Pol. What is the matter, my lord?

Ham. Between who?

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

Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here, that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, and plumtree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most 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 yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's 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.

Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life.

Pol. Fare you well, my lord.

Ham. These tedious old fools!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

Pol. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there he is.

Ros. God save you, sir!

Guil. My honour'd lord !—

Ros. My most dear lord!—

Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

b

pregnant-] i. e. Ready, dexterous, apt.

Rosencrantz-] There was an embassador of that name in England about the time when this play was written.-STEEVENS.

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. Guil. Happy, in that we are not overhappy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

Guil. 'Faith, her privates we.

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

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

Ham. Then is doomsday 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 'tis 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; 'tis 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.

k

Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our mo

[Let me, &c.] All within crotchets is wanting in the quartos.--STEEVENS.

narchs, 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 halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come; deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

Guil. What should we say, my lord?

Ham. Any thing-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 ever-preserved 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, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. 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

too dear, a halfpenny.] i. e. A halfpenny too dear: they are worth nothing.-MALONE. - an eye of you;] Or, on you.

a steril promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, 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 faculties! 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,-nor woman neither; though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.

Ros. My lord, there is 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 lenten 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 not sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part in peace: the clown shall make those laugh, whose lungs are tickled o'the sere ;" and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't.-What players are they?

Ros. Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.

Ham. How chances it, they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

Ros. I think, their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation."

B

·lenten entertainment-] i. e. Sparing, like the entertainments given in Lent.-STEEVENS.

coted-] i. e. Past by; from costoyer old French, from which the s was soon dropped and is not now written.-NARES.

P

whose lungs are tickled o'the sere;] Of the sere, for by the sere,-a parched affection of the throat, a dry cough.

4 — the lady shall suy her mind, &c.] The lady shall mar the measure of the verse, rather than not express herself freely or fully.-HENDERSON.

their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.] i. e. " Their

Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?

Ros. No, indeed, they are not.

[Ham. How comes it?s Do they grow rusty? Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: But there is, sir, an aiery of children,' little eyases," that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages, (so they call them,) that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come thither.

Ham. What, are they children? who maintains them? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing?" will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players, (as it is most like, if their means are no better,) their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession?

Ros. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre them on to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

Ham. Is it possible?

Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains. Ham. Do the boys carry it away?

permission to act any longer at an established house is taken away, in consequence of the new customs of introducing personal abuse into their comedies." Several companies of actors in the time of our author were silenced on account of this licentious practice.--STEEVENS.

[Ham. How comes it?] These lines enclosed in crotchets are not in any of the quarto's.-JOHNSON.

t

an aiery of children,] Aiery signifies both a young brood of hawks, and the nest itself.-MALONE. The children here alluded to were the young singing men of the Chapel Royal or St. Paul's.-STEEVENS.

eyases,] i. e. Young nestlings.

X on the top of question,] i. e. In the highest notes of voice that can be uttered. Question signifies in this, as in many other places, conversation, discourse. STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.

escoted?] i. e. Paid. From the French escot, a shot or reckoning.

Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing?] Will they follow the profession of players no longer than they can keep the voice of boys, and sing in the choir?-JOHNSON.

a

to tarre them on to controversy:] To provoke any animal to rage, is to tarre him. The word is said to come from the Greek word ragasow.-JOHNSON.