Part 6
[Footnote III.10: _This mortal coil_,] Coil is here used in each of its senses, that of turmoil or bustle, and that which entwines or wraps round.]
[Footnote III.11: _Must give us pause:_] _i.e._, occasion for reflection.]
[Footnote III.12: _There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life_;] The _consideration_ that makes the evils of life so long submitted to, lived under.]
[Footnote III.13: _The whips and scorns of time_,] Those sufferings of body and mind, those stripes and mortifications to which, in its _course_, the life of man is subjected.]
[Footnote III.14: _Contumely_,] Contemptuousness, rudeness.]
[Footnote III.15: _His quietus make_] Quietus means the official discharge of an account: from the Latin. Particularly in the Exchequer accounts, where it is still current. Chiefly used by authors in metaphorical senses.]
[Footnote III.16: _A bare bodkin?_] Bodkin was an ancient term for a small dagger. In the margin of Stowe's Chronicle it is said that Cæsar was slain with _bodkins_.]
[Footnote III.17: _Who would fardels bear_,] Fardel is a burden. Fardellus, low Latin.]
[Footnote III.18: _From whose bourn_] _i.e._, boundary.]
[Footnote III.19: _No traveller returns_,] The traveller whom Hamlet had seen, though he appeared in the same habit which he had worn in his life-time, was nothing but a shadow, "invulnerable as the air," and, consequently, _incorporeal_. The Ghost has given us no account of the region from whence he came, being, as he himself informed us, "forbid to tell the secrets of his prison-house."--MALONE.]
[Footnote III.20: _Thus conscience does make cowards of us all_;] A state of doubt and uncertainty, a conscious feeling or apprehension, a misgiving "How our audit stands."]
[Footnote III.21: _Of great pith and moment_,] _i.e._, of great vigour and importance.]
[Footnote III.22:
_With this regard, their currents turn away_, _And lose the name of action._]
From this sole consideration have their drifts diverted, and lose the character and name of enterprise.]
[Footnote III.23: _Soft you now!_] A gentler pace! have done with lofty march!]
[Footnote III.24: _Nymph, in thy orisons_] _i.e._, in thy prayers. Orison is from _oraison_--French.]
[Footnote III.25: _If you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty._] _i.e._, if you really possess these qualities, chastity and beauty, and mean to support the character of both, your honesty should be so chary of your beauty, as not to suffer a thing so fragile to entertain discourse, or to be parleyed with.
The lady interprets the words otherwise, giving them the turn best suited to her purpose.]
[Footnote III.26: _His likeness:_] Shakespeare and his contemporaries frequently use the personal for the neutral pronoun.]
[Footnote III.27: _Inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it:_] So change the original constitution and properties, as that no smack of them shall remain. "Inoculate our stock" are terms in gardening.]
[Footnote III.28: _With more offences at my beck_] That is, always ready to come about me--at my beck and call.]
[Footnote III.29: _Than I have thoughts to put them in, &c._] "To put a thing into thought," Johnson says, is "to think on it."]
[Footnote III.30: _I have heard of your paintings_,] These destructive aids of beauty seem, in the time of Shakespeare, to have been general objects of satire.]
[Footnote III.31: _Heaven hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another:_] _i.e._, Heaven hath given you one face, and you disfigure his image by making yourself another.]
[Footnote III.32: _You jig, you amble, and you lisp_,] This is an allusion to the manners of the age, which Shakespeare, in the spirit of his contemporaries, means here to satirise.]
[Footnote III.33: _Make your wantonness your ignorance._] You mistake by _wanton_ affectation, and pretend to mistake by _ignorance_.]
[Footnote III.34: _All but one shall live_;] _One_ is the king.]
[Footnote III.35: _To a nunnery, go. Exit Hamlet._] There is no doubt that Hamlet's attachment to Ophelia is ardent and sincere, but he treats her with apparent severity because he is aware that Ophelia has been purposely thrown in his way; that spies are about them; and that it is necessary for the preservation of his life, to assume a conduct which he thought would be attributed to madness only.]
