Chapter 3

[Footnote 4: The assurance of his uncle's guilt, gained through the effect of the play upon him, and the corroboration of his mother's guilt by this partial confirmation of the Ghost's assertion, have once more stirred in Hamlet the fierceness of vengeance. But here afresh comes out the balanced nature of the man--say rather, the supremacy in him of reason and will. His dear soul, having once become mistress of his choice, remains mistress for ever. He _could_ drink hot blood, he _could_ do bitter business, but he will carry himself as a son, and the son of his father, _ought_ to carry himself towards a guilty mother--_mother_ although guilty.]

[Footnote 5: Thus he girds himself for the harrowing interview. Aware of the danger he is in of forgetting his duty to his mother, he strengthens himself in filial righteousness, dreading to what word or deed a burst of indignation might drive him. One of his troubles now is the way he feels towards his mother.]

[Footnote 6: --who killed his mother.]

[Footnote 7: His words should be as daggers.]

[Footnote 8: _Pretenders_.]

[Footnote 9: _reproached_ or _rebuked_--though oftener _scolded_.]

[Footnote 10: 'to seal them with actions'--Actions are the seals to words, and make them irrevocable.]

[Footnote 11: _walk at liberty_.]

[Footnote 12: _get ready_.]

[Footnote 13: He had, it would appear, taken them into his confidence in the business; they knew what was to be in their commission, and were thorough traitors to Hamlet.]

[Footnote 14: --holy and religious precaution for the sake of the many depending on him.]

[Footnote 15: Is there not unconscious irony of their own parasitism here intended?]

[Footnote 16: _private individual_.]

[Page 160]

To keepe it selfe from noyance:[1] but much more, That Spirit, vpon whose spirit depends and rests [Sidenote: whose weale depends] The lives of many, the cease of Maiestie [Sidenote: cesse] Dies not alone;[2] but like a Gulfe doth draw What's neere it, with it. It is a massie wheele [Sidenote: with it, or it is] Fixt on the Somnet of the highest Mount, To whose huge Spoakes, ten thousand lesser things [Sidenote: hough spokes] Are mortiz'd and adioyn'd: which when it falles, Each small annexment, pettie consequence Attends the boystrous Ruine. Neuer alone [Sidenote: raine,] Did the King sighe, but with a generall grone. [Sidenote: but a[3]]

_King._[4] Arme you,[5] I pray you to this speedie Voyage; [Sidenote: viage,] For we will Fetters put vpon this feare,[6] [Sidenote: put about this] Which now goes too free-footed.

_Both._ We will haste vs. _Exeunt Gent_

_Enter Polonius._

Pol. My Lord, he's going to his Mothers Closset: Behinde the Arras Ile conuey my selfe To heare the Processe. Ile warrant shee'l tax him home, And as you said, and wisely was it said, 'Tis meete that some more audience then a Mother, Since Nature makes them partiall, should o're-heare The speech of vantage.[7] Fare you well my Liege, Ile call vpon you ere you go to bed, And tell you what I know. [Sidenote: Exit.]

_King._ Thankes deere my Lord. Oh my offence is ranke, it smels to heauen, It hath the primall eldest curse vpon't, A Brothers murther.[8] Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharpe as will: My stronger guilt,[9] defeats my strong intent,

[Footnote 1: The philosophy of which self is the centre. The speeches of both justify the king in proceeding to extremes against Hamlet.]

[Footnote 2: The same as to say: 'The passing, ceasing, or ending of majesty dies not--is not finished or accomplished, without that of others;' 'the dying ends or ceases not,' &c.]

[Footnote 3: The _but_ of the _Quarto_ is better, only the line halts. It is the preposition, meaning _without_.]

[Footnote 4: _heedless of their flattery_. It is hardly applicable enough to interest him.]

[Footnote 5: 'Provide yourselves.']

[Footnote 6: fear active; cause of fear; thing to be afraid of; the noun of the verb _fear_, to _frighten_:

Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v. sc. i.]

[Footnote 7: Schmidt (_Sh. Lex._) says _of vantage_ means _to boot_. I do not think he is right. Perhaps Polonius means 'from a position of advantage.' Or perhaps 'The speech of vantage' is to be understood as implying that Hamlet, finding himself in a position of vantage, that is, alone with his mother, will probably utter himself with little restraint.]

[Footnote 8: This is the first proof positive of his guilt accorded even to the spectator of the play: here Claudius confesses not merely guilt (118), but the very deed. Thoughtless critics are so ready to judge another as if he knew all they know, that it is desirable here to remind the student that only he, not Hamlet, hears this soliloquy. The falseness of half the judgments in the world comes from our not taking care and pains first to know accurately the actions, and then to understand the mental and moral condition, of those we judge.]

[Footnote 9: --his present guilty indulgence--stronger than his strong intent to pray.]

[Page 162]

And like a man to double businesse bound,[1] I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both[2] neglect; what if this cursed hand Were thicker then it selfe with Brothers blood, Is there not Raine enough in the sweet Heauens To wash it white as Snow? Whereto serues mercy, But to confront the visage of Offence? And what's in Prayer, but this two-fold force, To be fore-stalled ere we come to fall, Or pardon'd being downe? Then Ile looke vp, [Sidenote: pardon] My fault is past. But oh, what forme of Prayer Can serue my turne? Forgiue me my foule Murther: That cannot be, since I am still possest Of those effects for which I did the Murther.[3] My Crowne, mine owne Ambition, and my Queene: May one be pardon'd, and retaine th'offence? In the corrupted currants of this world, Offences gilded hand may shoue by Iustice [Sidenote: showe] And oft 'tis seene, the wicked prize it selfe Buyes out the Law; but 'tis not so aboue, There is no shuffling, there the Action lyes In his true Nature, and we our selues compell'd Euen to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To giue in euidence. What then? What rests? Try what Repentance can. What can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?[4] Oh wretched state! Oh bosome, blacke as death! Oh limed[5] soule, that strugling to be free, Art more ingag'd[6]: Helpe Angels, make assay:[7] Bow stubborne knees, and heart with strings of Steele, Be soft as sinewes of the new-borne Babe, All may be well.

[Footnote 1: Referring to his double guilt--the one crime past, the other in continuance.

