prescripts 4tos. * sphere, Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy *star, a mourn. 4tos. ⚫ like 4to. And all we waile* for. KING. Do you think, 'tis this? QUEEN. It may be, very likely.' POL. Hath there been such a time, (I'd fain know that,) That I have positively said, 'Tis so, When it prov'd otherwise? KING. Not that I know. POL. Take this from this, if this be otherwise : [Pointing to his Head and Shoulder. If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed KING. How may we try it further? POL. You know, sometimes he walks four hours together, Here in the lobby. QUEEN. So he does, indeed. POL. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him: out of thy star] Is, as a constellation of a higher class or order. This is also the reading of the 4to. 1611. Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;] She took the fruits of advice when she obeyed advice, the advice was then made fruitful. JOHNSON. Be you and I behind an arras" then ; QUEEN. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch POL. Away, I do beseech you, both away; I'll boord him presently:-O, give me leave.- hord. 4tos. [Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants. How does my good lord Hamlet? HAM. Well, god-'a-mercy. POL. Do you know me, my lord? HAM. Excellent, excellent well; you are a fishmonger. POL. Not I, my lord. HAM. Then I would you were so honest a man. * HAM. Ay, sir: to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of two thousand. POL. That's very true, my lord. HAM. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion,-Have you a daughter? POL. I have, my lord, HAM. Let her not walk i'the sun: conception is * behind an arras] Hangings of the room. See I. H. IV. Pr. Hen. II. 4. b I'll boord him presently] Accost, address. See Tw. N. I. 3. Sir Tob. E ten, 4tos. read 4tos. rogue 4tos. a blessing; but as your daughter may conceive,— friend, look to't. (22) POL. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harp. ing on my daughter:-yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger: He is far gone, far gone: and, truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I'll speak to him again. What do you read, my lord? HAM. Words, words, words. POL. What is the matter, my lord? HAM. Between who? POL. I mean, the matter that you mean,* my lord. says HAM. Slanders, sir: for the satirical slave * here that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: All of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down: for yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am, if like a crab, you could go back ward. POL. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. [Aside.] Will you walk out of the air, my lord? HAM. Into my grave? a POL. Indeed, that is out o'the air.-How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.-My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. how pregnant his replies] Big with meaning. We have "dull and unpregnant" at the end of this scene. Haml. "Quick and pregnant capacities." Puttenham's Arte of Poesie. p. 154. HAM. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life. POL. Fare you well, my lord. HAM. These tedious old fools! Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. POL. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there he is. Ros. God save you, sir! GUIL. My honour'd lord ! Ros. My most dear lord! [TO POLONIUS. [Exit POLONIUS. HAM. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both? Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.. GUIL. Happy, in that we are not overhappy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. HAM. Nor the soles of her shoe? Ros. Neither, my lord. HAM. Then you live about her waist, or in the wast, O. C. middle of her favours? GUIL. 'Faith, her privates we.b HAM. In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What news? Ros. None, my lord; but that the world's grown honest. the indifferent children of the earth] Who, not lifted too high, are, as is said, indifferentlywell off. Faith, her privates we] One sense at least here is the military one, of not being in authority or command. HAM. Then is dooms-day near: But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither? GUIL. Prison, my lord! HAM. Denmark's a prison. Ros. Then is the world one. HAM. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst. Ros. We think not so, my lord. HAM. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison. Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind. HAM. O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams. GUIL. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. (23) HAM. A dream itself is but a shadow. Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow. HAM. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs, and outstretch'd heroes, the beggars' shadows: Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. a Then are our beggars bodies-and our outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows] At this rate, and, if it be true, that lofty aims are no more than air, our beggars only have the nature of substance; and our monarchs and those who are blazoned so far abroad, as to be thought materially to fill so much space, are in fact shadows, and in imagination only gigantic. |