[Footnote III.36: _The expectancy and rose of the fair state_,] The first hope and fairest flower. "The gracious mark o' the land."]
[Footnote III.37: _Glass of fashion_] Speculum consuetudinis.--CICERO.
[Footnote III.38: _The mould of form_,] The cast, in which is shaped the only perfect form.
[Footnote III.39: _Musick vows_,] Musical, mellifluous.
[Footnote III.40: _Be round with him_;] _i.e._, plain with him--without reserve.
[Footnote III.41: _If she find him not_,] Make him not out.
[Footnote III.42: _As lief_] As willingly.]
[Footnote III.43: _Thus_;] _i.e._, thrown out thus.]
[Footnote III.44: _Robustious perrywig-pated fellow_] This is a ridicule on the quantity of false hair worn in Shakespeare's time, for wigs were not in common use till the reign of Charles the Second. _Robustious_ means making an extravagant show of passion.]
[Footnote III.45: _The ears of the groundlings_,] The meaner people appear to have occupied the pit of the theatre (which had neither floor nor benches in Shakespeare's time), as they now sit in the upper gallery.]
[Footnote III.46: _O'er-doing Termagant_;] The Crusaders, and those who celebrated them, confounded Mahometans with Pagans, and supposed Mahomet, or Mahound, to be one of their deities, and Tervagant or Termagant, another. This imaginary personage was introduced into our old plays and moralities, and represented as of a most violent character, so that a ranting actor might always appear to advantage in it. The word is now used for a scolding woman.]
[Footnote III.47: _It out-herods Herod:_] In all the old moralities and mysteries this personage was always represented as a tyrant of a very violent temper, using the most exaggerated language. Hence the expression.]
[Footnote III.48: _The very age and body of the time its form and pressure._] _i.e._, to delineate exactly the manners of the age, and the particular humours of the day--_pressure_ signifying resemblance, as in a print.]
[Footnote III.49: _Come tardy off_,] Without spirit or animation; heavily, sleepily done.]
[Footnote III.50: _The censure of which one_] _i.e._, the censure of one of which.]
[Footnote III.51: _Your allowance_,] In your approbation.]
[Footnote III.52: _Not to speak it profanely_,] _i.e._, _irreverently_, in allusion to Hamlet's supposition that God had not made such men, but that they were only the handy work of God's assistants.]
[Footnote III.53: _Indifferently_] In a reasonable degree.]
[Footnote III.54: _Speak no more them is set down for them:_] Shakespeare alludes to a custom of his time, when the clown, or low comedian, as he would now be called, addressing the audience during the play, entered into a contest of raillery and sarcasm with such spectators as chose to engage with him.]
[Footnote III.55: _Barren spectators_] _i.e._, dull, unapprehensive spectators.]
[Footnote III.56: _Question_] Point, topic.]
[Footnote III.57: _Cop'd withal._] Encountered with.]
[Footnote III.58: _Pregnant hinges of the knee_,] _i.e._, bowed or bent: ready to kneel where _thrift_, that is, thriving, or emolument may follow sycophancy.]
[Footnote III.59: _Since my dear soul_] _Dear_ is out of which arises the liveliest interest.]
[Footnote III.60: _Whose blood and judgment_] Dr. Johnson says that according to the doctrine of the four humours, _desire_ and _confidence_ were seated in the blood, and judgment in the phlegm, and the due mixture of the humours made a perfect character.]
[Footnote III.61: _The very comment of thy soul_] The most intense direction of every faculty.]
[Footnote III.62: _Occulted guilt do not itself unkennel_] Stifled, secret guilt, do not develope itself.]
[Footnote III.63: _As Vulcan's stithy._] A stithy is the smith's shop, as stith is the anvil.]
[Footnote III.64: _In censure of his seeming._] In making our estimate of the appearance he shall put on.]
