GUIL. We will ourselves provide: Most holy and religious fear it is To keep those many-many bodies safe, That live and feed upon your majesty. Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound, With all the strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal* depend and rest The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel, Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone Did the king sigh, but with a general groan. KING. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; (*) First folio, spirit. many-many-] This expression, signifying numberless, has hitherto been always printed "many many: it should certainly be hyphened like too-too, few-few, most-most, and the like. bthe wicked prize itself-] Mr. Collier's annotator, with abominable taste, suggests purse for "prize," and Mr. Collier But to confront the visage of offence? Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up; murder! That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe! [Retires and kneels. POL. Behind. What, ho! help, help, help! HAM. How now! a rat? [Draws.] Dead! for a ducat, dead! [Makes a pass through the arras. POL. [Behind. O, I am slain. [Falls and dies. QUEEN. O, me, what hast thou done? HAM. Nay, I know not: is it the king? QUEEN. Ó, what a rash and bloody deed is this! HAM. A bloody deed!—almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother. НАМ. Ay, lady, 't was my word.— [Lifts up the arras and sees POLONIUS. Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune: Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.— Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down, And let me wring your heart: for so I shall, In noise so rude against me? Such an act HAM. That bars the grace and blush of modesty; Calls vince hypocrite: takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets* a blister there; makes marriage vows As false as dicers' caths: 0, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul; and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words! heaven's face doth glow ; Yea, this solidity and compound mass, With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act. QUEEN. Av me, what act, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear, Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards!—What would your* gracious figure? QUEEN. Alas, he's mad! HAM. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, GHOST. Do not forget: this visitation How is it with you, lady? QUEEN. Alas, how is 't with you, That you dot bend your eye on vacancy, And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep; And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on end. O, gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? HAM. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capable."-Do not look upon me; Ecstasy! My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time, f For in the fatness of these § pursy times, HAM. O, throw away the worser part of it, That monster, Custom, who all sense doth eat, editors uniformly print this as if Hamlet addressed it to the Queen, nothing can be more evident than that it is an imploration to his own virtue. h gcurb-] Bow, or truckle; from the French courber. That monster, Custom, who all sense doth eat, Oft habits' devil, &c.] The reading of the old text is, "That monster custome, who all sense doth eate Of habits devill," &c.; Which has been variously modified to, 64 Alas, it is the weaknesse of thy braine, Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy hearts griefe: But as I have a soule, I sweare by heaven, I never knew of this most horride murder: and But Hamlet, this is onely fantasie, -do not spread the compost on the weeds,-] The folio has,or the weeds;" the poet's manuscript probably read, "o'er the weeds," &c. f Forgive me this, my virtue; &c.] Although the modern who all sense doth eat, If habit's devil," &c.; "who all sense doth eat, Or habit's devil," &c. The trifling change we have taken the liberty to make, while doing little violence to the original, may be thought, it is hoped, to give at least as good a meaning as any other which has been proposed. |