles upon it. In the fubfequent paffage, our author had no choice; for having alluded to that part of the face which was anciently branded with a mark of fhame, he was compelled to place his token of innocence in a correfponding fituation. STEEVENS. 6 from the body of contraction-] Contraction for marriage WARBURTON. contract. 7 Heaven's face doth glow; Yea, this folidity and compound mafs, With triftful vifage, as against the doom, Is thought-fick at the act.] If any fenfe can be found here, it is this. The fun glows [and dees it not always?] and the very |