mandment: if not, your pardon, and my return shall be the end of my business. Ham. Sir, I cannot. Guil. What, my lord? Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter; My mother, you say, Ros. Then thus she says: Your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration. Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother!-But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? impart. Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed. Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? Ros. My lord, you once did love me. Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers. Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend. Ham. Sir, I lack advancement. Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark? Ham. Ay, sir, but While the grass grows,-the proverb is something musty. Enter the Players, with Recorders. O, the recorders:-let me see one.-To withdraw with you 45.- Why do you go about to recover the 45 To withdraw with you.' rection [Taking Guild. aside.] Malone added here a stage diSteevens thinks it an answer to wind of me 46, as if you would drive me into a toil? Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my -love is too unmannerly 47. Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe? Guil. My lord, I cannot. Guil. Believe me, I cannot. Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord. Ham. 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages 48 with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent musick. Look you, these are the stops. Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill. Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me? You would play upon me; a motion Guildenstern had used, for Hamlet to withdraw with him. I think that it means no more than to draw back with you,' to leave that scent or trail. It is a hunting term, like that which follows. 46 To recover the wind of me.' This is a term which has been left unexplained. It is borrowed from hunting, as the context shows; and means, to take advantage of the animal pursued, by getting to the windward of it, that it may not scent its pursuers. 'Observe how the wind is, that you may set the net so as the hare and wind may come together; if the wind be sideways it may do well enough, but never if it blow over the net into the hare's face, for he will scent both it and you at a distance.'-Gentleman's Recreation. 47 Hamlet may say with propriety, 'I do not well understand that.' Perhaps Guildenstern means, If my duty to the king makes me too bold, my love to you makes me importunate even to rudeness.' 48 The ventages are the holes of the pipe. The stops means the mode of stopping those ventages to produce notes. Malone has made it the sounds produced.' Thus in King Henry V. Prologue : Rumour is a pipe And of so easy and so plain a stop.' you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass and there is much musick, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think, I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. Enter POLONius. God bless you, sir! Pol. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently. Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in shape of a camel? Pol. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel. Pol. It is backed like a weasel. Ham. Or, like a whale? Pol. Very like a whale. Ham. Then will I come to my mother by and by. They fool me to the top of my bent 49.--I will come by and by. Pol. I will say so. [Exit POLONIUS. Ham. By and by is easily said.-Leave me, [Exeunt Ros. GUIL. HOR, &c. friends. "Tis now the very witching time of night; When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day 50 49 See note on Act ii. Sc. 2. 50 The quarto reads: And do such business as the bitter day,' &c. O, heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever I will speak daggers to her 51, but use none; SCENE III. A Room in the same. Enter King, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTErn. Guil. We will ourselves provide: Most holy and religious fear it is, To keep those many many bodies safe, Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound, 51. They are pestilent fellows, they speak nothing but bodkins.' -Return from Parnassus. In the Aulularia of Plautus a phrase not less singular occurs : 'Me. Quia mitri miseri cerebrum excutiunt, 52 To shend is to injure, whether by reproof, blows, or otherwise. Shakspeare generally uses shent for reproved, threatened with angry words. To give his words seals' is therefore to carry his punishment beyond reproof. The allusion is the sealing a deed to render it effective. The quarto of 1603 : 'I will speak daggers; those sharp words being spent, 1 Folio reads 'spirits.' The lives of many. The cease of majesty Ros. Guil. 2 We will haste us. [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUIL. Enter POLONIUS. Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet. Behind the arras 3 I'll convey myself, To hear the process; I'll warrant, she'll tax him home; And, as you said, and wisely was it said, "Tis meet, that some more audience, than a mother, Since nature makes them partial1, should o’erhear The speech, of vantage 5. Fare you well, my liege; I'll call upon you ere you go to bed, And tell you what I know. 3 See King Henry IV. Part 1. Act ii. Sc. 4. In peccato adjutrices, auxilii in paterna injuria Ter. Heaut. Act v. Sc. 2. 5 Warburton explains of vantage, by some opportunity of secret observation.' I incline to think that of vantage,' in Shakspeare's language, is for advantage, commodi causa. |
