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conversation. As a matter of fact, Hamlet has done the demanding. Question talk, conversation.

14-15. Assay him to: try (to bring) him to. Notice the skill with which Shakespeare is leading up again to the play. Turn back to II, ii, 15, and see how he had begun the preparation for it even then. That Shakespeare was the most skillful of playwrights, as well as a supremely great dramatist, should never be forgotten.

26.

31.

Give him a further edge: whet him on.

Affront: confront, meet face to face. The regular meaning of the word in Shakespeare. Cf. Winter's Tale, V, i, 73-75: "Unless another . . . affront his eye."

43. Gracious. A formal epithet of courtesy, used in addressing persons of high rank.

46-49. It need not be supposed that Polonius is expressing any qualms of conscience over the trick he is playing, for he obviously has none. He is merely improving the opportunity to indulge in a pious reflection.

51-53. The harlot's painted cheek is not more ugly, compared with the paint that disguises it, than is my deed, compared with the words with which I mask it. Why does Shakespeare make Claudius disclose his guilt just at this point? What light does the disclosure throw upon the character of the man himself?

56 ff. In the First Quarto the passage corresponding to lines 56-169 (including the soliloquy and the interview with Ophelia) comes between lines 168 and 169 of what is now the second scene of Act II. That is to say, in the earlier form of the play the substance of the present scene was introduced before the conversation (then much shorter), with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the interview with the players, and Hamlet's plan to use the Murder of Gonzago as a test of the King's guilt. By shifting the scene from its earlier to its present position the dramatic effect of the sharp confronting of the King's and Hamlet's opposing plans, at the very moment of the climax, is greatly enhanced.

56. Is this the first time that Hamlet has dallied with the idea of suicide? Cf. I, ii, 131-37.

59. To take arms against a sea of troubles: to take up arms against troubles that sweep upon us like a sea. This is

sometimes criticised as a mixed metaphor. But there is all the difference in the world between the mixing of incongruous images that is due to a feeble imagination, and the swift passage of a powerful imagination (as in this case) from one idea to another related one. "Sea" is often used in the sense of host, multitude, any great quantity; cf. "a sea of care (Rape of Lucrece, 1100); "this great sea of joys" (Pericles, V, i, 194). It is barely possible that Shakespeare may have had in mind a very old Celtic custom of actually taking arms against the sea; but it is not necessary to assume that to justify the metaphor.

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65. There's the rub. Another figure from the game of bowls (cf. note on II, i, 65). A rub was an obstacle which diverted the bowl from its course. Cf. Richard II, III, iv, 3-5: "Madam, we'll play at bowls.-'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs, And that my fortune runs against the bias"; Coriolanus, III, i, 60: “this . . . rub laid . . . I' the plain way of his merit."

67. This mortal coil: this turmoil of mortality, the pother of this mortal life. Cf. "the wedding being there to-morrow, there is a great coil to-night" (Much Ado, III, iii, 100); "Yonder's old coil at home " (ibid., V, ii, 98).

75. Quietus: the final settlement of an account. From the law-phrase: quietus est, it (the account) is discharged. Cf. Sonnet CXXVI, 11-12: "Her audit answer'd must be,

And her quietus is to render thee."

76. A bare bodkin: probably, a mere (not an unsheathed) bodkin. Bodkin was a name for a small dagger.

77. Grunt: groan. An entirely dignified word in Shakespeare's time. Cf. Fabyan's Chronicles: Many knyghts lay grunting upon the earth." With Hamlet's words cf. Julius Cæsar, IV, i, 21-22: “He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold, To groan and sweat under the business."

79-80. Avoid the common misquotation: "That bourn from which no traveler returns." Bourn boundary. Hamlet is stating a general truth; he is not thinking of the entirely exceptional case of the Ghost-and even the Ghost has not returned to stay.

So.

83. Conscience: consciousness,—i. e., knowledge that this is This sense of the word is very common in Shakespeare's

time (see the examples in the Oxford Dictionary, under I, i), and is the only one that fits the context. The fact that Shakespeare uses the word elsewhere in the more familiar sense (e. g., Richard III, I, iv, 124-50-especially line 138: "it [conscience] makes a man a coward") is no argument for that meaning here. Its significance must in each case be determined by its context, and the use of "thus" connects it directly with what goes before.

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84-85. The native hue of resolution the pale cast of thought. The reference is to the ruddy color associated with the sanguine temperament as contrasted with the pallor (cast = tinge) of melancholy (cf. Midsummer Night's Dream, I, i, 14-15: "melancholy . . . the pale companion"). Thought in Shakespeare frequently means anxious or melancholy thought. 86. Pitch: the summit of a falcon's flight. The Folios have pith, with which cf. I, iv, 22.

