Sings.] 0, a pit of clay for to be made HAM. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in 't. 1 CLO. You lie out on 't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in 't, and yet it is mine. HAM. Thou dost lie in 't, to be in 't, and say 't is thine: 't is for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest. 1 CLO. "T is a quick lie, sir; 't will away again, from me to you. HAM. What man dost thou dig it for? HAM. What woman, then? 1 CLO. For none, neither. HAM. Who is to be buried in 't? 1 CLO. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead. HAM. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it: the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.-How long hast thou been a grave-maker? 1 CLO. Of all the days i' the year, I came to 't that day that our last king Hamlet o'ercame Fortinbras. HAM. How long is that since? 1 CLO. Cannot tell that? every fool can tell that it was the very day that young Hamlet was born, he that was mad, and sent into England. : НАМ. Ау, marry, why was he sent into England? 1 CLO. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or if he do not, it's no great matter there. HAM. Why? 1 CLO. 'T will not be seen in him; there the men are as mad as he. HAM. How came he mad? 1 CLO. Very strangely, they say. 1 CLO. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits. (*) First folio, heeles of our. a We must speak by the card.] To speak by the card is explained to be a metaphor from the seaman's card or chart; it is rather an allusion to the card and calendar of etiquette, or bok of manners, of which more than one were published during Shakespeare's age. b- so picked,-] That is, so refined, so fastidious, so precise. cthree-and-twenty years.] The quarto 1603 reads,― HAM. Upon what ground? 1 CLO. Why, here in Denmark: I have been sexton* here, man and boy, thirty years. HAM. How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot? 1 CLO. I'faith, if he be not rotten before he die (as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in) he will last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner will last you nine year. HAM. Why he more than another? 1 CLO. Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while ; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three-and-twenty years. HAM. Whose was it? 1 CLO. A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was? HAM. Nay, I know not. 1 CLO. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 'a poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, this same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester. HAM. This? 1 CLO. E'en that. HAM. Let me see. [Takes the skull.]—Alas, poor Yorick -I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.-Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Nott one now, to mock your own grinning?‡ quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.-Prythee, Horatio, tell me one thing. HOR. What's that, my lord? HAM. Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth? Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home Of bell and burial. LAER. Must there no more be done? 1 PRIEST. No more be done! We should profane the service of the dead, To sing a requiem, and such rest to her, As to peace-parted souls. LAER. Lay her i' the earth ;And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring!-I tell thee, churlish priest, A minist'ring angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling. HAM. What, the fair Ophelia ! QUEEN. Sweets to the sweet: farewell! [Scattering flowers. I hop'd thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, And not t' have strew'd thy grave. LAER. O, treble woe t Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv'd thee of !-Hold off the earth a while, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms: [Leaps into the grave. Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, HAM. [Advancing.] What is he whose grief* Bears such an emphasis ? whose phrase of sorrow Cónjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, [Leaps into the grave. HAM. Thou pray'st not well. I pr'ythee, take thy fingers from my throat; Hamlet, Hamlet! HOR. Good my lord, be quiet. [The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave. HAM. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme, Until my eyelids will no longer wag. QUEEN. O, my son! what theme? HAM. I lov'd Ophelia ; forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum.-What wilt thou do for her? KING. O, he is mad, Laertes. QUEEN. For love of God, forbear him. HAM. Come, show me what thou 'lt do: Woo't weep ? woo't fight? woo't fast ?§ woo't tear Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile ? a drink up eisel?] The question whether Hamlet speaks here of a river (the Yssell, Issell, or Isel, has been suggested), or proposes the more practical exploit of drinking some nauseous potion, eisel of old being used for wormwood and for vinegar, has been fiercely disputed. Those who believe that eisel means a river, lay much stress on the addition, up; but Gifford, in a note on the phrase," Kills them all up," ("Every Man in his Humour," Act IV. Sc. 5,) has satisfactorily disposed of this plea:-"-off, out, and up, are continually used by the purest and most excellent of our old writers after verbs of destroying, consuming, eating, drinking, &c. to us, who are less conversant with the power of language, they appear, indeed, somewhat like expletives; but they undoubtedly contributed something to the force, and something to the roundness of the sentence. There is much wretched criticism on a similar expression in Shakespeare, Woo't drink up eisel?' Theobald gives the sense of the passage in a clumsy note; Hanmer, who had more taste than judgment, and more judgment than knowledge, corrupts the language as usual [he reads, Wilt drink up Nile?']; Steevens gaily perverts the sense; Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou 'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou. QUEEN. This is mere madness, And thus a while the fit will work on him; Anon, as patient as the female dove, When that her golden couplets are disclos'd, His silence will sit drooping.b HAM. Hear you, sir; [Exit. KING. I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.[Exit HORATIO. Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech; [TO LAERTES. We'll put the matter to the present push.— Good Gertrude, set sonie watch over your son.— [Exit QUEEN. This grave shall have a living monument: An hour of quiet shortly shall we see; Till then, in patience our proceeding be. [Exeunt. (*) First folio, praise. HAM. Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark Grop'd I to find out them: had my desire; Finger'd their packet; and, in fine, withdrew To mine own room again: making so bold, My fears forgetting manners, to unseal Their grand commission; where I found,Horatio, O, royal knavery!-an exact command, Larded with many several sorts of reason, Importing Denmark's health, and England's too, With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,— That, on the supervise, no leisure bated, No, not to stay the grinding of the axe, My head should be struck off. HOR. Is 't possible? a Rough-hew-] Farmer's assertion that these words were merely technical, and referred to the making skewers, has never, we believe, been contradicted; a striking proof, if so, how much the commentators on Shakespeare have yet to learn from our early literature. To rough-hew meant to plan or scheme, or do anything in the rough. Thus Florio interprets "Abbozzare," to rough-hew or cast any first draught, to bungle up ill-favouredly: and Baret, in his Alvearie, says, "To cut out grossely: to hew rough." is rough hewed, or squared out, or it is begun." It b such bugs and goblins in my life,-] "With such causes of error, rising from my character and designs."-JOHNSON. c And stand a comma'tween their amities;] Johnson thinks this not incapable of explanation,-" The comma is the note of con He that hath kill'd my king, and whor❜d my mother; Popp'd in between the election and my hopes; Thrown out his angle for my proper life, And with such cozenage-is't not perfect con science, To quit him with this arm? and is 't not to be damn'd, To let this canker of our nature come HOR. It must be shortly known to him from What is the issue of the business there. HAM. It will be short: the interim is mine; The portraiture of his: I'll court his favours: Peace! who comes here? Enter OSRIC. OSR. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark. HAM. I humbly thank you, sir.-Dost know this water-fly? HOR. No, my good lord. (*) First folio, sement. (†) First folio, debate. nection and continuity of sentences; the period is the note of abruption and disjunction." To us it is much easier to believe that "comma is a typographical slip than that Shakespeare should have chosen that point as a mark of connection; at the same time, having no faith in the substitution, cement, by Hanmer, or commere, by Warburton, or co-mere (a boundary-stone), by Singer, we leave the text as it stands in the old copies, simply suggesting the possibility of "comma" being a misprint for co-mate. d Does it hot, think'st thee, stand me now upon-] Equipollent to, Is it not, think you, incumbent on me? I'll court his favours:] A correction due to Rowe; the folio, in which alone the speech is found, reading, "Ile count his favours," &c. |