Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

Is

ACT V. SCENE I

A church-yard.

Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c.

I CLOWN.

S fhe to be buried in chriftian burial, that wilfully feeks her own falvation?

I

2 Clown. I tell thee, fhe is; therefore make her grave ftraight. The crowner hath fate on her, and finds it chriftian burial.

I Clown. How can that be, unless fhe drown'd herfelf in her own defence?

2 Clown. Why, 'tis found fo.

1 Clown. It must be fe offendendo, it cannot be elfe, For here lies the point; if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches; it is to act, to do, and to perform. Argal, she drown'd herself wittingly.

2 Clown. Nay, but hear you, goodman Delver.

1 Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good here ftands the man; good. If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.

1 make her grave ftraight.] Make her grave from caft to weft in a direct line parallel to the church; not from north to fouth, athwart the regular line. This, I think, is meant.

JOHNSON. I cannot think that this means any more than make her grave immediately. She is to be buried in chriftian burial, and confequently the grave is to be made as ufual. STEEVENS.

2.

-an act bath three branches; it is to act, to do, and to perform.]. Ridicule on fcholaftic divifions without diftin&tion; and of diftinctions without difference. WARBURTON.

2 Cleton.

2 Clown. But is this law?

1 Clown. Ay, marry is't, 3 crowner's queft-law.

2 Clown. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, the fhould have been buried out of chriftian burial.

1 Clown. Why, there thou fay'ft. And the more pity, that great folk fhould have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than 4 their even chriftian. Come, my fpade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and gravemakers; they hold up Adam's profeffion.

[ocr errors]

2 Clown. Was he a gentleman?

1 Clown. He was the firft that ever bore arms. "2 Clown. Why, he had none.

[ocr errors]

1 Clown. What, art a heathen? How doft thou "understand the fcripture? the fcripture fays, Adam digg'd; could he dig without arms?" I'll put another question to thee; if thou anfwereft me not to the purpose, confefs thyfelf

2 Clown. Go to.

1 Clown. What is he that builds ftronger than either the mafon, the fhipwright, or the carpenter?

2 Clown. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thoufand tenants.

3 creavner's queft-law.] I ftrongly fufpect that this is a ridicule on the cafe of Dame Hales, reported by Plowden in his commentaries, as determined in 3 Eliz.

It seems her husband Sir James Hales had drowned himself in a river, and the quelion was, whether by this act a forfeiture of a leafe from the dean and chapter of Canterbury, which he was poffeffed of, did not accrue to the crown; an inquifition was found before the coroner, which found him felo de fe. The legal and logical fabtilties, arifing in the courfe of the argument of this cafe, gave a very fair opportunity for a facer at crowner's queft-law. The expreffion, a little before, that an act bath three branches, &c. is fo pointed an allufion to the cafe I mention, that I cannot doubt but that Shakespeare was acquainted with and meant to laugh at it. HAWKINS. 4 —their even chriftian.] So all the old books, and rightly. An old English expreflion for fellow-chriftians. THIRLEY. I Clown.

U 4

1 Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well; but how does it well? it does well to thofe that do ill: now thou doft ill, to fay the gallows is built ftronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come.

2 Clown. Who builds ftronger than a mafon, a fhipwright, or a carpenter?

1 Clown. 5 Ay, tell me that, and unyoke, 2 Clown. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clown. To't.

2 Clown. Mafs, I cannot tell.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio at a distance.

1 Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull afs will not mend his pace with beating: and, when you are afk'd this question next, fay, a grave-maker. The houfes he makes, laft 'till doomfday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a ftoup of liquor, [Exit 2 Clown.

He digs, and fings.

In youth when I did love, did love,
Methought, it was very fweet;

To contract, ob, the time for, ah, my behove,

7

Oh, methought, there was nothing fo meet.

Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.] i. e. when you have done that, I'll trouble you no more with thefe riddles. The phrafe taken from husbandry. WARBURTON.

If it be not fufficient to fay, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrafe might be taken from hufbandry, without much depth of reading, we may produce it from dittie of the workmen of

Dover, preferved in the additions to Holinfhed, p. 1546.