Here is the corresponding passage in the _1st Q._, with the adultery plainly confessed:--

_Enter the King._

_King_. O that this wet that falles vpon my face Would wash the crime cleere from my conscience! When I looke vp to heauen, I see my trespasse, The earth doth still crie out vpon my fact, Pay me the murder of a brother and a king, And the adulterous fault I haue committed: O these are sinnes that are vnpardonable: Why say thy sinnes were blacker then is ieat, Yet may contrition make them as white as snowe: I but still to perseuer in a sinne, It is an act gainst the vniuersall power, Most wretched man, stoope, bend thee to thy prayer, Aske grace of heauen to keepe thee from despaire.]

[Footnote 2: both crimes.]

[Footnote 3: He could repent of and pray forgiveness for the murder, if he could repent of the adultery and incest, and give up the queen. It is not the sins they have done, but the sins they will not leave, that damn men. 'This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.' The murder deeply troubled him; the adultery not so much; the incest and usurpation mainly as interfering with the forgiveness of the murder.]

[Footnote 4: Even hatred of crime committed is not repentance: repentance is the turning away from wrong doing: 'Cease to do evil; learn to do well.']

[Footnote 5: --caught and held by crime, as a bird by bird-lime.]

[Footnote 6: entangled.]

[Footnote 7: _said to his knees_. Point thus:--'Helpe Angels! Make assay--bow, stubborne knees!']

[Page 164]

_Enter Hamlet_.

_Ham_.[1] Now might I do it pat, now he is praying, [Sidenote: doe it, but now a is a praying,] And now Ile doo't, and so he goes to Heauen, [Sidenote: so a goes] And so am I reueng'd: that would be scann'd, [Sidenote: reuendge,] A Villaine killes my Father, and for that I his foule Sonne, do this same Villaine send [Sidenote: sole sonne] To heauen. Oh this is hyre and Sallery, not Reuenge. [Sidenote: To heauen. Why, this is base and silly, not] He tooke my Father grossely, full of bread, [Sidenote: A tooke] [Sidenote: 54, 262] With all his Crimes broad blowne, as fresh as May, [Sidenote: as flush as] And how his Audit stands, who knowes, saue Heauen:[2] But in our circumstance and course of thought 'Tis heauie with him: and am I then reueng'd, To take him in the purging of his Soule, When he is fit and season'd for his passage? No. Vp Sword, and know thou a more horrid hent[3] When he is drunke asleepe: or in his Rage, Or in th'incestuous pleasure of his bed, At gaming, swearing, or about some acte [Sidenote: At game a swearing,] That ha's no rellish of Saluation in't, Then trip him,[4] that his heeles may kicke at Heauen, And that his Soule may be as damn'd and blacke As Hell, whereto it goes.[5] My Mother stayes,[6] This Physicke but prolongs thy sickly dayes.[7] _Exit_.

_King_. My words flye vp, my thoughts remain below, Words without thoughts, neuer to Heauen go.[8] _Exit_.

_Enter Queene and Polonius_. [Sidenote: _Enter Gertrard and_]

_Pol_. He will come straight: [Sidenote: A will] Looke you lay home to him

[Footnote 1: In the _1st Q._ this speech commences with, 'I so, come forth and worke thy last,' evidently addressed to his sword; afterwards, having changed his purpose, he says, 'no, get thee vp agen.']

[Footnote 2: This indicates doubt of the Ghost still. He is unwilling to believe in him.]

[Footnote 3: _grasp_. This is the only instance I know of _hent_ as a noun. The verb _to hent, to lay hold of_, is not so rare. 'Wait till thou be aware of a grasp with a more horrid purpose in it.']

[Footnote 4: --still addressed to his sword.]

[Footnote 5: Are we to take Hamlet's own presentment of his reasons as exhaustive? Doubtless to kill him at his prayers, whereupon, after the notions of the time, he would go to heaven, would be anything but justice--the murdered man in hell--the murderer in heaven! But it is easy to suppose Hamlet finding it impossible to slay a man on his knees--and that from behind: thus in the unseen Presence, he was in sanctuary, and the avenger might well seek reason or excuse for not _then_, not _there_ executing the decree.]

[Footnote 6: 'waits for me.']

[Footnote 7: He seems now to have made up his mind, and to await only fit time and opportunity; but he is yet to receive confirmation strong as holy writ.

This is the first chance Hamlet has had--within the play--of killing the king, and any imputation of faulty irresolution therein is simply silly. It shows the soundness of Hamlet's reason, and the steadiness of his will, that he refuses to be carried away by passion, or the temptation of opportunity. The sight of the man on his knees might well start fresh doubt of his guilt, or even wake the thought of sparing a repentant sinner. He knows also that in taking vengeance on her husband he could not avoid compromising his mother. Besides, a man like Hamlet could not fail to perceive how the killing of his uncle, and in such an attitude, would look to others.

It may be judged, however, that the reason he gives to himself for not slaying the king, was only an excuse, that his soul revolted from the idea of assassination, and was calmed in a measure by the doubt whether a man could thus pray--in supposed privacy, we must remember--and be a murderer. Not even yet had he proof _positive_, absolute, conclusive: the king might well take offence at the play, even were he innocent; and in any case Hamlet would desire _presentable_ proof: he had positively none to show the people in justification of vengeance.

As in excitement a man's moods may be opalescent in their changes, and as the most contrary feelings may coexist in varying degrees, all might be in a mind, which I have suggested as present in that of Hamlet.

To have been capable of the kind of action most of his critics would demand of a man, Hamlet must have been the weakling they imagine him. When at length, after a righteous delay, partly willed, partly inevitable, he holds documents in the king's handwriting as proofs of his treachery--_proofs which can be shown_--giving him both right and power over the life of the traitor, then, and only then, is he in cool blood absolutely satisfied as to his duty--which conviction, working with opportunity, and that opportunity plainly the last, brings the end; the righteous deed is done, and done righteously, the doer blameless in the doing of it. The Poet is not careful of what is called poetic justice in his play, though therein is no failure; what he is careful of is personal rightness in the hero of it.]

[Footnote 8: _1st Q_.

_King_ My wordes fly vp, my sinnes remaine below. No King on earth is safe, if Gods his foe. _Exit King_.

So he goes to make himself safe by more crime! His repentance is mainly fear.]

[Page 166]

Tell him his prankes haue been too broad to beare with, And that your Grace hath scree'nd, and stoode betweene Much heate, and him. Ile silence me e'ene heere: [Sidenote: euen heere,] Pray you be round[1] with him.[2] [Sidenote: _Enter Hamlet_.]

