As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed With tristful visage, as against the doom, Queen. eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury, New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; and Malone take this figurative expression in a literal sense, that they were unused to the language of poetry, especially to the adventurous metaphors of Shakspeare. Mr. Boswell's note is short and to the purpose. Rose is put generally for the ornament, the grace of an innocent love.' Ophelia describes Hamlet as The expectancy and rose of the fair state.' 4 The quarto of 1604 gives this passage thus: Heaven's face does glow O'er this solidity and compound mass With heated visage, as against the doom, The index, or table of contents, was formerly placed at the beginning of books. In Othello, Act ii. Sc. 7, we have-' an index and obscure prologue to the history of foul and lustful thoughts.' 6 It is evident from this passage that whole length pictures of the two kings were formerly introduced. Station does not mean the spot where any one is placed, but the act of standing, the attitude. So in Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii, Sc. 3 : : 'Her motion and her station are as one.' Without this explanation it might be conceived that the compliment designed for the attitude of the King was bestowed on the place where Mercury is represented as standing. Where every god did seem to set his seal, This was your husband.—Look you now, what follows: 8 Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear, To serve in such a difference.] What devil was't O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, 7 Here the allusion is to Pharaoh's dream. Genesis, xli. 8 i. e. to feed rankly or grossly: it is usually applied to the fattening of animals. Marlowe has it for 'to grow fat.' Bat is the old word for increase; whence we have battle, batten, batful. 9 Sense here is not used for reason; but for sensation, feeling, or perception: as before in this scene: 'That it be proof and bulwark against sense.' Warburton, misunderstanding the passage, proposed to read notion instead of motion. The whole passage in brackets is omitted in the folio. 10 The hoodwinke play, or hoodman blind, in some place, called blindmanbuf-Baret. It appears also to have been called blind hob. It is hob-man blind in the quarto of 1603. 11 i. e. could not be so dull and stupid. If thou canst mutine 1o in a matron's bones, And melt in her own fire 13; proclaim no shame, And reason panders will. Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more: Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; Ham. Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed 15 bed; Stew'd in corruption; honeying, and making love Over the nasty sty; Queen. O, speak to me no more; These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears: Ham. A murderer, and a villain; A slave, that is not twentieth part the tithe 12 Mutine for mutiny. This is the old form of the verb. Shakspeare calls mutineers mutines in a subsequent scene; but this is, I believe, peculiar to him: they were called mutiners anciently. 13 Thus in the quarto of 1603 : 'Why appetite with you is in the wane, Your blood runs backward now from whence it came: When lust shall dwell within a matron's breast.' 14 Grained spots; that is, dyed in grain, deeply imbued. 15 i. e. greasy, rank, gross. It is a term borrowed from falconry. It is well known that the seam of any animal was the fat or tallow; and a hawk was said to be enseamed when she was too fat or gross for flight. By some confusion of terms, however, to enseam a hawk' was used for 'to purge her of glut and grease;' by analogy it should have been unseam. Beaumont and Fletcher, in The False One, use inseamed in the same man ner: 'His lechery inseamed upon him.' It should be remarked, that the quarto of 1603 reads incestuous; as does that of 1611. Of your precedent lord:-a vice 16 of kings: Queen. No more. Enter Ghost 17. A king Ham. Of shreds and patches :— Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards!-What would your gracious figure? Queen. Alas, he's mad. Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, Ghost. Do not forget: This visitation Ham. How is it with you, lady? Queen. Alas, how is't with you? 16 i. e. the low mimic, the counterfeit, a dizard, or common vice and jester, counterfeiting the gestures of any man.'-Fleming. Shakspeare afterwards calls him a king of shreds and patches, alluding to the party-coloured habit of the vice or fool in a play. 17 The first quarto adds, ' in his night-gown.' 18 Laps'd in time and passion.' Johnson explains this— That having suffered time to slip and passion to cool, let's go by,' &c. This explanation is confirmed by the quarto of 1603 : 'Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That I thus long have let revenge slip by.' 19 Conceit for conception, imagination. This was the force of the word among our ancestors. Thus in The Rape of Lucrece : And the conceited painter was so nice.' That you do bend your eye on vacany, And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, My stern affects 22: then what I have to do 20 The hair is excrementitious; that is, without life or sensation; yet those very hairs, as if they had life, start up,' &c. So Macbeth: my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in't.' 21 Capable for susceptible, intelligent, i. e. would excite in them capacity to understand. Thus in King Richard III. :— O'tis a parlous boy, Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.' 22 My stern affects. All former editions read-' My stern effects.' Effects, for actions, deeds, effected,' says Malone! We should certainly read affects, i. e. dispositions, affections of the mind: as in that disputed passage of Othello:-' the young affects in me defunct.' It is remarkable that we have the same error in Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. 1, p. 49: Thou art not certain, For thy complexion shifts to strange effects After the moon.' Dr. Johnson saw the error in that play, and proposed to read affects. But the present passage has escaped observation. The 'piteous action' of the ghost could not alter things already. effected, but might move Hamlet to a less stern mood of mind. |