310

Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in most facred bands.

P. Queen. So many journeys may the fun and moon
Make us again count o'er, ere love be done!

But, woe is me, you are so fick of late,

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

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you
And as my love is fiz'd, my fear is fo.

know;

Where love is great, the littleft doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great

love grows there.

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 fhalt thou-

4-even as they love ;] Here feems to be a line loft, which should have rhymed to love. JOHNSON.

This line is omitted in the folios. Perhaps a triplet was defigned, and then instead of love, we should read, luft.

next line thus:

The folio gives the

"For women's fear and love bolds quantity." STEEVENS. Some trace of the loft line is found in the quarto, which reads: Either none in neither aught, &c.

Perhaps the words omitted might have been of this import:
Either none they feel, or an excess approve;

In neither aught, or in extremity.

In two preceding paffages in the quarto, half a line was inadver tently omitted by the compofitor. See p. 276," then fenfeless Ilium, feeming," &c. and p. 291, "thus confcience does make cowards of us all: the words in Italick characters are not found in the quarto.

MALONE.

5 Where love, &c.] Thefe two lines are omitted in the folio.

6

STEEVENS

operant powers-] Operant is active. Shakspeare gives it in Timon as an epithet to pofon. Heywood has likewise used it in his Royal King and Loyal Subject, 1637:

may my operant parts
"Each one forget their office!"
The word is now obfolete. STEEVENS.

P. Queen

P. Queen. O, confound the reft!

Such love muft needs be treason in my breast:
In fecond hufband let me be accurft!

None wed the fecond, but who kill'd the first.
Ham. That's wormwood.

P. Queen. The inftances, that fecond marriage move Are base refpects of thrift, but none of love; A fecond time I kill my husband dead, When fecond 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 flave to memory;

Of violent birth, but poor validity:

Which now, like fruit unripe, fticks on the tree;
But fall, unfhaken, when they mellow be.
Moft neceffary 'tis, that we forget

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

Their own enactures with themselves deftroy?:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on flender accident.
This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange,
That even our loves fhould with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a queftion left us yet to prove,

Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies;
The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:
For who not needs, fhall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.

7 The inftances,-] The motives. JOHNSON.

8 - what to ourselves is debt:] The performance of a refolution, in which only the refolver is interested, is a debt only to himself, which he may therefore remit at pleasure. JOHNSON.

The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures with themselves defroy :] What grief or joy enaЯ or determine in their violence, is revoked in their abatement. Enatures is the word in the quarto; all the modern editors have enactors. JOHNSON.

X 4

But,

But, orderly to end where I begun,-
Our wills, and fates, do fo contráry run,
That our devices ftill are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no fecond husband wed;

But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead.

P. Queen. Nor earth to me give food', nor heaven light! Sport and repofe lock from me, day, and night! To defperation turn my trust and hope! An anchor's cheer in prifon be my scope 3! Each oppofite, that blanks the face of joy, Meet what I would have well, and it destroy! Both here, and hence, pursue me lafting ftrife, If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

Ham. If the fhould break it now,

[to Oph.

P. King. 'Tis deeply fworn. Sweet, leave me here a

while;

My fpirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with fleep.

P. Queen. Sleep rock thy brain;

And never come mifchance between us twain!

[leeps. [Exit.

1 Nor earth to me give food,-] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio and the late editors read:

Nor earth to give me food,-.

An imperative or optative verb was evidently intended here, as in the following line: "Sport and repofe lock from me," &c. MALONE. 2 To defperation, &c.] This and the following line are omitted in the folio. STEEVENS.

3 An anchor's cheer in prifon be my Scope !] May my whole liberty and enjoyment be to live on hermit's fare in a prifon. Anchor is for anchoret. JOHNSON.

This abbreviation of the word ancboret is very ancient. I find it in the Romance of Robert the Devil, printed by Wynkin de Worde: "We have robbed and killed nonnes, holy aunkers, preeftes, clerkes," &c. Again, in The Vifion of Pierce Plowman:

"As ankers and hermits that hold them in her felles."

This and the foregoing line are not in the folio. I believe we should read-anchor's chair. So, in the fecond Satire of Hall's fourth book, edit. 1602, p. 18:

"Sit feven yeares pining in an anchore's cheyre,

"To win fome parched threds of minevere." STEEVENS. The old copies read-And anchor's cheer. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

Ham

Ham. Madam, how like you this play?

Queen. The lady doth proteft too much, methinks.
Ham. O, but she'll keep her word.

King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't?

Ham. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' the world.

King. What do you call the play?

Ham. The moufe-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's names; his wife, Baptifta* : you shall see anon; 'tis a knavifh piece of work: But what of that? your majefty, and we that have free fouls, it touches us not: Let the gall'd jade wince, our withers are unwrung.—

Enter LUCIANUS.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

4 The mouse-trap.] He calls it the moufe-trap, because it is

the thing

In which he'll catch the confcience of the king. STEEVENS. 5 Gonzago is the duke's name ;] Thus all the old copies: yet in the ftage-direction for the dumb fhew, and the fubfequent entrance, we have "Enter a king and queen," &c. and in the latter part of this fpeech both the quarto and folio read-Lucianus, nephew to the king.

This feeming inconfistency however may be reconciled. Though the interlude is the image of the murder of a duke of Vienna, or in other words founded upon that ftory, the poet might make the principal perfon of bis fable a king. MALONE.

Baptifta- is, I think, in Italian, the name always of a man: JOHNSON. 7 Let the gall'd ja de wince, &c.] This is a proverbial saying. So, in Damon and Pythias, 1582:

8

"I know the gall'd borfe will fooneft wince." STEEVENS. -nephew to the king.]-i. e. to the king in the play then reprefented. The modern editors, following Mr. Theobald, read—“ nephew to the duke," though they have not followed that editor in fubftituting duke and dutchess, for king and queen, in the dumb fhew and fubfequent entrance. There is no need of departing from the old copies. See n. 5. MALONE.

Ham.

Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could fee the puppets dallying 9.

Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

Ham. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge.

Oph. Still better, and worse '.

Come :

Ham. So you mistake your husbands 2.-Begin, murderer;-leave thy damnable faces, and begin. The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge. Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, agreeing;

and time

Confederate feason, elfe no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecat's ban thrice blafted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magick and dire property,
On wholefome life ufurp immediately.

[pours the poifon into the fleeper's ears.

Нат.

I could interpret, &c.] This refers to the interpreter, who formerly fat on the ftage at all motions or puppet-fhews, and interpreted to the audience. So, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"Oh excellent motion! oh exceeding puppet!

"Now will he interpret for her."

Again, in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, 1621: "It was I that penn'd the Moral of man's wit, the Dialogue of Dives, and for feven years' fpace was abfolute interpreter of the puppets." STEEVENS.

Still better, and worse.] i. e. better in regard to the wit of your double entendre, but worfe in refpect of the groffnefs of your meaning, STEEVENS.

2 So you miftake your bufbands.] Read, So you must take your busbands; that is, for better, for worse. JOHNSON.

Theobald propofed the fame reading in his Shakspeare Reftored, however he lost it afterwards. STEEVENS.

"So you mistake your husbands."

I believe this to be right: the word is fometimes ufed in this luditrous manner. "Your true trick rafcal (fays Urfula in Bartbolomera Fair) must be ever bufie, and miftake away the bottles and cans, be fore they be half drunk off." FARMER.

Again, in Ben Jonfon's Mafque of Augurs: "To miftake fix torches from the chandry, and give them one."

2

Again,