88. Soft you now: hush, be quiet.

self.

Addressed to him

89. Nymph. Frequently used as a conventional term for a young and beautiful woman. Where is the emphasis in the

next line?

91. For this many a day. Observe the gentle reproach implied in Ophelia's words.

99-100. Their

these. Their refers to the "words of so sweet breath composed"; these, to "the things."

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103. Honest. The word means either "chaste" or truthful." Hamlet is possibly playing on both meanings.

109. Commerce. Ophelia is using a synonym for Hamlet's "discourse."

115. Now the time gives it proof. It should not be forgotten, in reading what follows, that what Hamlet has learned about his mother has shaken his faith in all women, Ophelia included.

119-20. Inoculate here means "graft"; our old stock (which carries out the figure) is our old evil nature; it refers back to our old stock. The sense is: You can't so graft a new nature upon the old evil one that some smack of the old will not be left.

123-31. Hamlet's self-accusation must be taken with some allowance for the highly-wrought frame of mind in which he

speaks. It is rather the latent possibilities of human nature than his own actual commissions that he has in mind.

133. It is frequently said that at this point Hamlet catches sight of Polonius behind the arras, and that the terrible bitterness of the speeches that follow is due to his knowledge that Ophelia has lied in her answer, and to his intention to speak, now, for the ears of Polonius and the King. And on the stage Polonius is frequently made to peep around the curtain at this moment. But if Shakespeare had meant this, it is unlike him not to have made it clear. It is very possible-even probable— that Hamlet suspects the presence of Polonius, and that is sufficient to explain his attitude.

134. At home, my lord. Much has been made-often rather stupidly—of Ophelia's lie. There are few better comments than Professor Bradley's: "I will not discuss these casuistical problems; but, if ever an angry lunatic [and Ophelia believes Hamlet to be mad] asks me a question which I cannot answer truly without great danger to him and to one of my relations, I hope that grace may be given me to imitate Ophelia. Seriously, at such a terrible moment was it weak, was it not rather heroic, in a simple girl not to lose her presence of mind and not to flinch, but to go through her task for Hamlet's sake and her father's?" (Shakespearean Tragedy, p. 163).

144. You. Hamlet here passes from Ophelia (whom, since line 120, he has been addressing as 'thou") to all women, and the bitterness of his next speech is not directed against Ophelia alone. See note on line 115.

151. You amble, and you lisp: you walk and talk affectedly.

151. Nick-name God's creatures: give affected names to whatever God has made.

152. Make your wantonness your ignorance: excuse your wantonness by pretending ignorance. Wantonness, in Elizabethan English, does not necessarily mean unchastity; it may simply mean affectation. Either sense fits the context here, and it is probable that Hamlet means both—i. e., immodesty veiled under the affected phraseology of the day.

153. It hath made me mad. Hamlet expects to be reported—even if he does not actually realize that he is overheard.

156. All but one. A hint let drop for the King's ear.

159. The order of the two groups of three words does not correspond, and the First Quarto reverses the order of "soldier's" and "scholar's." But Shakespeare elsewhere deals freely with similar constructions. Cf. Merchant of Venice, III, i, 6465; Rape of Lucrece, 902.

160. The hope and the flower of this fair kingdom.

161. The mold of form: the model of courtly behavior. 167. Blown youth: youth in its full flower.

169. What I have seen: that is, Hamlet as he was.

171-72. The King is shrewder than the rest, and his diagnosis is perfectly sound.

174. Disclose: the breaking of the shell in hatching. Cf. V, i, 310.

175 ff. Observe the promptness with which the King acts. There is no need to suppose that, at this time, his plan included more than he here states.

182. Puts. Brains is treated as a singular. 193. Find him: detect his secret.

ACT III. SCENE II.

The rising action of the tragedy-that part of its movement in which the hero is the aggressive force-reaches its highest point in this scene and the next. By the splendidly dramatic device of the play, Hamlet has forced the King to virtual confession; in the next scene he has him for a moment absolutely in his power. He refuses the opportunity-and from this point on the King becomes the aggressor, and Hamlet is put more and more on the defensive. The turning point or climax of the play, therefore, comes in Scene II-or, better, in Scenes II and III taken together. What follows constitutes the so-called falling action, in which the hero is forced gradually to the wall. In what scene is the climax of Macbeth? Of Julius Cæsar? Of Romeo and Juliet?

I. The speech. The "dozen or sixteen lines" referred to in II, ii, 566. Hamlet's advice to the players embodies Shakespeare's own mature opinions about the actor's art.

6. Use all: do everything.

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