_Ham. within_. Mother, mother, mother.[3]

_Qu_. Ile warrant you, feare me not. [Sidenote: _Ger_. Ile wait you,] Withdraw, I heare him comming.

_Enter Hamlet_.[4]

_Ham_.[5] Now Mother, what's the matter?

_Qu_. _Hamlet_, thou hast thy Father much offended. [Sidenote: _Ger_.]

_Ham_. Mother, you haue my Father much offended.

_Qu_. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. [Sidenote: _Ger_.]

_Ham._ Go, go, you question with an idle tongue. [Sidenote: with a wicked tongue.]

_Qu_. Why how now _Hamlet_?[6] [Sidenote: _Ger_.]

_Ham_. Whats the matter now?

_Qu_. Haue you forgot me?[7] [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham_. No by the Rood, not so: You are the Queene, your Husbands Brothers wife, But would you were not so. You are my Mother.[8] [Sidenote: And would it were]

_Qu_. Nay, then Ile set those to you that can speake.[9] [Sidenote: _Ger_.]

_Ham_. Come, come, and sit you downe, you shall not boudge: You go not till I set you vp a glasse, Where you may see the inmost part of you? [Sidenote: the most part]

_Qu_. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther [Sidenote: _Ger_.] me?[10] Helpe, helpe, hoa. [Sidenote: Helpe how.]

_Pol_. What hoa, helpe, helpe, helpe. [Sidenote: What how helpe.]

_Ham_. How now, a Rat? dead for a Ducate, dead.[11]

[Footnote 1: _The Quarto has not_ 'with him.']

[Footnote 2: _He goes behind the arras._]

[Footnote 3: _The Quarto has not this speech._]

[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]

[Footnote 5: _1st Q._

_Ham_. Mother, mother, O are you here? How i'st with you mother?

_Queene_ How i'st with you?

_Ham_, I'le tell you, but first weele make all safe.

Here, evidently, he bolts the doors.]

[Footnote 6: _1st Q._

_Queene_ How now boy?

_Ham_. How now mother! come here, sit downe, for you shall heare me speake.]

[Footnote 7: --'that you speak to me in such fashion?']

[Footnote 8: _Point thus_: 'so: you'--'would you were not so, for you are _my_ mother.'--_with emphasis on_ 'my.' The whole is spoken sadly.]

[Footnote 9: --'speak so that you must mind them.']

[Footnote 10: The apprehension comes from the combined action of her conscience and the notion of his madness.]

[Footnote 11: There is no precipitancy here--only instant resolve and execution. It is another outcome and embodiment of Hamlet's rare faculty for action, showing his delay the more admirable. There is here neither time nor call for delay. Whoever the man behind the arras might be, he had, by spying upon him in the privacy of his mother's room, forfeited to Hamlet his right to live; he had heard what he had said to his mother, and his death was necessary; for, if he left the room, Hamlet's last chance of fulfilling his vow to the Ghost was gone: if the play had not sealed, what he had now spoken must seal his doom. But the decree had in fact already gone forth against his life. 158.]

[Page 168]

_Pol._ Oh I am slaine. [1]_Killes Polonius._[2]

_Qu._ Oh me, what hast thou done? [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ Nay I know not, is it the King?[3]

_Qu._ Oh what a rash, and bloody deed is this? [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ A bloody deed, almost as bad good Mother, [Sidenote: 56] As kill a King,[4] and marrie with his Brother.

_Qu._ As kill a King? [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ I Lady, 'twas my word.[5] [Sidenote: it was] Thou wretched, rash, intruding foole farewell, I tooke thee for thy Betters,[3] take thy Fortune, [Sidenote: better,] Thou find'st to be too busie, is some danger, Leaue wringing of your hands, peace, sit you downe, And let me wring your heart, for so I shall If it be made of penetrable stuffe; If damned Custome haue not braz'd it so, That it is proofe and bulwarke against Sense. [Sidenote: it be]

_Qu._ What haue I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tong, [Sidenote: _Ger._] In noise so rude against me?[6]

_Ham._ Such an Act That blurres the grace and blush of Modestie,[7] Calls Vertue Hypocrite, takes off the Rose From the faire forehead of an innocent loue, And makes a blister there.[8] Makes marriage vowes [Sidenote: And sets a] As false as Dicers Oathes. Oh such a deed, As from the body of Contraction[9] pluckes The very soule, and sweete Religion makes A rapsidie of words. Heauens face doth glow, [Sidenote: dooes] Yea this solidity and compound masse, [Sidenote: Ore this] With tristfull visage as against the doome, [Sidenote: with heated visage,] Is thought-sicke at the act.[10] [Sidenote: thought sick]

_Qu._ Aye me; what act,[11] that roares so lowd,[12] and thunders in the Index.[13]

[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._]

[Footnote 2: --_through the arras_.]

[Footnote 3: Hamlet takes him for, hopes it is the king, and thinks here to conclude: he is not praying now! and there is not a moment to be lost, for he has betrayed his presence and called for help. As often as immediate action is demanded of Hamlet, he is immediate with his response--never hesitates, never blunders. There is no blunder here: being where he was, the death of Polonius was necessary now to the death of the king. Hamlet's resolve is instant, and the act simultaneous with the resolve. The weak man is sure to be found wanting when immediate action is necessary; Hamlet never is. Doubtless those who blame him as dilatory, here blame him as precipitate, for they judge according to appearance and consequence.

All his delay after this is plainly compelled, although I grant he was not sorry to have to await such _more presentable_ evidence as at last he procured, so long as he did not lose the final possibility of vengeance.]

[Footnote 4: This is the sole reference in the interview to the murder. I take it for tentative, and that Hamlet is satisfied by his mother's utterance, carriage, and expression, that she is innocent of any knowledge of that crime. Neither does he allude to the adultery: there is enough in what she cannot deny, and that only which can be remedied needs be taken up; while to break with the king would open the door of repentance for all that had preceded.]

[Footnote 5: He says nothing of the Ghost to his mother.]

[Footnote 6: She still holds up and holds out.]

[Footnote 7: 'makes Modesty itself suspected.']

[Footnote 8: 'makes Innocence ashamed of the love it cherishes.']