66

66

My bow is broke, I would unyoke,

My foot is fore, I can worke no more." FARMER. In youth when I did love, &c.] The three ftanzas, fung here by the grave-digger, are extracted, with a flight variation, from a litt e poem, called The Aged Lover renounceth Leve, written by Henry Howard earl of Surrey, who flourished in the reign of king Henry VIII. and who was beheaded in 1547, on a ftrained accufation of treafon. THEOBALD.

-nothing fo meet.] HANMFR. The other editions have, nothing meet. JOHNSON.

The

Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he fings at grave-making?

Hor. Custom hath made it to him a property of eafinefs.

Ham. 'Tis e'en fo. The hand of little employment hath the daintier fenfe.

Clown fings.

But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch:
And hath fhipped me into the land,
As if I had never been fuch 3.

Ham. That fcull had a tongue in it, and could fing once; how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the firft murder! This might be the pate of a politician,

9

[ocr errors]

which

this

The original poem from which this ftanza, like the other fucceeding ones, is taken, is preferved among lord Surrey's poems, though, as Dr. Percy has obferved, it is attributed to lord Vaux by George Gafcoigne. See an epifle prefixed to one of his poems, printed with the rest of his works, 1575. I lothe that I did love;

9

In youth that I thought fweet:
As time requires for my behove,
Methinks they are not meet.

Thus, in the original,

For age with stealing fieps

STEEVENS.

Hath claw'd me with his crowch;

And lufty youth away he leaps,

As there had been none fuch. STEEVENS.

-a politician,1-one that would circumvent God;] This character is finely touched. Our great hiftorian has well explained it in an example, where, fpeaking of the death of cardinal Mazarine, at the time of the Keftoration, he fays, "The car"dinal was probably ftruck with the wonder, if not the agony "of that undream'd-of profperity of our king's affairs; as if " he had taken it ill, and laid it to hear, the God Almighty "would bring fuch a work to pafs in Europe without his concurrence, and even against all his machinations." Hift. of Rebellion, Book 16. WARBURTON.

which this afs o'er-offices ;] The meaning is this. People in office, at that time, were fo over-bearing, that Shake

speare,

this afs now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God; might it not? Hor. It might, my lord.

Ham. Or of a courtier; which could fay, "Good"morrow, fweet lord! how doft thou, good lord?" This might be my lord fuch-a-one's, that prais'd my lord fuch-a-one's horfe, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Why, e'en fo: 2 and now my lady Worm's; chaplefs, and knock'd about the mazzard with a fexton's fpade. Here's a fine revolution, if we had the trick to fee't. Did thefe bones coft no more the breeding, but to 3 play at loggats with 'em? mine ache to think on't.

Clown

fpeare, fpeaking of infolence at the height, calls it, Infolence
in office. And Donne fays,
Who is he,

Who officers' rage and fuitors' mifery
Can write in jeft.

Sat.

Alluding to this character of minifers and politicians, the fpeaker obferves, that this infolent officer is now e'er-officer'd by the fexton, who, knocking his fcull about with his fpade, appears to be as infolent in his office as they were in theirs. This is faid with much humour. WARBURTON.

In the quarto, for over-offices is, over-reaches, which agrees better with the fentence: it is a strong exaggeration to remark, that an afs can over-reach him who would once have tried to circumvent.I believe both the words were Shakespeare's. An author in revifing his work, when his original ideas have faded from his mind, and new obfervations have produced new fentiments, eafily introduces images which have been more newly impreffed upon him, without obferving their want of congruity to the general texture of his original defign.

The folio reads o'er-offices. STEEVENS.

2

JOHNSON.

and now my lady Worm's;] The fcull that was my lord Such a one's, is now my lady Worm's. JONSON.

3

play at leggats] A play, in which pins are fet up to be beaten down with a bowl. JOHNSON.

to play at loggats with 'em?—] This is a game played in feveral parts of England even at this time. A take is fixed

« AnteriorContinuar »