So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch, and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

BER. I think it be no other, but e'en so:" Well may it sort that this portentous figure Comes armed through our watch; so like the king

That was and is the question of these wars.

HOR. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; (1) and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse:
And even the like precurse of fierce events,—
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,-
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-

But, soft! behold! lo, where it comes again!

Re-enter Ghost.

I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illusion!^
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
[Cock crows.
Speak of it:-stay, and speak!-Stop it, Mar-
cellus.

aromage-] Commotion, turmoil.

b I think it be no other, but e'en so:] This and the seventeen succeeding lines are not in the folio.

e I'll cross it, though it blast me.-] It was an ancient superstition, that any one who crossed the spot on which a spectre was seen, became subjected to its malignant influence. See Blakeway's note ad l. in the Variorum edition.

Stay, illusion!] Attached to these words in the 1604 quarto, is a stage direction." It spreads his arms."

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat-] This is the text of the folio and all the quartos, except the first, which reads, perhaps preferably,

early and shrill-crowing throat.

f-extravagant and erring-] Wandering and erratic.

No fairy takes,-] The folio inadvertently prints talkes. To take has before been explained to mean, to paralyze, to deaden, to benumb.

hin russet mantle clad.-] In the recapitulation of his labours at the conclusion of the Ænead, Gawin Douglas says,

"Quhen pale Aurora with Face lamentabill."

We do it wrong. being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
BER. It was about to speak, when the cod

crew.

HOR. And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,* Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, The extravagant and erring spirit hies To his confine: and of the truth herein, This present object made probation.

MAR. It faded on the crowing of the cock.(2) Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long And then, they say, no spirit dare stir† abroad: The nights are wholesome; then no plane strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

HOR. So have I heard, and do in part believe But, look, the morn, in russet mantlea clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill: Break we our watch up; and, by my advice, Let us impart what we have seen to-night Unto young Hamlet: for, upon my life, This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him: Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MAR. Let's do 't, I pray and I this mornin know

Where we shall find him most conveniently.

(*) First folio, day.

1

[Exeur

(1) First folio, can walke Her Russet Mantill bordourit all with sabill." yon high eastern hill :] The earliest quarto has.yon hie mountaine top;"

the later quartos,

| With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in
marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along:-for all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,―
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands

Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.-
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting,
Thus much the business is:-we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,-
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears

Of this his nephew's purpose,-to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.
Farewell; and let your
haste commend your duty.
COR., VOL. In that and all things will we
show our duty.

KING. We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell.
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is 't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice: what wouldst thou beg,
Laertes,

That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Lacrtes?

LAER.

Dread my lord, Your leave and favour to return to France; From whence though willingly I came to Denmark, To show my duty in your coronation ;

Yet now,

I must confess, that duty done, My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,

And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.(3) KING. Have you your father's leave?-What says Polonius?

POL. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave

By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go."
KING. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be
thine,

[seems.

Why seems it so particular with thee?
HAM. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes,* shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
KING. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your
nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor boun
In filial obligation, for some term

d

To do obsequious sorrow: but to perséver,
In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 't is unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 't is a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
This must be so. We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe; and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And, we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
QUEEN. Let not thy mother lose her prayers,
Hamlet;

I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg..
HAM. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

KING. Why, 't is a loving and a fair reply: Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come; This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof, No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day, But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell; And the king's rouse the heavens shall bruit again, Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.(4) [Exeunt all except HAMLET.

-the king's rouse-] See note on the drinking terms at the end of this play.

HAM. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O, God! O,
God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on 't! O, fie! 't is an unweeded garden.
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in

nature

Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months dead!-nay, not so much, not two;

So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: and yet, within a month,-— Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!

A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears ;-why she, even she,—
O, God!* a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,-married with mine
uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules: within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She married:-O, most wicked speed to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets,
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good ;

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and Marcellus.

HOR. Hail to your lordship!

(*) First folio, heaven.

a O, that this too too solid flesh would melt.-] Mr. Halliwell has proved by numberless examples, culled from our early writers, that where too too occurred, in the generality of cases it formed a compound word, too-too, and when thus connected bore the meaning of exceeding. The present instance, however, must be regarded as an exception to the rule. Here the repetition of too is not only strikingly beautiful, rhetorically, but it admirably expresses that morbid condition of the mind which makes the unhappy prince deem all the uses of the world but "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable."

was

b- beteem-] That is, vouchsafe, allow, suffer, and the like. ediscourse of reason,-] By "discourse of reason meant the comprehensive range, or discursiveness of reason, the retrospective and foreseeing faculties; thus in Act IV. Sc. 4, Hamlet remarks,

"Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus'd."

d Had left the flushing-] The quarto, 1603, reads, "— their flushing."

НАМ. I am glad to see you well: Horatio, or I do forget myself. HOR. The same, my lord, and your poor ser

vant ever.

HAM. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you.

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?— Marcellus?

MAR. My good lord,—

HAM. I am very glad to see you.-Good even sir,

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
HOR. A truant disposition, good my lord.
HAM. I would not hear* your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
HOR. My lord, I came to see your father's
funeral.

HAM. I pr'ythee, do not mock me, fellowstudent;

I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
HOR. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.
HAM. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd
meats (5)

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest (6) foe in heaven
Ere ever I had + seen that day, Horatio!—
My father.-methinks, I see my father.
HOR. O, where, my lord?

HAM.
In my mind's eye, Horatio.
HOR. I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
HAM. He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

HOR. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. HAM. Saw who?

HOR. My lord, the king your father.

HAM.

The king my father! HOR. Season your admiration for a while With an attentive" ear; till I may deliver,

f We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.] The reading of the 1603 quarto and of the folio 1623: the other old copies have,

"We'll teach you for to drink ere you depart."

g In my mind's eye, Horatio.] The expression was not unusual: "Ah why were the Eyes of my Mynde so dymned wyth the myste of fonde zeal, that I could not consyder the common Malyce of men now a dayes."-FENTON's Tragicall Discourses, 4to. 1567. Again, Let us consider and behold with the eyes of our soul his long suffering will."- Epistle of St. Clement, cap. 19.

han attentive ear;] The folio and one of the quartos have, -"an attent ear."