thereunto, recount th' occasions of my sudden and more strange return.6

HAMLET.

What should this mean! Are all the rest come

back?

Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

Laer. Know you the hand?

King. "Tis Hamlet's character. "Naked," And, in a postscript here, he says, "alone:" advise me ?

Can you

--

Laer. I'm lost in it, my lord. But let him come: It warms the very sickness in my heart,

That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,

"Thus diddest thou."

King.

As how should it be so, how otherwise?

If it be so, Laertes,

Ay, my lord;

Will you be rul'd by me?

Laer.

So you will not o'errule me to a peace.

King. To thine own peace. If he be now re

turn'd,

As checking at his voyage," and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him

To an exploit, now ripe in my device,

Under the which he shall not choose but fall;
And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice,
And call it accident.

Laer.

My lord, I will be rul'd;
The rather, if you could devise it so,
That I might be the organ.

6 The words," and more strange," are in the folio only. H. 7 Thus the folio: the undated quarto and that of 1611 read "As liking not" for "As checking at ;" the other quartos, "As the king at." To check at is a term in falconry, meaning to start away or fly off from the lure. See Twelfth Night, Act ii. sc. 5, note 10.

H.

King.

It falls right.

You have been talk'd of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
Wherein they say you shine: your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him,
As did that one; and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege.

8

9

lord?

Laer. What part is that, my King. A very riband in the cap of youth, Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes The light and careless livery that it wears, Than settled age his sables and his weeds, Importing health and graveness.10-Two months since,

Here was a gentleman of Normandy,

I have seen, myself, and serv'd against the French,
And they can well on horseback; but this gallant
Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his seat;
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As he had been incorps'd and demi-natur'd
With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought,
That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,11

Come short of what he did.

8 The Poet again uses siege for seat, that is, place or rank, in Othello, Act i. sc. 2: "I fetch my life and being from men of royal siege." The usage was not uncommon.

H.

9 We have elsewhere found very used in the sense of mere.

H.

10 Thus far of this speech, and all the three preceding speeches are wanting in the folio.

H.

11 That is, in the imagination of shapes and tricks, or feats. This use of forge and forgery was not unfrequent. to surpass. See King Lear, Act i. sc. 2, note 3.

--

To top is

H.

Laer. I know him well: he is the brooch, indeed, And gem of all the nation.

King. He made confession of you; And gave you such a masterly report, For art and exercise in your defence,' And for your rapier most especially,

12

That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed,

If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation, 13

He swore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy,
That he could nothing do, but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o'er, to play with you.
Now, out of this,

Laer.

What out of this, my lord? King. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,

A face without a heart?

Laer.

Why ask you this?

King. Not that I think you did not love your

father,

But that I know love is begun by time;

And that I see, in passages of proof,

14

15

Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives within the very flame of love"
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it:
And nothing is at a like goodness still ;

12 Science of defence, that is, fencing.

13 Scrimers, fencers, from escrimeur, Fr. This unfavourable description of French swordsmen is not in the folio.

14 As love is begun by time, and has its gradual increase, so time qualifies and abates it. Passages of proof are transactions of daily experience.

15 This and the nine following lines are not in the folio. H.

For goodness, growing to a plurisy,10

Dies in his own too-much. That we would do, We should do when we would; for this "would” changes,

And hath abatements and delays as many

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this "should" is like a spendthrift's sigh,
That hurts by easing." But, to the quick o'the
ulcer.

Hamlet comes back: What would you undertake,
To show yourself your father's son, in deed
More than in words?

Laer.

To cut his throat i'the church. King. No place, indeed, should murder sanc

tuarize;

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laer

tes,

Will you do this, keep close within your chamber. Hamlet, return'd, shall know you are come home: We'll put on those shall praise your excellence, And set a double varnish on the fame

The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, together,

And wager o'er your heads: he, being remiss,
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

16 Plurisy is superabundance; the word was used in this sense, as if it came from plus, pluris. So in Massinger's Unnatural Combat: "Thy plurisy of goodness is thy ill;" which Gifford explains thy superabundance of goodness."

II.

17 Mr. Blakeway justly observes, that "Sorrow for neglected opportunities and time abused seems most aptly compared to the sigh of a spendthrift; — good resolutions not carried into effect are deeply injurious to the moral character. Like sighs, they hurt by easing; they unburden the mind and satisfy the conscience, without producing any effect upon the conduct."

A sword unbated,' 18 and in a pass of practice
Requite him for your father.

Laer.

I will do't;

19

And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword.18
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal, that but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death,
That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,
It may be death. 20

King.
Let's further think of this;
Weigh, what convenience, both of time and means,
May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance,
"Twere better not assay'd: therefore this project
Should have a back, or second, that might hold,

18 That is, unblunted. To bate, or rather to rebate, was to make dull. Thus in Love's Labour's Lost: "That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge." — Pass of practice is an insidious thrust.

19 Warburton having pronounced Laertes "a good character," Coleridge thereupon makes the following note: "Mercy on Warburton's notion of goodness! Please to refer to the seventh scene of this Act; 'I will do't; and, for this purpose, I'll anoint my sword,' uttered by Laertes after the King's description of Hamlet: He, being remiss, most generous, and free from all contriving, will not peruse the foils.' Yet I acknowledge that Shakespeare evidently wishes, as much as possible, to spare the character of Laertes, to break the extreme turpitude of his consent to become an agent and accomplice of the King's treachery; - and to this end he re-introduces Ophelia at the close of this scene, to afford a probable stimulus of passion in her brother."

II.

20 Ritson has exclaimed against the villanous treachery of Laertes in this horrid plot: he observes "there is more occasion that he should be pointed out for an object of abhorrence, as he is a character we are led to respect and admire in some preceding scenes." In the quarto of 1603 this contrivance originates with

the king.