[Footnote 9: 'plucks the spirit out of all forms of contracting or agreeing.' We have lost the social and kept only the physical meaning of the noun.]

[Footnote 10: I cannot help thinking the _Quarto_ reading of this passage the more intelligible, as well as much the more powerful. We may imagine a red aurora, by no means a very unusual phenomenon, over the expanse of the sky:--

Heaven's face doth glow (_blush_) O'er this solidity and compound mass,

(_the earth, solid, material, composite, a corporeal mass in confrontment with the spirit-like etherial, simple, uncompounded heaven leaning over it_)

With tristful (_or_ heated, _as the reader may choose_) visage: as against the doom,

(_as in the presence, or in anticipation of the revealing judgment_)

Is thought sick at the act.

(_thought is sick at the act of the queen_)

My difficulties as to the _Folio_ reading are--why the earth should be so described without immediate contrast with the sky; and--how the earth could be showing a tristful visage, and the sickness of its thought. I think, if the Poet indeed made the alterations and they are not mere blunders, he must have made them hurriedly, and without due attention. I would not forget, however, that there may be something present but too good for me to find, which would make the passage plain as it stands.

Compare _As you like it_, act i. sc. 3.

For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.]

[Footnote 11: In Q. the rest of this speech is Hamlet's; his long speech begins here, taking up the queen's word.]

[Footnote 12: She still stands out.]

[Footnote 13: 'thunders in the very indication or mention of it.' But by 'the Index' may be intended the influx or table of contents of a book, at the beginning of it.]

[Page 170]

_Ham._ Looke heere vpon this Picture, and on this, The counterfet presentment of two Brothers:[1] See what a grace was seated on his Brow, [Sidenote: on this] [Sidenote: 151] _Hyperions_ curies, the front of Ioue himselfe, An eye like Mars, to threaten or command [Sidenote: threaten and] A Station, like the Herald Mercurie New lighted on a heauen kissing hill: [Sidenote: on a heaue, a kissing] A Combination, and a forme indeed, Where euery God did seeme to set his Seale, To giue the world assurance of a man.[2] This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes. Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare Blasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes? [Sidenote: wholsome brother,] Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed, And batten on this Moore?[3] Ha? Haue you eyes? You cannot call it Loue: For at your age, The hey-day[4] in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waites vpon the Judgement: and what Iudgement Would step from this, to this? [A] What diuell was't, That thus hath cousend you at hoodman-blinde?[5] [Sidenote: hodman] [B] O Shame! where is thy Blush? Rebellious Hell, If thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones,

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

sence sure youe haue Els could you not haue motion, but sure that sence Is appoplext, for madnesse would not erre Nor sence to extacie[6] was nere so thral'd But it reseru'd some quantity of choise[7] To serue in such[8] a difference,]

[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight. Eares without hands, or eyes, smelling sance[9] all, Or but a sickly part of one true sence Could not so mope:[10]]

[Footnote 1: He points to the portraits of the two brothers, side by side on the wall.]

[Footnote 2: See _Julius Caesar_, act v. sc. 5,--speech of _Antony_ at the end.]

[Footnote 3: --perhaps an allusion as well to the complexion of Claudius, both moral and physical.]

[Footnote 4: --perhaps allied to the German _heida_, and possibly the English _hoyden_ and _hoity-toity_. Or is it merely _high-day--noontide_?]

[Footnote 5: 'played tricks with you while hooded in the game of _blind-man's-bluff_?' The omitted passage of the _Quarto_ enlarges the figure.

_1st Q._ 'hob-man blinde.']

[Footnote 6: madness.]

[Footnote 7: Attributing soul to sense, he calls its distinguishment _choice_.]

[Footnote 8: --emphasis on _such_.]

[Footnote 9: This spelling seems to show how the English word _sans_ should be pronounced.]

[Footnote 10: --'be so dull.']

[Page 172]

To flaming youth, let Vertue be as waxe, And melt in her owne fire. Proclaime no shame, When the compulsiue Ardure giues the charge, Since Frost it selfe,[1] as actiuely doth burne, As Reason panders Will. [Sidenote: And reason pardons will.]

_Qu._ O Hamlet, speake no more.[2] [Sidenote: _Ger._] Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soule, [Sidenote: my very eyes into my soule,] And there I see such blacke and grained[3] spots, [Sidenote: greeued spots] As will not leaue their Tinct.[4] [Sidenote: will leaue there their]

_Ham._ Nay, but to liue[5] In the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed, [Sidenote: inseemed] Stew'd in Corruption; honying and making loue [Sidenote: 34] Ouer the nasty Stye.[6]

_Qu._ Oh speake to me, no more, [Sidenote: _Ger._] [Sidenote: 158] These words like Daggers enter in mine eares. [Sidenote: my] No more sweet _Hamlet_.

_Ham._ A Murderer, and a Villaine: A Slaue, that is not twentieth part the tythe [Sidenote: part the kyth] Of your precedent Lord. A vice[7] of Kings, A Cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule. That from a shelfe, the precious Diadem stole, And put it in his Pocket.

_Qu._ No more.[8] [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Enter Ghost._[9]

_Ham._ A King of shreds and patches. [Sidenote: 44] Saue me; and houer o're me with your wings[10] You heauenly Guards. What would you gracious figure? [Sidenote: your gracious]

_Qu._ Alas he's mad.[11] [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide, That laps't in Time and Passion, lets go by[12] Th'important acting of your dread command? Oh say.[13]

[Footnote 1: --his mother's matronly age.]

[Footnote 2: She gives way at last.]

[Footnote 3: --spots whose blackness has sunk into the grain, or final particles of the substance.]

[Footnote 4: --transition form of tint:--'will never give up their colour;' 'will never be cleansed.']

[Footnote 5: He persists.]

[Footnote 6: --Claudius himself--his body no 'temple of the Holy Ghost,' but a pig-sty. 3.]

[Footnote 7: The clown of the old Moral Play.]

[Footnote 8: She seems neither surprised nor indignant at any point in the accusation: her consciousness of her own guiit has overwhelmed her.]

