Page images
PDF
EPUB

"To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia.”

That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase: beautified is a vile phrasea; but you shall hear.

"These. In her excellent white bosom, these." b

QUEEN. Came this from Hamlet to her?

POL. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.

"Doubt thou, the stars are fire;

Doubt, that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt, I love.

[Reads.

"O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to reckon my groans: but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

"Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, Hamlet."

This, in obedience, hath my daughter showed me:
And more above, hath his solicitings,

As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

KING.

POL.

Receiv'd his love?

But how hath she

What do you think of me?

KING. As of a man faithful and honourable.

POL. I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing,

[ocr errors]

(As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,

Before my daughter told me,) what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,

If I had play'd the desk, or table-book;

Or given my heart a winking mute and dumb;

Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;

What might you think? no, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak;
"Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy stard;
This must not be:" and then I precepts gave her,

That she should lock herself from his resort,

Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.

Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;

Beautified, according to Polonius, is a vile phrase. It was the common phrase in dedications

to ladies in Shakspere's time:-"To the worthily honoured and vertuous beautified lady, the Lady

Anne Glemnham," &c., is found in a volume of Poems, by R. L., 1596.

See Illustrations to Two Gentlemen of Verona,' Act III., Scene 1.-The ladies of Elizabeth's

day, and much later, wore a small pocket in the front of their stays.

• Winking, in folio; in quartos, working.

d Star, in folio, and in the quartos (A) and (B). In the folio of 1632, star was changed to sphere, which is the modern reading.

[blocks in formation]

QUEEN. It may be; very likely.

POL. Hath there been such a time, (I'd fain know that,)
That I have positively said, ""T is so,"

[blocks in formation]

POL. You know, sometimes he walks four hours together,

[blocks in formation]

QUEEN. But look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
POL. Away, I do beseech you, both away;

C

I'll boord him presently :-0, give me leave.—

How does my good lord Hamlet?

HAM. Well, god-'a-mercy.

POL. Do you know me, my lord?

[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, and Attendants.

HAM. Excellent, excellent well; you 're a fishmonger.

Wail, in folio; in quartos, mourn.

Has, in folio. So he has done, indeed. The quarto reads, does.

Boord. This is ordinarily printed board, but is spelt boord in the folio. Boord, bourd, or board, is to accost; it is also to jeer. Gifford says that to board is to accost (as explained by Sir Toby in Twelfth Night,' Act I., Scene 3); to bourd is to jest; and to boud, to pout, or appear sullen. These distinctions of orthography are, however, very seldom preserved. (See Note on 'Catiline,' Jonson's Works, vol. iv., p. 221.)

POL. Not I, my lord.

HAM. Then I would you were so honest a man.

POL. Honest, my lord?

HAM. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of two thousand.

POL. That's very true, my lord.

HAM. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion,-Have you a daughter?

POL. I have, my lord.

HAM. Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is a blessing; but not as your daughter may conceive,-friend, look to 't.

POL. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harping on my daughter :-yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger: He is far gone, far gone: : and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I'll speak to him again.-What do you read, my

HAM. Words, words, words!

POL. What is the matter, my lord?

HAM. Between who?

POL. I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

lord?

HAM. Slanders, sir: for the satirical slave says here, that old men have gray beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, or plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with weak hams: All of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward. POL. Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. [Aside.] Will you

walk out of the air, my lord?

HAM. Into my grave?

POL. Indeed, that is out o' the air.—How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter. My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

[ocr errors]

HAM. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, my lifed.

[ocr errors][merged small]

The ordinary reading, which was suggested by Warburton, is, "being a god, kissing carrion.' The text, as we give it, is that of the quartos and the folios. We fear that this "noble emendation," as Johnson calls it, cannot be sustained by what follows. The carrion is good at kissingready to return the kiss of the sun-" Common kissing Titan," and in the bitterness of his satire Hamlet associates the idea with the daughter of Polonius. Mr. Whiter, however, considers that good, the original reading, is correct; but that the poet uses the word as a substantive-the GOOD principle in the fecundity of the earth. In that case we should read, "being a good, kissing carrion." (See 'Specimens of a Commentary on Shakespeare,' p. 157.)

• This is ordinarily printed "yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am," a made up reading. So the folio. The quarto (B) reads, “except my life, except my life, except my life.”

[blocks in formation]

HAM. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favour?

GUIL. 'Faith, her privates we.

HAM. In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet.

What's the news?

Ros. None, my lord; but that the world's grown honest.

HAM. Then is dooms-day near: But your news is not true.

Let me question

more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

GUIL. Prison, my lord?

HAM. Denmark's a prison.

Ros. Then is the world one.

HAM. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

HAM. Why, then, 't is none to you: for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 't is too narrow for your mind. HAM. O God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams.

GUIL. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAM. A dream itself is but a shadow.

Ros. Truly; and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow.

HAM. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs and outstretch'd heroes the beggars' shadows: Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot

reason.

Ros., GUIL. We 'll wait upon you.

HAM. No such matter; I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to

speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

Ros. To visit you, my lord: no other occasion.

HAM. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear, a half-penny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come; deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

GUIL. What should we say, my lord?

HAM. Why anything. But to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know, the good king and queen have sent for you. Ros. To what end, my lord?

HAM. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our everpreserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no? Ros. What say you?

[To GUILDENSTERN. HAM. Nay, then I have an eye of you; [Aside.]—if you love me, hold not off. GUIL. My lord, we were sent for.

HAM. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery of your secrecy to the king and queen. Moult no featherb. I have of late, (but, wherefore, I know not,) lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a steril promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you,-this brave o'erhanging firmaments— this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me, no, nor woman neither; though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.

Ros. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAM. Why did you laugh then, when I said, "Man delights not me?"

Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lentend entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service.

HAM. He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target: the lover shall

So the folio. This passage is usually printed from quarto (B), " anything-but to the purpose."

So the folio. The quarto (B) reads, " and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather."

So the quarto (B). The folio omits firmament. (See Illustration 8.)

* Lenten-sparing-like fare in Lent.

• Coted-overtook-went side by side-from côté.

« PreviousContinue »