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Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern effects: (102) then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.
QUEEN. To whom do you speak this?

HAM.

Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN. Nothing at all; yet all that is, I see.
HAM. Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN.

No, nothing, but ourselves.

HAM. Why, look you there! look, how it steals

away!

My father, in his habit as he lived!"

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

QUEEN. This is the very coinage of

This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.(103)

HAM. Ecstasy!

[Exit Ghost.

[blocks in formation]

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful musick: It is not madness,
That I have uttered: bring me to the test,

b

And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, *So 4tos. Lay not that* flattering unction to your soul, a. 1623, 32. That not your trespass, but my madness speaks: It will but skin and film the ulcerous place; (104) Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; + on. 4tos. And do not spread the compost o'er the weeds, ranker. To make them rank. Forgive me this my virtue :"

4tos.

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My father in his habit as he lived] i. e. in the habit he was accustomed to wear when living. In Jonson's Masque of the Fortunate Isles, 1626, we find "Enter Skogan and Skelton, in like habits as they lived."

b gambol from] i. e. start away from.

Forgive me this my virtue] i. e. forgive this interference of mine, this proffer of advice, which, whatever its sterling or intrinsic worth, might otherwise seem to have the appearance or character of being forward or obtrusive. In this enigmatical

For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;

Yea, curb (105) and woo, for leave to do him good. QUEEN. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAM. O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

[That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this; (106)
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on :] Refrain to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of easiness

a

To the next abstinence: [the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And maister (107) the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency.] Once more, good night!
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,

I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

[Pointing to POLONIUS.

I do repent: But heaven hath pleas'd it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.(108)
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night!
I must be cruel, only to be kind:

condensation of thought, of which our author was so fond, and in which he was so dexterous an artist, we find a sentiment not dissimilar to that of Guildenstern to Hamlet, "O my Lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is not unmannerly." III. 2.

a the next more easy] i. e. will become more, &c.

b And when you are desirous to be bless'd,

I'll blessing beg of you] i. e. when you are desirous to receive a blessing from heaven (which you cannot, seriously, till you reform) I will beg to receive a blessing from you. This passage can receive no better comment than from Tr. & Cr. "Serv. I hope, I shall know your honour better. Pand. I do desire it. Serv. You are in the state of grace." II. 3.

e heaven hath pleas'd it so] i. e. ordained, hath been pleased that it should be so.

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
[One word more, good lady.]

QUEEN.

What shall I do?

HAM. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: * So 4tos. Let the bloat* king (109) tempt you again to bed;

on your cheek; call

blunt. Pinch wanton on your

1623,

32.

mouse; (110)

you,

And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, (111)
Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I essentially am not in madness,

his

But mad in craft.(112) "Twere good, you let him know:

a

For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock," from a bat, a gib

Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense, and secrecy,

Unpeg the basket on the house's top,

Let the birds fly ;(113) and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions,(114) in the basket creep,

And break your own neck down.

QUEEN. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of
breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe"
What thou hast said to me.

HAM. I must to England; you know that?
QUEEN.

I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.

Alack,

HAM. [There's letters seal'd: and my two school

fellows,

Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd,(115)

For who, that's but a queen] Strictly speaking, " no more than:" but, in the familiar language of banter, importing," who being as much as, having some pretence at least, or title, to the rank and state of," &c.

b a paddock] i. e. toad. See Macb. I. 1. Witches.

с

ca gib] i. e. gilbert, a he cat. I. H. IV. I. 2. Falst.

d to breathe] i. e. most distantly glance at. "Him you breathe of." II. 1. Polon.

They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, (116)

hard,

And marshal me to knavery: Let it work;
For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar: and it shall go
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.(117)]
This man shall set me packing.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room :(118)
Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish, prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with
Good night, mother.

you :

[Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in POLONIUS.

to have the engineer

Hoist with his own petar] i. e. mount.

Hoist is used as a

verb neuter. Petard, Fr. is an engine to blow up gates, &c. "Vehiculum Spiritûs Sancti, that was the Petard, that broke open thy iron gate." Dr. Donne's Sermon before the Company of the Virginian Plantation. 4to. 1622. p. 24.

mine

own. 4tos.

+ Whips out his rapier,

cries, 4tos.

32.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

The same.

Enter King, Queen, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUIL

DENSTERN.

a

KING. There's matter in these sighs; these profound heaves;

b

You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them:
Where is your son?

[QUEEN. Bestow this place on us a little while.-] To ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN, who go out. Ah, my good* lord, what have I seen to night!

KING. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
QUEEN. Mad as the sea, and wind, when both
contend(2)

Which is the mightier: In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,

He whips his rapier out,† and cries, A rat! a rat!
And, in this brainish apprehension, kills

his. 1623, The unseen good old man.

KING.

с

O heavy deed!

It had been so with us, had we been there :

His liberty is full of threats to all;

To you yourself, to us, to every one.

Alas! how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?

It will be laid to us, whose providence

a there's matter in these sighs] i. e. they import something of moment. See Othel. III. 4. Iago.

b translate] i. e. interpret. "With private soul did thus translate," i. e. characterise him. Tr. & Cr. IV. 5. Ulyss.

in this brainish apprehension] i. e. distempered, brain-sick mood, or conceit.

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