[Footnote 9: The _1st Q._ has _Enter the ghost in his night gowne_. It was then from the first intended that he should not at this point appear in armour--in which, indeed, the epithet _gracious figure_ could hardly be applied to him, though it might well enough in one of the costumes in which Hamlet was accustomed to see him--as this dressing-gown of the _1st Q._ A ghost would appear in the costume in which he naturally imagined himself, and in his wife's room would not show himself clothed as when walking among the fortifications of the castle. But by the words lower down (174)--

My Father in his habite, as he liued,

the Poet indicates, not his dressing-gown, but his usual habit, _i.e._ attire.]

[Footnote 10: --almost the same invocation as when first he saw the apparition.]

[Footnote 11: The queen cannot see the Ghost. Her conduct has built such a wall between her and her husband that I doubt whether, were she a ghost also, she could see him. Her heart had left him, so they are no more together in the sphere of mutual vision. Neither does the Ghost wish to show himself to her. As his presence is not corporeal, a ghost may be present to but one of a company.]

[Footnote 12: 1. 'Who, lapsed (_fallen, guilty_), lets action slip in delay and suffering.' 2. 'Who, lapsed in (_fallen in, overwhelmed by_) delay and suffering, omits' &c. 3. 'lapsed in respect of time, and because of passion'--the meaning of the preposition _in_, common to both, reacted upon by the word it governs. 4. 'faulty both in delaying, and in yielding to suffering, when action is required.' 5. 'lapsed through having too much time and great suffering.' 6. 'allowing himself to be swept along by time and grief.'

Surely there is not another writer whose words would so often admit of such multiform and varied interpretation--each form good, and true, and suitable to the context! He seems to see at once all the relations of a thing, and to try to convey them at once, in an utterance single as the thing itself. He would condense the infinite soul of the meaning into the trembling, overtaxed body of the phrase!]

[Footnote 13: In the renewed presence of the Ghost, all its former influence and all the former conviction of its truth, return upon him. He knows also how his behaviour must appear to the Ghost, and sees himself as the Ghost sees him. Confronted with the gracious figure, how should he think of self-justification! So far from being able to explain things, he even forgets the doubt that had held him back--it has vanished from the noble presence! He is now in the world of belief; the world of doubt is nowhere!--Note the masterly opposition of moods.]

[Page 174]

_Ghost._ Do not forget: this Visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.[1] But looke, Amazement on thy Mother sits;[2] [Sidenote: 30, 54] O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule,[3] [Sidenote: 198] Conceit[4] in weakest bodies, strongest workes. Speake to her _Hamlet_.[5]

_Ham._ How is it with you Lady?[6]

_Qu._ Alas, how is't with you? [Sidenote: _Ger._] That you bend your eye on vacancie, [Sidenote: you do bend] And with their corporall ayre do hold discourse. [Sidenote: with th'incorporall ayre] Forth at your eyes, your spirits wildely peepe, And as the sleeping Soldiours in th'Alarme, Your bedded haire, like life in excrements,[7] Start vp, and stand an end.[8] Oh gentle Sonne, Vpon the heate and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle coole patience. Whereon do you looke?[9]

_Ham._ On him, on him: look you how pale he glares, His forme and cause conioyn'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capeable.[10] Do not looke vpon me,[11] Least with this pitteous action you conuert My sterne effects: then what I haue to do,[12] [Sidenote: 111] Will want true colour; teares perchance for blood.[13]

_Qu._ To who do you speake this? [Sidenote: _Ger._ To whom]

_Ham._ Do you see nothing there?

_Qu._ Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.[14] [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ Nor did you nothing heare?

_Qu._ No, nothing but our selues. [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ Why look you there: looke how it steals away: [Sidenote: 173] My Father in his habite, as he liued, Looke where he goes euen now out at the Portall. _Exit._ [Sidenote: _Exit Ghost._]

[Sidenote: 114] _Qu._ This is the very coynage of your Braine, [Sidenote: _Ger._]

[Footnote 1: The Ghost here judges, as alone is possible to him, from what he knows--from the fact that his brother Claudius has not yet made his appearance in the ghost-world. Not understanding Hamlet's difficulties, he mistakes Hamlet himself.]

[Footnote 2: He mistakes also, through his tenderness, the condition of his wife--imagining, it would seem, that she feels his presence, though she cannot see him, or recognize the source of the influence which he supposes to be moving her conscience: she is only perturbed by Hamlet's behaviour.]

[Footnote 3: --fighting within itself, as the sea in a storm may be said to fight.

He is careful as ever over the wife he had loved and loves still; careful no less of the behaviour of the son to his mother.

In the _1st Q._ we have:--

But I perceiue by thy distracted lookes, Thy mother's fearefull, and she stands amazde: Speake to her Hamlet, for her sex is weake, Comfort thy mother, Hamlet, thinke on me.]

[Footnote 4: --not used here for bare _imagination_, but imagination with its concomitant feeling:--_conception_. 198.]

[Footnote 5: His last word ere he vanishes utterly, concerns his queen; he is tender and gracious still to her who sent him to hell. This attitude of the Ghost towards his faithless wife, is one of the profoundest things in the play. All the time she is not thinking of him any more than seeing him--for 'is he not dead!'--is looking straight at where he stands, but is all unaware of him.]

[Footnote 6: I understand him to speak this with a kind of lost, mechanical obedience. The description his mother gives of him makes it seem as if the Ghost were drawing his ghost out to himself, and turning his body thereby half dead.]

[Footnote 7: 'as if there were life in excrements.' The nails and hair were 'excrements'--things _growing out_.]

[Footnote 8: Note the form _an end_--not _on end_. 51, 71.]

[Footnote 9: --all spoken coaxingly, as to one in a mad fit. She regards his perturbation as a sudden assault of his ever present malady. One who sees what others cannot see they are always ready to count mad.]

[Footnote 10: able to _take_, that is, to _understand_.]

[Footnote 11: --_to the Ghost_.]

[Footnote 12: 'what is in my power to do.']

[Footnote 13: Note antithesis here: '_your piteous action_;' '_my stern effects_'--the things, that is, 'which I have to effect.' 'Lest your piteous show convert--change--my stern doing; then what I do will lack true colour; the result may be tears instead of blood; I shall weep instead of striking.']

[Footnote 14: It is one of the constantly recurring delusions of humanity that we see all there is.]

