Page images
PDF
EPUB

It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy2. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,

And, after, we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

Hor.

Well, my lord;

If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Ham. They are coming to the play: I must be idle; Get you a place.

Danish March. A Flourish. Enter King, Queen, PoloNIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and Others.

King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?

Ham. Excellent, i̇' faith; of the camelion's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed capons

So.

King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet : these words are not mine.

Ham. No, nor mine now.-My lord, you played once in the university, you say? [TO POLONIUS. Pol. That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good

actor.

Ham. And what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar3: I was killed 'the Capitol; Brutus killed me.

Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the players ready?

Ros. Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.
Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet', sit by me.

2 As Vulcan's STITHY.] i. e. Vulcan's forge. See Vol. vi. p. 107. It is stithe in the folio, which makes another misprint in the line, needful for "heedful." * I did enact JULIUS CESAR :] A Latin play on Cæsar's death, by Dr. Edes, was performed in Oxford, in 1582. See the Introduction to “ Julius Cæsar.”

my DEAR Hamlet,] The folio, "my good Hamlet." In the quarto, 1603, the Queen only calls him Hamlet.

Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attrac

[blocks in formation]

Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?

Oph. Ay, my lord3.

Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters?

Oph. I think nothing, my lord.

Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids'

legs.

Oph. What is, my lord?

Ham. Nothing.

Oph. You are merry, my lord.

Ham. Who, I?

Oph. Ay, my lord.

Ham. O God! your only jig-maker. What should a man do, but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

Ham. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope, a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year; but, by'r-lady, he must build churches then, or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, "For, O! for, O! the hobby-horse is forgot"."

5 Ay, my lord.] This answer, and Hamlet's question producing it, are only in the folios.

6 -- your only jig-maker.] See p. 251, note 2. Some of the "jigs" made by Tarlton are extant in manuscript, as well as the music to which they were sung by him.

7

the hobby-horse is forgot.] Alluding to the omission of the hobby-horse in the May-games. See Vol. ii. p. 311, where this line, from some old ballad of the time, is also quoted.

Trumpets sound. The dumb Show enters.

Enter a King and Queens, very lovingly; the Queen embracing him. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck; lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner woos the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile; but in the end accepts his love. [Exeunt.

Oph. What means this, my lord?

Ham. Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief".

Oph. Belike, this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue.

Ham. We shall know by this fellow 10: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.

Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant?

Ham. Ay, or any show that you will show him: be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught. I'll mark the play.

8 Enter a king and queen, &c.] This is the stage direction as it stands in the folio, 1623. It differs, but not at all materially, from the later quartos.

9 this is MICHING mallecho; it means mischief.] The quartos (with the exception of the first of 1603) read "munching Mallico :" "miching," i. e. stealing, is no doubt the right word; and by Minshew's Dictionary, 1617, it appears that mallecho is Spanish for a malefaction—any ill deed. In modern Spanish dictionaries the word is spelt malhecho, and the sense given is badly done.

10

by THIS FELLOW :] The folio, "by these fellows." Every quarto has "this fellow," rightly in the singular.

Pro. "For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently."

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the poesy of a ring?
Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a King and a Queen.

P. King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd sheen,
About the world have times twelve thirties been;
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

P. Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er, ere love be done.
But, woe is me! you are so sick of late,

So far from cheer, and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;
For women's fear and love hold quantity,
In neither aught, or in extremity'.

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know,
And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

1 In neither aught, or in extremity.] We print this and the two previous lines as in the folio: in the quartos, 1604, &c. (there is no trace of them in that of 1603) they run thus :

:

"For women fear too much, even as they love,
And women's fear and love hold quantity,

Either none, in neither aught, or in extremity."

As the whole of this play within a play is in rhyme, and as there is no corresponding line to that ending in "love," the probability is, that a portion of the old text has been lost, and that the editors of the folio, 1623, finding it impossible to restore it, omitted a line not absolutely necessary to the sense. Why the concluding couplet of the speech was also omitted in the folio, we cannot at all understand, but it has nothing after the words "my fear is so." Perhaps the two last lines were thought not very intelligible.

P. King. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly

too;

My operant powers their functions' leave to do:

And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, belov'd; and, haply, one as kind
For husband shalt thou-

P. Queen.

O, confound the rest!

Such love must needs be treason in my breast:

In second husband let me be accurst;

None wed the second, but who kill'd the first.

Ham. [Aside.] Wormwood, wormwood3.

P. Queen. The instances, that second marriage move, Are base respects of thrift, but none of love: A second time I kill my husband dead, When second husband kisses me in bed.

P. King. I do believe you think what now you speak,

But what we do determine oft we break.

Purpose is but the slave to memory,

Of violent birth, but poor validity;

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis, that we forget

To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures' with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange,

2 their functions-] The folio substitutes my for "their."

› Wormwood, wormwood.] We follow the folio here: the earliest quarto reads, "O! wormwood." The other quartos, "That's wormwood ;" and it is placed in the margin, as if at first it had been accidentally omitted. The object might be to save room in the printing.

Their own ENACTURES-] So the quartos: the folio, enactors, which may be right: other, for "either," in the preceding line, must be wrong.

VOL. VII.

T

« PreviousContinue »