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Hamlet.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Mar. That, if again this apparition come, He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.

approve our eyes] Add a new testimony to that

of our eyes. JOHNSON.

So, in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632.

"I can by grounded arguments approve

83 Your power and potency."

See vol. vii. p. 456. STEEVENS.

"

Approve our eyes." Have proof that we were no

way mistaken, that we have not been fanciful. He had said in the first line of the speech,- Horatio says, 'tis but our phantasy.' B.

Hor. It harrows me with fear, and wonder.
It harrows me, &c.] To harrow is to conquer, to subdue.

SHAK.

I.

A

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The word is of Saxon origin. So, in the old bl. 1. romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys:

"He swore by him that harowed hell." STEEVENS.

"It harrows me with fear and wonder," I am lost in fear and wonder, I am astounded. B.

As, by that covenant,

And carriage of the articles design'd,

His fell to Hamlet.

-as, by that cov'nant

And carriage of the articles design'd,

The old quarto reads:

•us by the same comart;

and this is right. Comart signifies a bargain, and carrying of the articles, the covenants entered into to confirm that bargain. Hence we see the common reading makes a tautology. WAR

BURTON.

I can find no such word as comart in any dictionary. STEEVENS.

"As by that covenant. Comart is unquestionably the proper word. Every body knows that Mart is a place for making bargains or agreements in. Co is a prefix signifying mutual. The word comart is used by the Poet for interchange, reciprocation. But Comart is not to be found in any Dictionary. Unfortunate Mr. Steevens! and still more unfortunate Shakespeare! to fall into the hands of such an Editor. B.

Hor. In the most high and palmy state of
Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

grave

The
stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.
Stars shone with trains of fire: dews of blood fell.

Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell; &c.] Thus Mr. Rowe altered these lines, which have no immediate

connection with the preceding ones. The quartos read (for the passage is not in the folio):

As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun,-

Perhaps an intermediate line is lost. STEEVENS.

"Stars shone with trains of fire: dews of blood fell." The arbitrary reading of Rowe should by no means be admitted. The words of the quartos may,, with some little alteration (as hues for dews: disastrous for disasters) be restored to the text. The line And prologue to the omens coming on,' is misplaced: it should immediately follow 'gibber in the Roman streets.' Prologue, it must be observed, is here a Verb. I regulate the passage as follows:

The grave stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets :
And prologue to the omens coming on ;—
As stars with trains of fire; and hues of blood,
Disastrous, in the sun;-And the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse,
And even the like precurse of fierce events,-
As harbingers preceding still the fates,

Have Heaven and Earth together demonstrated
Unto our climature and countrymen.

The whole must be explained thus: Horatio enumerates the earthly, the lesser prodigies observed at Rome : and represents them as serving to prologue,' or usher in the greater i. e. those of the Heavens. As stars with tram's of fire' [comets]: with 'hues of blood disastrous in the sun. While tincts or streaks of blood were seen in the sun, and which portended the most direful events. He then adverts to several of the like preternatural appearances in Denmark, and which he considers as prognosticating ill.

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No kind of chasm will now, I believe, be found in the speech: the lines, by transposition, become sufficiently connected, and the expression clear. B.

King. Therefore our sometime sister, now our

queen,

The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,-

With one auspicious, and one dropping eye;
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-
Taken to wife.

With one auspicious, and one dropping eye;] Thus the folio. The quarto, with somewhat less of quaintness:

With an auspicious, and a dropping eye.

The same thought, however, occurs in the Winter's Tale: "She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband; another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled." STEEVENS.

1 once thought that dropping in this line meant only depressed, or cast downwards; an idea probably suggested by the passage in The Winter's Tale, quoted by Mr. Steevens. But it means, I believe, weeping. "Dropping of the eyes" was a technical expression in our author's time. "If the spring be wet with much southwind, the next summer will happen agues, blcarness, dropping of the eyes, and pains of the bowels." Hopton's Concordancie of yeares, 8vo. 1616. MALONE. "Therefore our sometime sister, now our Queen,

Have we as 'twere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye,
With equal scale weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife."

Dropping' is no doubt weeping. But one eye delighted, and the other weeping, (and so the Editors seem to understand the passage) is much too ludicrous here; and hence, perhaps, the reading of the quarto 'an' and a.' In the Winter's Tale, one eye declined, and another elevated,' is not that one eye was cast towards the earth, and the other eye raised to Heaven, but that her

eye was observed at one time to indicate sorrow, and at another, pleasure; as she was actuated by different circumstances. The line in the speech of the King of Denmark,

With one auspicious, and one dropping eye,

is certainly corrupt, We may easily read, and the context will warrant it,

With once auspicious, and once dropping eye;

:

i. e. "alternately with an eye now joyous, now sorrowing." Joyous by reason of his union with Gertrude, and tearful from the loss of his brother. B.

King Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,

He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father.

Colleagued with this dream of his advantage.] The meaning is, He goes to war so indiscreetly, and unprepared, that he has no allies to support him but a dream, with which he is colleagued or confederated. WARBURTON.

Hanmer reads collogued, and perhaps rightly, as this word is frequently used by Shakspeare's contemporaries. So, in Marston's Malecontent, 1604: "Why look you, we must collogue sometimes, forswear sometimes." Again, in Green's Tu Quoque, 1599: "Collogue with her again." Again, in Heywood's Love's Mistress, 1636: "This collogued lad." Again, in Swetnam Arraign'd, 1620: "For they are cozening, colloguing, ungrateful, &c." STEEVENS.

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"Colleagued with this dream of his advantage." The Poet's word, I think, will be colluded. It must have an active signification-having colluded with. This, as meaning joined in deceit with a dream, is more expressive than the old reading. B.

King. But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my Son,

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