[Footnote III.65: _I have nothing with this answer; these words are not mine._] _i.e._, they grow not out of mine: have no relation to anything said by me.]
[Footnote III.66: _No, nor mine, now._] They are now anybody's. Dr. Johnson observes, "a man's words, says the proverb, are his own no longer than while he keeps them unspoken."]
[Footnote III.67: _You played once in the university, you say?_] The practice of acting Latin plays in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge is very ancient, and continued to near the middle of the last century.]
[Footnote III.68: _I did enact Julius Cæsar:_] A Latin play on the subject of Cassar's death, was performed at Christ-church, Oxford, in 1582.]
[Footnote III.69: _They stay upon your patience._] _Patience_ is here used for _leisure_.]
[Footnote III.70: _Lying down at Ophelia's feet._] To lie at the feet of a mistress during any dramatic representation, seems to have been a common act of gallantry.]
[Footnote III.71: _Jig-maker_,] Writer of ludicrous interludes. _A jig_ was not in Shakespeare's time only a dance, but a ludicrous dialogue in metre; many historical ballads were also called _jigs_.]
[Footnote III.72: _For I'll have a suit of sables._] Wherever his
## scene might be, the customs of his country were ever in
Shakespeare's thoughts. A suit trimmed with sables was in our author's own time the richest dress worn by men in England. By the Statute of Apparel, 24 Henry VIII., c. 13, (_article furres_), it is ordained, that none under the degree of an _Earl_ may use _sables_.]
[Footnote III.73: _He must build churches, then._] Such benefactors to society were sure to be recorded by means of the feast day on which the patron saints and founders of churches were commemorated in every parish. This custom has long since ceased.]
[Footnote III.74: _Miching mallecho_;] To _mich_ is a provincial word, signifying _to lie hid_, or _to skulk_, or _act by stealth_. It was probably once generally used. Mallecho is supposed to be corrupted from the Spanish _Malechor_, which means a poisoner.]
[Footnote III.75: _The posy of a ring?_] Such poetry as you may find engraven on a ring.]
[Footnote III.76: _Phoebus' cart_] A chariot was anciently called a cart.]
[Footnote III.77: _Tellus' orbèd ground_,] _i.e._, the globe of the earth. Tellus is the personification of the earth, being described as the first being that sprung from Chaos.]
[Footnote III.78: _My operant powers their functions leave to do:_] _i.e._, my active energies cease to perform their offices.]
[Footnote III.79: _What we do determine, oft we break._] Unsettle our most fixed resolves.]
[Footnote III.80: _The argument?_] The subject matter.]
[Footnote III.81: _The mouse-trap._]
He calls it the mouse-trap, because it is the thing, In which he'll catch the conscience of the king.]
[Footnote III.82: _Tropically._] _i.e._, figuratively.]
[Footnote III.83: _The image of a murder_,] _i.e._, the lively portraiture, the correct and faithful representation of a murder, &c.]
[Footnote III.84: _Let the galled jade wince_,] A proverbial saying.]
[Footnote III.85: _Our withers are unwrung._] Withers is the joining of the shoulder bones at the bottom of the neck and mane of a horse. _Unwrung_ is _not pinched_.]
[Footnote III.86: _You are as good as a chorus_,] The persons who are supposed to behold what passes in the acts of a tragedy, and sing their sentiments between the acts.
The use to which Shakespeare converted the chorus, may be seen in King Henry V.]
[Footnote III.87: _I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying._] This refers to the interpreter, who formerly sat on the stage at all _puppet shows_, and explained to the audience. _The puppets dallying_ are here made to signify to the agitations of Ophelia's bosom.]
[Footnote III.88:
_The croaking raven_ _Doth bellow for revenge._]
_i.e._, begin without more delay; for the raven, foreknowing the deed, is already croaking, and, as it were, calling out for the revenge which will ensue.]