[Page 176]

[Sidenote: 114] This bodilesse Creation extasie[1] is very cunning in.[2]

_Ham._ Extasie?[3] My Pulse as yours doth temperately keepe time, And makes as healthfull Musicke.[4] It is not madnesse That I haue vttered; bring me to the Test And I the matter will re-word: which madnesse [Sidenote: And the] Would gamboll from. Mother, for loue of Grace, Lay not a flattering Vnction to your soule, [Sidenote: not that flattering] That not your trespasse, but my madnesse speakes: [Sidenote: 182] It will but skin and filme the Vlcerous place, Whil'st ranke Corruption mining all within, [Sidenote: whiles] Infects vnseene, Confesse your selfe to Heauen, Repent what's past, auoyd what is to come, And do not spred the Compost or the Weedes, [Sidenote: compost on the] To make them ranke. Forgiue me this my Vertue, [Sidenote: ranker,] For in the fatnesse of this pursie[5] times, [Sidenote: these] Vertue it selfe, of Vice must pardon begge, Yea courb,[6] and woe, for leaue to do him good. [Sidenote: curbe and wooe]

_Qu._ Oh Hamlet, [Sidenote: _Ger._] Thou hast cleft my heart in twaine.

_Ham._ O throw away the worser part of it, And Liue the purer with the other halfe. [Sidenote: And leaue the] Good night, but go not to mine Vnkles bed, [Sidenote: my] Assume a Vertue, if you haue it not,[7][A] refraine to night [Sidenote: Assune | to refraine night,] And that shall lend a kinde of easinesse

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

[8]That monster custome, who all sence doth eate Of habits deuill,[9] is angell yet in this That to the vse of actions faire and good, He likewise giues a frock or Liuery That aptly is put on]

[Footnote 1: madness 129.]

[Footnote 2: Here is the correspondent speech in the _1st Q._ I give it because of the queen's denial of complicity in the murder.

_Queene_ Alas, it is the weakenesse of thy braine. Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy hearts griefe: But as I haue a soule, I sweare by heauen, I neuer knew of this most horride murder: But Hamlet, this is onely fantasie, And for my loue forget these idle fits.

_Ham_. Idle, no mother, my pulse doth beate like yours, It is not madnesse that possesseth Hamlet.]

[Footnote 3: _Not in Q._]

[Footnote 4: --_time_ being a great part of music. Shakspere more than once or twice employs _music_ as a symbol with reference to corporeal condition: see, for instance, _As you like it_, act i. sc. 2, 'But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking?' where the _broken music_ may be regarded as the antithesis of the _healthful music_ here.]

[Footnote 5: _swoln, pampered_: an allusion to the _purse_ itself, whether intended or not, is suggested.]

[Footnote 6: _bend, bow_.]

[Footnote 7: To _assume_ is to take to one: by _assume a virtue_, Hamlet does not mean _pretend_--but the very opposite: _to pretend_ is _to hold forth, to show_; what he means is, 'Adopt a virtue'--that of _abstinence_--'and act upon it, order your behaviour by it, although you may not _feel_ it. Choose the virtue--take it, make it yours.']

[Footnote 8: This omitted passage is obscure with the special Shaksperean obscurity that comes of over-condensation. He omitted it, I think, because of its obscurity. Its general meaning is plain enough--that custom helps the man who tries to assume a virtue, as well as renders it more and more difficult for him who indulges in vice to leave it. I will paraphrase: 'That monster, Custom, who eats away all sense, the devil of habits, is angel yet in this, that, for the exercise of fair and good actions, he also provides a habit, a suitable frock or livery, that is easily put on.' The play with the two senses of the word _habit_ is more easily seen than set forth. To paraphrase more freely: 'That devil of habits, Custom, who eats away all sense of wrong-doing, has yet an angel-side to him, in that he gives a man a mental dress, a habit, helpful to the doing of the right thing.' The idea of hypocrisy does not come in at all. The advice of Hamlet is: 'Be virtuous in your actions, even if you cannot in your feelings; do not do the wrong thing you would like to do, and custom will render the abstinence easy.']

[Footnote 9: I suspect it should be '_Of habits evil_'--the antithesis to _angel_ being _monster_.]

[Page 178]

To the next abstinence. [A] Once more goodnight, And when you are desirous to be blest, Ile blessing begge of you.[1] For this same Lord, I do repent: but heauen hath pleas'd it so,[2] To punish me with this, and this with me, That I must be their[3] Scourge and Minister. I will bestow him,[4] and will answer well The death I gaue him:[5] so againe, good night. I must be cruell, onely to be kinde;[6] Thus bad begins,[7] and worse remaines behinde.[8] [Sidenote: This bad]

[B]

_Qu_. What shall I do? [Sidenote: _Ger_.]

_Ham_. Not this by no meanes that I bid you do: Let the blunt King tempt you againe to bed, [Sidenote: the blowt King] Pinch Wanton on your cheeke, call you his Mouse, And let him for a paire of reechie[9] kisses, Or padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers, Make you to rauell all this matter out, [Sidenote: rouell] [Sidenote: 60, 136, 156] That I essentially am not in madnesse. But made in craft.[10] 'Twere good you let him know, [Sidenote: mad] For who that's but a Queene, faire, sober, wise, Would from a Paddocke,[11] from a Bat, a Gibbe,[12] Such deere concernings hide, Who would do so, No in despight of Sense and Secrecie, Vnpegge the Basket on the houses top: Let the Birds flye, and like the famous Ape To try Conclusions[13] in the Basket, creepe And breake your owne necke downe.[14]

_Qu_. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, [Sidenote: _Ger_.]

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto;_--

the next more easie:[15] For vse almost can change the stamp of nature, And either[16] the deuill, or throwe him out With wonderous potency:]

[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto:_--

One word more good Lady.[17]]

[Footnote 1: In bidding his mother good night, he would naturally, after the custom of the time, have sought her blessing: it would be a farce now: when she seeks the blessing of God, he will beg hers; now, a plain _good night_ must serve.]

[Footnote 2: Note the curious inverted use of _pleased_. It is here a transitive, not an impersonal verb. The construction of the sentence is, 'pleased it so, _in order to_ punish us, that I must' &c.]

[Footnote 3: The noun to which _their_ is the pronoun is _heaven_--as if he had written _the gods_.]

[Footnote 4: 'take him to a place fit for him to lie in.']

[Footnote 5: 'hold my face to it, and justify it.']

[Footnote 6: --omitting or refusing to embrace her.]

[Footnote 7: --looking at Polonius.]

[Footnote 8: Does this mean for himself to do, or for Polonius to endure?]

