Enter HAMLET. Ham. Now, mother; what's the matter? Queen. Hamlet, thou haft thy father much offended. Ham. No, by the rood, not fo: You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife; You go not, till I fet you up a glass Where you may fee the inmoft part of you. Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me? Help, help, ho! Pol. [behind.] What, ho! help! Ham. How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead. [draws. [Hamlet makes a pass through the arrase Pol. [behind.] O, I am slain. Queen. O me, what haft thou done? Is it the king? [falls, and dies. [lifts up the arras, and draws forth Polonius. Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Ham. A bloody deed;-almoft as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother. understood, and by that means intercepted, ufed his ordinary manner of diflimulation, and began to come [r. crow] like a cocke, beating with his arms (in fuch manner as cockes ufe to ftrike with their wings) upon the hangings of the chamber; whereby feeling fomething stirring under them, he cried, a rat, a rat, and prefently drawing his fworde, thruft it into the hangings; which done, pulled the counfellour (half-deade) out by the heeles, made an end of killing him; and, being flaine, cut his body in pieces, which he caufed to be boyled, and then caft it into an open vault or privie." MALONE. Queen. Queen. As kill a king?! Ham. Ay, lady, 'twas my word. Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewel! [to Polonius. I took 9 Queen. As kill a king !] It has been doubted, whether Shakspeare intended to reprefent the queen as acceffary to the murder of her husband. The furprize the here expreffes at the charge feems to tend to her exculpation. Where the variation is not particularly marked, we may prefume, I think, that the poet intended to tell his story as it had been told before. The following extract therefore from The Hyftory of Hamblet, bl. let. relative to this point, will probably not be unacceptable to the reader: "Fengon [the king in the present play] boldened and encouraged by fuch impunitie, durft venture to couple himself in marriage with her, whom he ufed as his concubine during good Horvendille's life; in that fort fpotting his name with a double vice, inceftuous adulterie, and paracide murther.-- 1 his adulterer and infamous murtherer flaundered his dead brother, that he would have flaine his wife, and that hee by chance finding him on the point ready to do it, in defence of the lady, had flaine him.The unfortunate and wicked woman that had received the honour to be the wife of one of the valianteft and wifeft princes in the North, imbafed herselfe in fuch vile fort as to falfifie her faith unto him, and, which is worfe, to marrie him that had bin the tyrannous murtherer of her lawful husband; which made diverje men think that she bad beene the caufer of the murther, thereby to live in her adulterie without controle." Hyft. of Hamb. fig. C 1. 2. In the conference however with her fon, on which the present scene is founded, the strongly allerts her innocence with refpect to this fact: "I know well, my fonne, that I have done thee great wrong in marrying with Fengon, the cruel tyrant and murtherer of thy father, and my loyal fpoufe; but when thou fhalt confider the mall meanes of refiitance, and the treafon of the palace, with the little cause of confidence we are to expect, or hope for, of the courtiers, all wrought to his will; as alfo the power he made ready if I fhould have refufed to like him; thou wouldst rather excufe, than accufe mee of lafcivioufaefs or inconftancy, much lets offer me that wrong to fufpect that ever thy mother Geruth once conjented to the death and murther of ber bufband: fwearing unto thee by the majeftie of the gods, that if it had layne in me to have refifted the tyrant, although it had beene with the loffe of my blood, yea and of my life, I would furely have faved the life of my lord and huiband." Ibid. fig. D 4. It is obfervable, that in the drama neither the king or queen make fo good a defence. Shakspeare wished to render them as odious as he could, and therefore has not in any part of the play furnished them with even the femblance of an excute for their conduct. Though the inference already mentioned may be drawn from the 2 furprize I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune: If it be made of penetrable ftuff; If damned cuftom have not braz'd it so, Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'ft wag thy tongue In noise fo rude against me? Ham. Such an act, That blurs the grace and blush of modesty ; And furprize which our poet has here made the queen exprefs at being charged with the murder of her husband, it is obfervable that when the player-queen in the preceding scene says, "In fecond husband let me be accurft! "None wed the fecond, but who kill'd the firft," he has made Hamlet exclaim-"that's wormwood." The prince, therefore, both from that expreffion and the words addreffed to his mother in the prefent fcene, muft be fuppofed to think her guilty.