[Footnote III.89: _Midnight weeds_] The force of the epithet _midnight_, will be best displayed by a corresponding passage in Macbeth:
"Root of hemlock, _digg'd i' the dark_."]
[Footnote III.90: _Usurp_] Encroach upon.]
[Footnote III.91: _Let the strucken deer go weep_,] Shakespeare, in _As you like it_, in allusion to the wounded stag, speaks of the _big round tears_ which _cours'd one another down his innocent nose in piteous chase_. In the 13th song of Drayton's Polyolbion, is a similar passage--"_The harte weepeth at his dying; his tears are held to be precious in medicine._"]
[Footnote III.92: _Marvellous distempered._] _i.e._, discomposed.]
[Footnote III.93: _Admiration._] _i.e._, wonder.]
[Footnote III.94: _Trade with us?_] _i.e._ Occasion of intercourse.]
[Footnote III.95: _By these pickers and stealers._] _i.e._, by these hands. The phrase is taken from the Church catechism, where, in our duty to our neighbour, we are taught to keep our hands from _picking and stealing_.]
[Footnote III.96: _You do freely bar the door of your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend._] By your own act you close the way against your own ease, and the free discharge of your griefs, if you open not the source of them to your friends.]
[Footnote III.97: _You have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?_] Though the crown was elective, yet regard was paid to the recommendation of the preceding prince, and preference given to royal blood, which, by degrees, produced hereditary succession.]
[Footnote III.98: _"While the grass grows,"--the proverb is something musty._] The proverb is, "_While the grass grows, the steed starves._" Hamlet alludes to his own position, while waiting for his succession to the throne of Denmark. A similar adage is, "_A slip between the cup and the lip._"]
[Footnote III.99: _Recorder._] _i.e._ A kind of flute, or pipe.]
[Footnote III.100: _Why do you go about to recover the wind of me_,] Equivalent to our more modern saying of _Get on the blind side._]
[Footnote III.101: _Into a toil?_] _i.e._, net or snare.]
[Footnote III.102: _If my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly._] If my sense of duty have led me too far, it is affection and regard for you that makes the carriage of that duty border on disrespect.]
[Footnote III.103: _Govern these ventages--and it will discourse most eloquent music._] Justly order these vents, or air-holes, and it will breathe or utter, &c.]
[Footnote III.104: _Though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me._] A _fret_ is a stop or key of a musical instrument. Here is, therefore, a play upon the words. Though you cannot fret, stop, or vex, you cannot play or impose upon me.]
[Footnote III.105: _They fool me to the top of my bent._] To the height; as far as they see me _incline_ to go: an allusion to the utmost flexure of a bow.]
[Footnote III.106: _Bitter business_] _i.e._, shocking, horrid business.]
[Footnote III.107: _Stands it safe with us_] Is it _consistent_ with our security.]
[Footnote III.108: _This fear_,] Bugbear.]
[Footnote III.109: _Behind the arras I'll convey myself_,] The arras-hangings, in Shakespeare's time, were hung at such a distance from the walls, that a person might easily stand behind them unperceived.]
[Footnote III.110: _To hear the process_;] The course of the conversation.]
[Footnote III.111: _The speech of vantage._] _i.e._, opportunity or advantage of secret observations.]
[Footnote III.112: _Lay home to him:_] Pointedly and closely charge him.]
[Footnote III.113: _Pranks too broad_] Open and bold.]
[Footnote III.114: _I'll 'sconce me even here._] 'Sconce and ensconce are constantly used figuratively for _hide._ In "The Merry Wives of Windsor," Falstaff says, "I will _ensconce_ me behind the arras."]
[Footnote III.115: _By the rood_,] _i.e._, the cross or crucifix.]
[Footnote III.116: _How now! a rat?_] This is an expression borrowed from the History of Hamblet.]
[Footnote III.117: _Have not braz'd it so_,] _i.e._, soldered with brass.]
[Footnote III.118: _Proof and bulwark against sense._] Against all feeling.]