[Footnote 9: reeky, smoky, fumy.]

[Footnote 10: Hamlet considers his madness the same that he so deliberately assumed. But his idea of himself goes for nothing where the experts conclude him mad! His absolute clarity where he has no occasion to act madness, goes for as little, for 'all madmen have their sane moments'!]

[Footnote 11: _a toad_; in Scotland, _a frog_.]

[Footnote 12: an old cat.]

[Footnote 13: _Experiments_, Steevens says: is it not rather _results_?]

[Footnote 14: I fancy the story, which so far as I know has not been traced, goes on to say that the basket was emptied from the house-top to send the pigeons flying, and so the ape got his neck broken. The phrase 'breake your owne necke _downe_' seems strange: it could hardly have been written _neck-bone_!]

[Footnote 15: This passage would fall in better with the preceding with which it is vitally one--for it would more evenly continue its form--if the preceding _devil_ were, as I propose above, changed to _evil_. But, precious as is every word in them, both passages are well omitted.]

[Footnote 16: Plainly there is a word left out, if not lost here. There is no authority for the supplied _master_. I am inclined to propose a pause and a gesture, with perhaps an _inarticulation_.]

[Footnote 17: --interrogatively perhaps, Hamlet noting her about to speak; but I would prefer it thus: 'One word more:--good lady--' Here he pauses so long that she speaks. Or we _might_ read it thus:

_Qu._ One word more. _Ham._ Good lady? _Qu._ What shall I do?]

[Page 180]

And breath of life: I haue no life to breath What thou hast saide to me.[1]

[Sidenote: 128, 158] _Ham._ I must to England, you know that?[2]

_Qu._ Alacke I had forgot: Tis so concluded on. [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ [A] This man shall set me packing:[3] Ile lugge the Guts into the Neighbor roome,[4] Mother goodnight. Indeede this Counsellor [Sidenote: night indeed, this] Is now most still, most secret, and most graue, [Sidenote: 84] Who was in life, a foolish prating Knaue. [Sidenote: a most foolish] Come sir, to draw toward an end with you.[5] Good night Mother.

_Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius._[6] [Sidenote: _Exit._]

[7]

_Enter King._ [Sidenote: Enter King, and Queene, with Rosencraus and Guyldensterne.]

_King._ There's matters in these sighes. These profound heaues You must translate; Tis fit we vnderstand them. Where is your Sonne?[8]

_Qu._ [B] Ah my good Lord, what haue I seene to night? [Sidenote: _Ger._ | Ah mine owne Lord,]

_King._ What _Gertrude_? How do's _Hamlet_?

_Qu._ Mad as the Seas, and winde, when both contend [Sidenote: _Ger._ | sea and] Which is the Mightier, in his lawlesse fit[9]

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

[10]Ther's letters seald, and my two Schoolefellowes, Whom I will trust as I will Adders fang'd, They beare the mandat, they must sweep my way And marshall me to knauery[11]: let it worke, For tis the sport to haue the enginer Hoist[12] with his owne petar,[13] an't shall goe hard But I will delue one yard belowe their mines, And blowe them at the Moone: ô tis most sweete When in one line two crafts directly meete,]

[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--

Bestow this place on vs a little while.[14]]

[Footnote 1: _1st Q._

O mother, if euer you did my deare father loue, Forbeare the adulterous bed to night, And win your selfe by little as you may, In time it may be you wil lothe him quite: And mother, but assist mee in reuenge, And in his death your infamy shall die.

_Queene. Hamlet_, I vow by that maiesty, That knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts, I will conceale, consent, and doe my best, What stratagem soe're thou shalt deuise.]

[Footnote 2: The king had spoken of it both before and after the play: Horatio might have heard of it and told Hamlet.]

[Footnote 3: 'My banishment will be laid to this deed of mine.']

[Footnote 4: --to rid his mother of it.]

[Footnote 5: It may cross him, as he says this, dragging the body out by one end of it, and toward the end of its history, that he is himself drawing toward an end along with Polonius.]

[Footnote 6: --_and weeping_. 182. See _note_ 5, 183.]

[Footnote 7: Here, according to the editors, comes 'Act IV.' For this there is no authority, and the point of division seems to me very objectionable. The scene remains the same, as noted from Capell in _Cam. Sh._, and the entrance of the king follows immediately on the exit of Hamlet. He finds his wife greatly perturbed; she has not had time to compose herself.

From the beginning of Act II., on to where I would place the end of Act III., there is continuity.]

[Footnote 8: I would have this speech uttered with pauses and growing urgency, mingled at length with displeasure.]

[Footnote 9: She is faithful to her son, declaring him mad, and attributing the death of 'the unseen' Polonius to his madness.]

[Footnote 10: This passage, like the rest, I hold to be omitted by Shakspere himself. It represents Hamlet as divining the plot with whose execution his false friends were entrusted. The Poet had at first intended Hamlet to go on board the vessel with a design formed upon this for the out-witting of his companions, and to work out that design. Afterwards, however, he alters his plan, and represents his escape as more plainly providential: probably he did not see how to manage it by any scheme of Hamlet so well as by the attack of a pirate; possibly he wished to write the passage (246) in which Hamlet, so consistently with his character, attributes his return to the divine shaping of the end rough-hewn by himself. He had designs--'dear plots'--but they were other than fell out--a rough-hewing that was shaped to a different end. The discomfiture of his enemies was not such as he had designed: it was brought about by no previous plot, but through a discovery. At the same time his deliverance was not effected by the fingering of the packet, but by the attack of the pirate: even the re-writing of the commission did nothing towards his deliverance, resulted only in the punishment of his traitorous companions. In revising the Quarto, the Poet sees that the passage before us, in which is expressed the strongest suspicion of his companions, with a determination to outwit and punish them, is inconsistent with the representation Hamlet gives afterwards of a restlessness and suspicion newly come upon him, which he attributes to the Divinity.

Neither was it likely he would say so much to his mother while so little sure of her as to warn her, on the ground of danger to herself, against revealing his sanity to the king. As to this, however, the portion omitted might, I grant, be regarded as an _aside_.]

[Footnote 11: --to be done _to_ him.]

[Footnote 12: _Hoised_, from verb _hoise_--still used in Scotland.]

[Footnote 13: a kind of explosive shell, which was fixed to the object meant to be destroyed. Note once more Hamlet's delight in action.]

