CAP. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. HAM. Goes it against the main of Poland, fir, Or for fome frontier? CAP. Truly to fpeak, fir, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground, That hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; A ranker rate, fhould it be fold in fee. HAM. Why, then the Polack never will defend it. CAP. Yes, 'tis already garrison'd. HAM. Two thousand fouls, and twenty thousand ducats, Will not debate the queftion of this ftraw: CAP. God be wi'you, fir. Ros. [Exit Captain. Will't please you go, my lord? HAM. I will be with you ftraight. Go a little before. [Exeunt Ros. and GUILD. How all occafions do inform against me, 6 • — chief good, and market of his time, &c.] If his highest good, and that for which he fells his time, be to fleep and feed. JOHNSON. Market, I think, here means profit. MALONE. Be but to fleep, and feed? a beaft, no more. 8 To fuft in us unus'd. Now, whether it be A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, And, ever, three parts coward,-I do not know Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means, 7-large difcourfe,] Such latitude of comprehenfion, fuch power of reviewing the paft, and anticipating the future. JOHNSON. 8-fome craven fcruple-] Some cowardly fcruple. See Vol. VI. p. 454, n. 4. MALONE. So, in King Henry VI. Part I: "Or durft not, for his craven heart, fay this." STEEVENS, Rightly to be great, Is, not to ftir without &c.] This paffage I have printed according to the copy. Mr. Theobald had regulated it thus: Tis not to be great, Never to ftir without great argument; But greatly &c. The fentiment of Shakspeare is partly just, and partly romantick. Rightly to be great, Is, not to ftir without great argument ; is exactly philofophical. But greatly to find quarrel in a firaw, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, When honour's at the ftake. How ftand I then, [Exit. is the idea of a modern hero. But then, fays he, honour is an argument, or fubject of debate, fufficiently great, and when honour is at fake, we must find cause of quarrel in a firaw. JOHNSON. 2 Excitements of my reason, and my blood,] Provocations which excite both my reafon and my paffions to vengeance. JOHNSON. a plot.] A piece, or portion. See Vol. XII. p. 145, n. 5. REED. 3 So, in The Mirror for Magiftrates: "Of grounde to win a plot, a while to dwell, HENDERSON. -continent,] Continent, in our author, means that which HOR. She is importunate; indeed, distract; Her mood will needs be pitied. QUEEN. What would she have? HOR. She speaks much of her father; fays, fhe hears, There's tricks i'the world; and hems, and beats her heart; Spurns enviously at ftraws; fpeaks things in doubt, That carry but half fense: her speech is nothing, Yet the unfhaped use of it doth move 6 The hearers to collection; they aim at it," 5 Spurns enviously at fraws;] Envy is much oftener put by our poet (and thofe of his time) for direct averfion, than for malignity conceived at the fight of another's excellence or happiness. So, in King Henry VIII: "You turn the good we offer into envy." Again, in God's Revenge against Murder, 1621, Hift. VI.— "She loves the memory of Sypontus, and envies and detefts that of her two hufbands." STEEVENS. See Vol. IX. p. 616, n. 3; and Vol. XI. p. 61, n. 9. MALONE. 6 -to collection;] i. e. to deduce confequences from fuch premifes; or, as Mr. M. Mafon obferves, "endeavour to collect fome meaning from them." So, in Cymbeline, scene the last: whofe containing 66 "Is fo from fenfe to hardness, that I can "Make no collection of it." See the note on this passage, Vol. XIII. p. 234. STEEVENS. they aim at it,] The quartos read-they yawn at it. Το aim is to guefs. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "I aim'd so near, when I fuppos'd you lov'd." STEEVENS. Which, as her winks, and nods, and geftures yield them, Indeed would make one think, there might be thought, Though nothing fure, yet much unhappily." QUEEN. 'Twere good, fhe were spoken with;" for fhe may ftrew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds: 8 Though nothing fure, yet much unhappily.] i. e. though her meaning cannot be certainly collected, yet there is enough to put a mifchievous interpretation to it. WARBURTON. That unhappy once fignified mischievous, may be known from P. Holland's tranflation of Pliny's Natural Hiftory, Book XIX. ch. vii.: "—the fhrewd and unhappie foules which lie upon the lands, and eat up the feed new fowne." We ftill ufe unlucky in the fame fenfe. STEEVENS. See Vol. IV. p. 440, n. 9; and Vol. VI. p. 344, n. 5; and Vol. XI. p. 55, n. 6. MALONE. 9 'Twere good, he were spoken with;] Thefe lines are given to the Queen in the folio, and to Horatio in the quarto. JOHNSON. I think the two firft lines of Horatio's fpeech ['Twere good, &c.] belong to him; the reft to the Queen. BLACKTONE. In the quarto, the Queen, Horatio, and a Gentleman, enter at the beginning of this fcene. The two fpeeches, "She is importunate," &c. and "She fpeaks much of her father," &c. are there given to the Gentleman, and the line now before us, as well as the two following, to Horatio: the remainder of this fpeech to the Queen. I think it probable that the regulation proposed by Sir W. Blackftone was that intended by Shakspeare. MALONE. -to fome great amifs:] Shak fpeare is not fingular in his ufe of this word as a fubftantive. So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584: "Gracious forbearers of this world's amifs." Again, in Lyly's Woman in the Moon, 1597: Again, in Greene's Difputation between a He Coneycatcher, &c. -revive in them the memory of my great amifs." 1592: Each toy is, each trifle. MALONE. STEEVENS, |