QUEEN. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. HAM. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive. POL. O ho! do you mark that? [To the King. HAM. Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [Lying down at OPHELIA'S Feet. (37) OPH. No, my lord. HAM. I mean, my head upon your lap? ОPH. Ay, my lord. HAM. Do you think, I meant country matters ? OPH. I think nothing, my lord. HAM. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs. OPH. What is, my lord? HAM. Nothing. OPH. You are merry, my lord. HAM. Who, I? OPH. Ay, my lord. HAM. O! your only jig-maker. What should a man do, but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours. OPH. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. HAM. So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. (38) O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope, a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: But, by'r-lady, he must build jig-maker] Writer of ludicrous interludes. See II. 2. Haml. churches then: or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.(39) Trumpets sound. The dumb show follows.(40) Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems loath and unwilling awhile; but, in the end, accepts his love. OPH. What means this, my lord? [Exeunt. HAM. Marry, this is miching *mallecho; (41) it malicho, means mischief. 1623, 32. munching OPH. Belike, (42) this show imports the argumentos. of the play. Enter Prologue. HAM. We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all. ОPH. Will he tell us what this show meant? But, by'r-lady, he must build churches then] The remembrance of such conspicuous and signal acts of piety, and public benefit, does not presently pass away. ⚫ imports the argument] Contains, includes, and discloses. * Bap. 1623. HAM. Ay, or any show that you'll show him: Be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means. OPH. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play. PRO. For us, and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently. HAM. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? (43) OPH. 'Tis brief, my lord. HAM. As woman's love. Enter a King, and a Queen. P. KING. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart (44) Neptune's salt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; (45) P. QUEEN.* So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o'er, ere love be done! holds quantity In neither aught, or in extremity] Have a just cor- 66 And either is not, or is in a violent extreme. Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know; [Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; P. KING. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and My operant powers their functions leave to do:(49) P. QUEEN. * O, confound the rest! Rap. Such love must needs be treason in my breast: In second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second, but who kill'd the first. 1623. P. QUEEN.* The instances (50) that second mar- * Id. riage move, Are base respects of thrift, but none of love; When second husband kisses me in bed. P. KING. I do believe, you think what now you But, what we do determine, oft we break." Of violent birth, but poor validity :(51) Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree; The quartos read, "That's wormwood." what we do determine, oft we break] Unsettle our most fixed resolves. Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree; But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.] The verb fall is, as sticks, properly referable to the singular noun purpose; but, in our author's mind, was connected with unripe fruit, (a noun of multitude, and admitting a plural) and they, its relative; to which it nearly adjoined. Fall is the G Most necessary 'tis, that we forget To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt;" Their own * enactures * with themselves destroy: (52) Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; change; For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. own: So think thou wilt no second husband wed; reading also of the quartos. See " scope of these articles allow." I. 1. King. a what to ourselves is debt] i. e. is such, only to ourselves. Dr. Johnson says, the performance of a resolution, in which only the resolver is interested, is a debt only to himself, which he may therefore remit at pleasure. b directly seasons him his enemy] "Throws in an ingredient, which constitutes," &c. This term is used with great latitude in several parts of this play; and Mr. Steevens points out an use of it not dissimilar in Chapman's Odyss. XV. "-taught with so much woe, "As thou hast suffer'd, to be season'd so." 1 |