[Footnote 14: --_said to Ros. and Guild._: in plain speech, 'Leave us a little while.']

[Page 182]

Behinde the Arras, hearing something stirre, He whips his Rapier out, and cries a Rat, a Rat, [Sidenote: Whyps out his Rapier, cryes a] And in his brainish apprehension killes [Sidenote: in this] The vnseene good old man.

_King._ Oh heauy deed: It had bin so with vs[1] had we beene there: His Liberty is full of threats to all,[2] To you your selfe, to vs, to euery one. Alas, how shall this bloody deede be answered? It will be laide to vs, whose prouidence Should haue kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt, This mad yong man.[2] But so much was our loue, We would not vnderstand what was most fit, But like the Owner of a foule disease, [Sidenote: 176] To keepe it from divulging, let's it feede [Sidenote: let it] Euen on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

_Qu._ To draw apart the body he hath kild, [Sidenote: Ger.] O're whom his very madnesse[3] like some Oare Among a Minerall of Mettels base [Sidenote: 181] Shewes it selfe pure.[4] He weepes for what is done.[5] [Sidenote: pure, a weeepes]

_King:_ Oh _Gertrude_, come away: The Sun no sooner shall the Mountaines touch, But we will ship him hence, and this vilde deed, We must with all our Maiesty and Skill [Sidenote: 200] Both countenance, and excuse.[6] _Enter Ros. & Guild_.[7] Ho _Guildenstern_: Friends both go ioyne you with some further ayde: _Hamlet_ in madnesse hath Polonius slaine, And from his Mother Clossets hath he drag'd him. [Sidenote: closet | dreg'd] Go seeke him out, speake faire, and bring the body Into the Chappell. I pray you hast in this. _Exit Gent_[8] Come _Gertrude_, wee'l call vp our wisest friends, To let them know both what we meane to do, [Sidenote: And let]

[Footnote 1: the royal plural.]

[Footnote 2: He knows the thrust was meant for him. But he would not have it so understood; he too lays it to his madness, though he too knows better.]

[Footnote 3: 'he, although mad'; 'his nature, in spite of his madness.']

[Footnote 4: by his weeping, in the midst of much to give a different impression.]

[Footnote 5: We have no reason to think the queen inventing here: what could she gain by it? the point indeed was rather against Hamlet, as showing it was not Polonius he had thought to kill. He was more than ever annoyed with the contemptible old man, who had by his meddlesomeness brought his death to his door; but he was very sorry nevertheless over Ophelia's father: those rough words in his last speech are spoken with the tears running down his face. We have seen the strange, almost discordant mingling in him of horror and humour, after the first appearance of the Ghost, 58, 60: something of the same may be supposed when he finds he has killed Polonius: in the highstrung nervous condition that must have followed such a talk with his mother, it would be nowise strange that he should weep heartily even in the midst of contemptuous anger. Or perhaps a sudden breakdown from attempted show of indifference, would not be amiss in the representation.]

[Footnote 6: 'both countenance with all our majesty, and excuse with all our skill.']

[Footnote 7: In the _Quarto_ a line back.]

[Footnote 8: _Not in Q._]

[Page 184]

And what's vntimely[1] done. [A] Oh come away, [Sidenote: doone,] My soule is full of discord and dismay. _Exeunt._

_Enter Hamlet._ [Sidenote: _Hamlet, Rosencrans, and others._]

_Ham._ Safely stowed.[2] [Sidenote: stowed, but soft, what noyse,]

_Gentlemen within._ _Hamlet_. Lord _Hamlet_?

_Ham._ What noise? Who cals on _Hamlet_? Oh heere they come.

_Enter Ros. and Guildensterne._[4]

_Ro._ What haue you done my Lord with the dead body?

_Ham._ Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis Kinne.[5] [Sidenote: Compound it]

_Rosin._ Tell vs where 'tis, that we may take it thence, And beare it to the Chappell.

_Ham._ Do not beleeue it.[6]

_Rosin._ Beleeue what?

[Sidenote: 156] _Ham._ That I can keepe your counsell, and not mine owne. Besides, to be demanded of a Spundge, what replication should be made by the Sonne of a King.[7]

_Rosin._ Take you me for a Spundge, my Lord?

_Ham._ I sir, that sokes vp the Kings Countenance, his Rewards, his Authorities, but such Officers do the King best seruice in the end. He keepes them like an Ape in the corner of his iaw,[8] first [Sidenote: like an apple in] mouth'd to be last swallowed, when he needes what you haue glean'd, it is but squeezing you, and Spundge you shall be dry againe.

_Rosin._ I vnderstand you not my Lord.

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

Whose whisper ore the worlds dyameter,[9] [Sidenote: 206] As leuell as the Cannon to his blanck,[10] Transports his poysned shot, may miffe[11] our Name, And hit the woundlesse ayre.]

[Footnote 1: unhappily.]

[Footnote 2: He has hid the body--to make the whole look the work of a mad fit.]

[Footnote 3: This line is not in the _Quarto_.]

[Footnote 4: _Not in Q. See margin above._]

[Footnote 5: He has put it in a place which, little visited, is very dusty.]

[Footnote 6: He is mad to them--sane only to his mother and Horatio.]

[Footnote 7: _euphuistic_: 'asked a question by a sponge, what answer should a prince make?']

[Footnote 8: _1st Q._:

For hee doth keep you as an Ape doth nuttes, In the corner of his Iaw, first mouthes you, Then swallowes you:]

[Footnote 9: Here most modern editors insert, '_so, haply, slander_'. But, although I think the Poet left out this obscure passage merely from dissatisfaction with it, I believe it renders a worthy sense as it stands. The antecedent to _whose_ is _friends_: _cannon_ is nominative to _transports_; and the only difficulty is the epithet _poysned_ applied to _shot_, which seems transposed from the idea of an _unfriendly_ whisper. Perhaps Shakspere wrote _poysed shot_. But taking this as it stands, the passage might be paraphrased thus: 'Whose (favourable) whisper over the world's diameter (_from one side of the world to the other_), as level (_as truly aimed_) as the cannon (of an evil whisper) transports its poisoned shot to his blank (_the white centre of the target_), may shoot past our name (so keeping us clear), and hit only the invulnerable air.' ('_the intrenchant air_': _Macbeth_,