which, perhaps, imparts additional solemnity to this impressive preparation for the appearance of the spectre.

e Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.] As exorcisms were usually pronounced by the clergy in Latin, the notion became current, that supernatural beings regarded only the addresses of the learned. In proof of this belief, Reed quotes the following from "The Night Walker" of Beaumont and Fletcher, Act II. Sc. 2, where Toby is scared by a supposed ghost, and exclaims,"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin, And that will daunt the devil."

With martial stalk he passed through our watch. HOR. In what particular thought to work, I know not;

But in the gross and scope of minet opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
MAR. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that
knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land?
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week ;
What might be toward that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the
day:

Who is't that can inform me ?

(*) First folio omits, he.
(†) First folio, my.
(1) First folio, on.

e and jump at this dead hour.-] So the quartos; the folio substitutes the more modern word, just: but in Shakespeare's day, "jump" was the familiar term. So in Act. V. Sc. 2, of this play,

"But since, so jump upon this bloody question." So, also, in " Othello," Act II. Sc. 3,

11

bring him jump when he may Cassio find." With martial stalk he passed through our watch.) The reading of the earliest quarto, and presenting a finer image than that of the subsequent editions, which have,

So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch, and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage" in the land.
BER. I think it be no other, but e'en so:"
Well may
it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the
king

That was and is the question of these wars.

HOR. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; (1) and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse:
And even the like precurse of fierce events,—
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,—
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.—
But, soft! behold! lo, where it comes again!

Re-enter Ghost.

I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illusion !d
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
[Cock crows.
Speak of it-stay, and speak!-Stop it, Mar-
cellus.

a

romage-] Commotion, turmoil.

b I think it be no other, but e'en so:] This and the seventeen succeeding lines are not in the folio.

c I'll cross it, though it blast me.-] It was an ancient superstition, that any one who crossed the spot on which a spectre was seen, became subjected to its malignant influence. See Blakeway's note ad l. in the Variorum edition.

Stay, illusion!] Attached to these words in the 1604 quarto, is a stage direction,-" It spreads his arms."

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat-] This is the text of the folio and all the quartos, except the first, which reads, perhaps preferably,

HOR. And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,* Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine and of the truth herein, This present object made probation.

MAR. It faded on the crowing of the cock.(2) Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dare stir† abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

HOR. So have I heard, and do in part believe it. But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill:' Break we our watch up; and, by my advice, Let us impart what we have seen to-night Unto young Hamlet: for, upon my life, This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him: Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MAR. Let's do 't, I pray and I this morning

We adopt the lection of the folio, as more in accordance with the poetical phraseology of the period. Thus, in Chapman's translation of the Thirteenth Book of Homer's Odyssey,

"Ulysses still

An eye directed to the eastern hill."

And Spenser charmingly ushers in the morn by telling us that—

" —— cheareful Chaunticlere with his note shrill

Had warned once, that Phoebus' fiery Car
In haste was climbing up the Eastern Hill,
Full envious that Night so long his room did fill.”

With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in
marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along:-for all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,-
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.—
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting,
Thus much the business is:-we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,-
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears

Of this his nephew's purpose,-to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the
Of these dilated articles allow.

scope

Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty. COR., VOL. In that and all things will we show our duty.

KING. We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell.—
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNElius.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is 't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice: what wouldst thou beg.
Laertes,

That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes ?

says Polonius?

POL. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave

By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go."
KING. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be
thine,

And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,-
HAM. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and less
than kind.b

KING. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

C

HAM. Not so, my lord; I am too much i'
the sun.
[off,
QUEEN. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 't is common,-all that lives must
Passing through nature to eternity.

HAM. Ay, madam, it is common.
QUEEN.

If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

[die,

[seems.

HAM. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of fore'd breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected haviour of the visage, Together with all forms, modes,* shows of grief, That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These, but the trappings and the suits of woe. KING. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father: But, you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound, In filial obligation, for some term

d

To do obsequious sorrow: but to perséver,
In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 't is unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 't is a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,

This must be so. 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 less nobility of love