[Footnote III.119: _Takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there_;] _i.e._, takes the clear tint from the brow of unspotted, untainted innocence. "True or honest as the skin between one's brows" was a proverbial expression, and is frequently used by Shakespeare.]
[Footnote III.120: _As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul_;] Annihilates the very principle of contracts. Contraction for marriage contract.]
[Footnote III.121: _The counterfeit presentment_] _i.e._, picture or mimic representation.]
[Footnote III.122: _Hypérion's curls_;] Hyperion is used by Spenser with the same error in quantity.]
[Footnote III.123: _A station like the herald Mercury_] Station is attitude--act of standing.]
[Footnote III.124:
_Like a mildew'd ear_, _Blasting his wholesome brother._]
This alludes to Pharaoh's dream, in the 41st chapter of Genesis.]
[Footnote III.125: _Batten on this moor?_] Batten is to feed rankly.]
[Footnote III.126: _Hey-day in the blood_] This expression is occasionally used by old authors.]
[Footnote III.127: _Thou canst mutine_] _i.e._, rebel.]
[Footnote III.128: _As will not leave their tinct._] So dyed _in grain_, that they will not relinquish or lose their tinct--are not to be discharged. In a sense not very dissimilar he presently says,
"Then what I have to do Will _want true colour_."]
[Footnote III.129: _An enseamed bed._] _i.e._, greasy bed of grossly fed indulgence.]
[Footnote III.130: _A vice of kings_;] _i.e._, a low mimick of kings. The vice was the fool of the old moralities or dramas, who was generally engaged in contests with the devil, by whom he was finally carried away. Dr. Johnson says the modern Punch is descended from the vice.]
[Footnote III.131:
_From a shelf the precious diadem stole_, _And put it in his pocket!_]
In allusion to the usurper procuring the crown as a common pilferer or thief, and not by open villainy that carried danger with it.]
[Footnote III.132: _A king of shreds and patches._] This is said, pursuing the idea of the _vice of kings_. The vice being dressed as a fool, in a coat of party-coloured patches.]
[Footnote III.133: _Laps'd in time and passion_,] That having suffered time to slip, and passion to cool, &c. It was supposed that nothing was more offensive to apparitions than the neglect to attach importance to their appearance, or to be inattentive to their admonitions.]
[Footnote III.134: _Cool patience._] _i.e._, moderation.]
[Footnote III.135: _Make them capable._] Make them intelligent--capable of conceiving.]
[Footnote III.136: _My stem effects:_] _i.e._, change the nature of my purposes, or what I mean to effect.]
[Footnote III.137: _Nothing at all; yet all that is, I see._] It is in perfect consistency with the belief that all spirits were not only naturally invisible, but that they possessed the power of making themselves visible to such persons only as they pleased.]
[Footnote III.138: _My father, in his habit as he lived!_] In the habit he was accustomed to wear when living.]
[Footnote III.139:
_This bodiless creation ecstasy_ _Is very cunning in._]
_i.e._, "Such shadows are the weak brain's forgeries." Ecstasy in this place, as in many others, means a temporary alienation of mind--a fit.]
[Footnote III.140: _Gambol from._] Start away from.]
[Footnote III.141: _Skin and film_,] Cover with a thin skin.]
[Footnote III.142:
_And when you are desirous to be bless'd_, _I'll blessing beg of you_]
When you are desirous to receive a blessing from heaven (which you cannot, seriously, till you reform), I will beg to receive a blessing from you.]
## ACT IV.
## SCENE I.--A ROOM IN THE CASTLE.
_Enter_ KING _and_ QUEEN, _from_ (R.H.) _centre._
_King._ There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves: You must translate:[1] 'tis fit we understand them. How does Hamlet?
_Queen._ Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend Which is the mightier: In his lawless fit, Behind the arras hearing something stir, Whips out his rapier, cries _A rat, a rat!_ And, in this brainish apprehension,[2] kills The unseen good old man.
