BER. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus. HOR. What, has this thing appear'd again tonight? BER. I have seen nothing. MAR. Horatio fays, 'tis but our fantasy; With us to watch the minutes of this night;" Sit down awhile; 6 Hor. What, &c.] Thus the quarto, 1604. STEEVENS. These words are in the folio given to Marcellus. MALONE. —the minutes of this might;] This feems to have been an expreffion common in Shakspeare's time. I find it in one of Ford's plays, The Fancies chaßte and noble, A& V: "I promise ere the minutes of the night." STEEVENS. ∙approve our eyes,] Add a new teftimony to that of our eyes. JOHNSON. So, in King Lear: "this approves her letter, "That the would foon be here." See Vol. XII. p. 413, n. 7. STEEVENS. He may approve our eyes,] He may make good the teftimony of our eyes; be affured by his own experience of the truth of that which we have related, in confequence of having been eye-witnesses to it. To approve in Shakspeare's age, fignified to make good, or eftablish, and is fo defined in Cawdrey's Alphabetical Table of bard English words, Svo, 1604. So, in King Lear: "Good king, that must approve the common faw! What we two nights have seen." HOR. Well, fit we down, And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. BER. Last night of all, When yon fame ftar, that's weftward from the pole, Had made his courfe to illume that part of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself, The bell then beating one, MAR. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again! Enter Ghoft. BER. In the fame figure, like the king that's dead. MAR. Thou art a fcholar, fpeak to it, Horatio.* BER. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Ho ratio. HOR. Moft like:-it harrows me3 with fear, and wonder. What we two nights have seen.] This line is by Sir T. Hanmer given to Marcellus, but without neceffity. JOHNSON. Thou art a fcholar, fpeak to it, Horatio.] It has always been a vulgar notion that fpirits and fupernatural beings can only be fpoken to with propriety or effect by perfons of learning. Thus, Toby in The Night-walker, by Beaumont and Fletcher, fays: It grows ftill longer, " 'Tis fteeple-high now; and it fails away, nurse. In like manner the honest butler in Mr. Addison's Drummer, recommends the steward to speak Latin to the ghost in that play. REED. 3 — it harrows me &c.] To harrow is to conquer, to fubdue, BER. It would be spoke to. M43. Speak to it, Horatio. Hoa. What are thou, that ufurp'A this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form In which the malety of buried Denmark fpeas. MAR. It is offended. B:3. Sce! it fulks away. Hoa. Stay; fpeak; fpeak I charge thee, fpeak. [Exit Ghost. MAR. 'Tis gone, and will not answer. Esa. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale: Is not this fomething more than fintafy? What think you of it? Hoa. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the fentible and true avouch HOR. As thou art to thyfelf: Such was the very armour he had on, When he the ambitious Norway combated; So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle, The word is of Saxon origin. So, in the old bl. 1. romance of Syr He swore be him that be erved beil.** Milton has adopted this phrase in bis Came ** Amar'd I thood, herrow'd uut grief and four (** STEEVENS. 24279 parle.1 This is one of the affected words introdaced by Lyly. So, in Tren je Mon and xil the RA Fuis, 1619: you told we at our luk pare. STEEVENS that He smote the fledded Polack on the ice." 'Tis ftrange. MAR. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour, 5 —fledded-] A fled, or fledge, is a carriage without wheels, made use of in the cold countries. So, in Tamburlaine, or the Scythian Shepherd, 1590: upon an ivory fled "Thou shalt be drawn among the frozen poles." STEEVENS, 6 He fmote the fledded Polack on the ice.] Pole-ax in the common editions. He speaks of a prince of Poland whom he flew in battle. He uses the word Polack again, Act II, fc. iv. POPE. Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland: Pelaque, French. As in F. Davifon's tranflation of Pafferatius's epitaph on Henry III, of France, published by Camden: Whether thy chance or choice thee hither brings, "Stay, paffenger, and wail the hap of kings. "This little ftone a great king's heart doth hold, “Who rul'd the fickle French and Polacks bold: "Whom, with a mighty warlike host attended, "With trait'rous knife a cowled monfter ended. "So frail are even the higheft earthly things! "Go, passenger, and wail the hap of kings." JOHNSON, Again, in The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, &c. 1612: - I fcorn him 66 All the old copies have Polax. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-Palack; but the corrupted word fhews, I think, that Shakspeare wrote-Polacks. MALONE. With Polack for Polander, the tranfcriber, or printer, might have no acquaintance; he therefore substituted pole-ax as the only word of like found that was familiar to his ear. Unluckily, however, it happened that the fingular of the latter has the fame found as the plural of the former. Hence it has been fuppofed that Shakspeare meant to write Polacks. We cannot well fuppofe that in a parley the King belaboured many, as it is not likely that provocation was given by more than one, or that on fuch an occasion he would have condefcended to strike a meaner perfon than a prince. STEEVENS, 7 — jump at this dead hour,] So, the 4to. 1604. The foliojuft. STEEVENS. The correction was probably made by the author. JOHNSON, With martial stalk bath he gone by our watch. Hta. In what particular thought to work,' I know not; Fut, in the grois and foope of mine opinion, Why this fame frist and most obfervant watch HOR. In the folio we fometimes find a familiar word fabaituted for one more ancient. MALONE. Jam and were fynonymous in the time of Shak/peare. Ben Jonion fpeaks of veries made on memes, i, e. names that fuit exactly. Nath favs-" and ante imitating a verfe in As in præfenti. So, in Chapman's May Day, 161: "Your appointment was me at three, with me." Again, in M. Kyffin's tranflation of the Axaria of Terence, 1588: "Comes he this day foam in the very time of this marriage?" STEEVENS. In what particular terught to work,] i. e. What particular train of thinking to follow. STEEVENS, 9grefs and cope-] General thoughts, and tendency at large. JOHNSON. 21 daily caft—] The quartos read-f. STEEVENS. 3 Why fuck imprefs of shipwrights,] Judge Barrington, Observations on the more ancient Statutes, p. 300, having obferved that Shakspeare gives English manners to every country where his |