-Perhaps after all this investigation, the truth is, that Shakspeare himself meant to leave the matter in doubt. MALONE. I know not in what part of this tragedy the king and queen could have been expected to enter into a vindication of their mutual conduct. The former indeed is rendered contemptible as well as guilty; but for the latter our poet feems to have felt all that tenderness which the gholt recommends to the imitation of her fon. STEEVENS. Had Shakspeare thought fit to have introduced the topicks I have fuggefted, can there be a doubt concerning his ability to introduce them? The king's juftification, if to justify him had been the poet's object, (which it certainly was not,) might have been made in a foliloquy; the queen's, in the prefent interview with her fon. MALONE. takes off the rofe, &c.] Some have understood thefe words to be only a metaphorical enlargement of the fentiment contained in the preceding line: blurs the grace and blush of modesty : but as the forelead is no proper fituation for a blush to be difplayed in, we may have recourfe to another explanation. It was once the custom for those who were betrothed, to wear fome flower as an external and confpicuous mark of their mutual engageSo, in Sperfer's Shepherd's Calendar for April: ment. "Bring coronations and fops in wine, "Worn of paramours." Lyte, in his Herbal, 1578, enumerates fops in wine among the fmaller kind of fingle gilliflowers or pinks. And fets a blifter there; makes marriage vows Queen. Ah me, what act, That Figure 4, in the Morrice-dance, (a plate of which is annexed to the First Part of K. Henry IV.) has a flower fixed on his forebead, and feems to be meant for the paramour of the female character. The flower might be defigned for a rofe, as the colour of it is red in the painted glass, though its form is exprefled with as little adherence to nature as that of the marygold in the hand of the lady. It may, however, conduct us to aflix a new meaning to the lines in question. This flower, as I have fince difcovered, is exactly shaped like the fops in wine, now called the Deptford Pink. Sets a blifter there, has the fame meaning as in Meafure for Measures "Who falling in the flaws of her own youth, Hath blifter'd her report." See a note on this paffage, Act II. Sc. 3. STEEVENS. I believe, by the rofe was only meant the rofeate bue. The forehead certainly appears to us an odd place for the hue of innocence to dwell on, but Shakspeare might place it there with as much propriety as a smile. In Troilus and Creffida we find these lines: So rich advantage of a promis'd glory, "As fmiles upon the forebead of this action." That part of the forehead which is fituated between the eye-brows, feems to have been confidered by our poet as the feat of innocence and modefty. So, in a fubfequent scene: 2 tra&. 2 brands the harlot, "Even here, between the chafte unfmirched brow "Of my true mother." MALONE. from the body of contraction-] Contraction for marriage cono WARBURTON. Heaven's face doth glow; Yea, this folidity and compound mass, With triftful vifage, as against the doom, Is thought-fick at the act.] If any fenfe can be found here, it is this. The fun glows, [and does it not always?] and the very folid mafs of earth has a triftful vifage, and is thought-fick. All this is fad ftuff. The old quarto reads much nearer to the poet's sense: Heaven's face does glow, O'er this folidity and compound mass, From That roars fo loud, and thunders in the index 4 ? Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this5; From whence it appears, that Shakspeare wrote: O'er this folidity and compouna mass, With triftful vifage; and, as 'gainst the doom, The This makes a fine fenfe, and to this effect. The fun looks upon our globe, the fcene of this murder, with an angry and mournful counWARBURTON. tenance, half hid in eclipfe, as at the day of doom. The word beated, though it agrees well enough with glow, is, I think, not fo striking as triftful, which was, I fuppofe, chofen at the revifal. I believe the whole paffage now ftands as the author gave it. Dr. Warburton's reading reftores two improprieties, which Shakfpeare, by his alteration, had removed. In the first, and in the new reading, Heaven's face glows with triftful visage; and, Heaven's face is thought-fick. To the common reading there is no objection. JOHNS. I am strongly inclined to think that the reading of the quarto, 1604, is the true one. In Shakspeare's licentious diction, the meaning may be, The face of heaven doth glow with heated vifage, over the earth: and beaven, as against the day of judgment, is thought-fick at the act. Had not our poet St. Luke's defcription of the last day in his thoughts?" And there shall be figns in the fun and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth diftrefs of nations, with perplexity, the fea and the waves roaring: men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking on those things which are coming on the earth; MALONE. for the powers of heaven shall be fhaken," &c. 4 That roars fo loud, &c.] The meaning is, What is this act, of which the difcovery, or mention, cannot be made, but with this violence of clamour? JOHNSON. -and thunders in the index?] Mr. Edwards obferves, that the indexes of many old books were at that time inferted at the beginning, instead of the end, as is now the cuftom. This obfervation I have often feen confirmed. So, in Othello, A& II. fc. vii" an index and obfcure prologue to the hiftory of luft and foul thoughts." STEEVENS. See Vol. VIII. p. 180, n. 6. Bullokar in his Expofitor, 8vo. 1616, defines an Index by " A table in a booke." The table was almost always prefixed to the books of our poet's age. Indexes, in the fense in which we now understand the word, were very uncommon. MALONE. 5 Look bere, upon this piƐure, and on this ;] It is evident from the following words, Aftation, like the herald Mercury, &c. that thefe pictures, which are introduced as miniatures on the ftage, were meant for whole lengths, being part of the furniture of the queen's clofet. like Maia's fon be food, And book bis plumes.Milton, B. V. STEEVENS. The |