_King._ O heavy deed! It had been so with us, had we been there: Where is he gone?
_Queen._ To draw apart the body he hath kill'd.
_King._ The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch, But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed We must, with all our majesty and skill, Both countenance and excuse.--Ho, Guildenstern!
_Enter_ ROSENCRANTZ _and_ GUILDENSTERN (L.H.)
Friends both, go join you with some further aid: Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him: Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body Into the chapel.
[ROSENCRANTZ _and_ GUILDENSTERN _cross to_ R.]
I pray you, haste in this.
[_Exeunt_ ROSENCRANTZ _and_ GUILDENSTERN, R.H.]
Go, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends; And let them know, both what we mean to do, And what's untimely done.
[_Exit_ QUEEN, R.C.]
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose! Yet must not we put the strong law on him: He's lov'd of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes; And where 'tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd, But never the offence.[3]
_Enter_ ROSENCRANTZ (R.)
How now! what hath befallen?
_Ros._ Where the dead body is bestowed, my lord, We cannot get from him.
_King._ But where is he?
_Ros._ Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.
_King._ Bring him before us.
_Ros._ Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.
_Enter_ HAMLET, GUILDENSTERN, _and_ Attendants (R.H.)
_King._ (C.) Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
_Ham._ (R.) At supper.
_King._ At supper? Where?
_Ham._ Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politick worms[4] are e'en at him.
_King._ Where's Polonius?
_Ham._ In Heaven; send thither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i'the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.
_King._ Go seek him there.
[_To_ GUILDENSTERN.]
_Ham._ He will stay till you come.
[_Exit_ GUILDENSTERN, R.H.]
_King._ Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety, Must send thee hence: Therefore prepare thyself; The bark is ready, and the wind at help,[5] For England.
_Ham._ For England!
_King._ Ay, Hamlet.
_Ham._ Good.
_King._ So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.
_Ham._ I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for England!--Farewell, dear mother.
_King._ Thy loving father, Hamlet.
_Ham._ My mother: Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England.
[_Exit_, R.H.]
_King._ Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard; Away! for everything is seal'd and done.
[_Exeunt_ ROSENCRANTZ _and_ Attendants, R.H.]
And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught, Thou may'st not coldly set[6] Our sovereign process;[7] which imports at full, By letters conjuring to that effect,[8] The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England; For thou must cure me: 'Till I know 'tis done, Howe'er my haps,[9] my joys will ne'er begin.
[_Exit_ KING, L.H.]
_Enter_ QUEEN _and_ HORATIO (R. _centre._)
_Queen._ ----I will not speak with her.
_Hor._ She is importunate; indeed, distract: 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
_Queen._ Let her come in.
[_Exit_ HORATIO, R.C.]
_Re-enter_ HORATIO, _with_ OPHELIA (R. _centre._)
_Oph._ Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
_Queen._ How now, Ophelia!
_Oph._ (C.)
[_Singing._]
_How should I your true love know_ _From another one?_ _By his cockle hat and staff_, _And his sandal shoon._[10]
_Queen._ (L.C.) Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
_Oph._ Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
[_Sings._]
_He is dead and gone, lady_, _He is dead and gone_; _At his head a grass-green turf_, _At his heels a stone._
_Enter the_ KING (L.H.)
_Queen._ Nay, but, Ophelia,----
_Oph._ Pray you, mark.
[_Sings._]
_White his shroud as the mountain-snow_, _Larded all with sweet flowers_;[11] _Which bewept to the grave did go_ _With true-love showers._
_King._ How do you, pretty lady?
_Oph._ Well, Heaven 'ield you![12]
(_Crosses to the_ KING.)
They say the owl was a baker's daughter.[13] We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
_King._ Conceit upon her father.[14]
_Oph._ Pray, you, let us have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:
_To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day_, _All in the morning betime_, _And I, a maid at your window_, _To be your Valentine:_
_King._ Pretty Ophelia!