Chapter 17

I.ii.92 (160,6) obsequious sorrow] _Obsequious_ is here from _obsequies_, or _funeral ceremonies_.

I.ii.103 (161,9) To reason most absurd] Reason is here used in its common sense, for the _faculty_ by which we form conclusions from arguments.

I.ii.110 (161,1) And with no less nobility of love] [_Nobility_, for _magnitude_. WARBURTON.] _Nobility_ is rather _generosity_.

I.ii.112 (161,2) Do I impart toward you] I believe _impart_ is, _impart myself_, _communicate_ whatever I can bestow.

I.ii.125 (162,4) No jocund health] The king's intemperance is very strongly impressed; every thing that happens to him gives him occasion to drink.

I.ii.163 (164,9) I'll change that name] I'll be your servant, you shall be my friend. (1773)

I.ii.164 (164,1) what make you] A familiar phrase for _what are you doing_.

I.ii.167 (164,2) good Even, Sir] So the copies. Sir Th. Hanmer and Dr. Warburton put it, _good morning_. The alteration is of no importance, but all licence is dangerous. There is no need of any change. Between the first and eighth scene of this act it is apparent, that a natural day must pass, and how much of it is already over, there is nothing that can determine. The king has held a council. It may now as well be _evening_ as _morning_.

I.ii.182 (165,3) 'Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven] _Dearest_, for _direst_, most dreadful, most dangerous.

I.ii.192 (165,5) Season your admiration] That is, _temper_ it.

I.ii.204 (166,6) they, distill'd/Almost to jelly with the act of fear,/Stand dumb] [W: th' effect of] Here is an affectation of subtilty without accuracy. _Fear_ is every day considered as an _agent_. _Fear laid hold on him; fear drove him away_. If it were proper to be rigorous in examining trifles, it might be replied, that Shakespeare would write more erroneously, if he wrote by the direction of this critick; they were not _distilled_, whatever the word may mean, _by the effect of fear_; for that _distillation_ was itself the _effect_; _fear_ was the cause, the active cause, that _distilled_ them by that force of operation which we strictly call _act_ involuntary, and _power_ in involuntary agents, but popularly call _act_ in both. But of this too much.

I.iii.15 (169,9) The virtue of his will] _Virtue_ seems here to comprise both _excellence_ and _power_, and may be explained the _pure effect_.

I.iii.21 (169,1) The sanity and health of the whole state] [W: safety] HANMER reads very rightly, _sanity_. _Sanctity_ is elsewhere printed for _sanity_, in the old edition of this play.

I.iii.32 (170,2) unmaster'd] i.e. _licentious_. (1773)

I.iii.34 (170,3) keep you in the rear of your affection] That is, do not advance so far as your affection would lead you.

I.iii.49 (170,4) Whilst, like a puft and reckless libertine] [W: Whilest he] The emendation is not amiss, but the reason for it is very inconclusive; we use the same mode of speaking on many occasions. When I say of one, _he squanders like a spendthrift_, of another, _he robbed me like a thief_, the phrase produces no ambiguity; it is understood that the one is a _spendthrift_, and the other a _thief_.

I.iii.64 (172,7) But do not dull thy palm with entertainment/Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade] The literal sense is, _Do not make thy palm callous by shaking every man by the hand_. The figurative meaning may be, _Do not by promiscuous conversation make thy mind insensible to the difference of characters_.

I.iii.81 (173,1) my blessing season this in thee!] [_Season_, for _infuse_. WARBURTON.] It is more than to _infuse_, it is to infix it in such a manner as that it never may wear out.

I.iii.83 (173,3) your servants tend] i.e. your servants are waiting for you. (1773)

I.iii.86 (173,4) 'Tis in my memory lock'd,/And you yourself shall keep the key of it] That is, By thinking on you, I shall think on your lessons.

I.iii.107 (174,6)

Tender yourself mere dearly; Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase) Wronging it thus, you'll tender me a fool]

I believe the word _wronging_ has reference, not to the phrase, but to Ophelia; if you go on _wronging it thus_, that is, _if you continue to go on thus wrong_. This is a mode of speaking perhaps not very grammatical, but very common, nor have the best writers refused it.

_To sinner it or saint it_,

is in Pope. And Rowe,

--_Thus to_ coy it, _To one who knows you too._

The folio has it,

--_roaming it thus_,--

That is, _letting yourself loose to such improper liberty_. But _wronging_ seems to be more proper.

I.iii.112 (175,7) fashion you may call it] She uses _fashion_ for _manner_, and he for a _transient practice_.

I.iii.122 (175,8) Set your intreatments] _Intreatments_ here means _company, conversation_, from the French _entrétien_.

I.iii.125 (175,9) larger tether] _Tether_ is that string by which an animal, set to graze in grounds uninclosed, is confined within the proper limits. (1773)

I.iii.132 (176,2) I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,/ Have you so slander any moment's leisure] [The humour of this is fine. WARBURTON.] Here is another _fine_ passage, of which I take the beauty to be only imaginary. Polonius says, _in plain terms_, that is, not in language less elevated or embellished than before, but _in terms that cannot be misunderstood_: _I would not have you so disgrace your most idle moments, as not to find better employment for them than lord Hamlet's conversation_.

I.iv.9 (177,3) the swaggering up-spring] The blustering upstart.

I.iv.17 (177,4) This heavy-headed revel, east and west] I should not have suspected this passage of ambiguity or obscurity, had I not found my opinion of it differing from that of the learned critic [Warburton]. I construe it thus, _This heavy-headed revel makes us traduced east and west, and taxed of other nations_.

I.iv.22 (178,5) The pith and marrow of our attribute] The best and most valuable part of the praise that would be otherwise attributed to us.

I.iv.32 (178,7) fortune's scar] In the old quarto of 1637, it is

--_fortune's_ star:

But I think _scar_ is proper.

I.iv.34 (178,8) As infinite as man may undergo] As large as can be accumulated upon man.

I.iv.39-57 (179,2) Angels and ministers of grace defend us!] Hamlet's speech to the apparition of his father seems to me to consist of three parts. When first he sees the spectre, he fortifies himself with an invocation.

_Angel and ministers of grace defend us!_

As the spectre approaches, he deliberates with himself, and determines, that whatever it be he will venture to address it.

_Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee_, &c.

This he says while his father is advancing; he then, as he had determined, _speaks to him_, and _calls him--Hamlet, King, Father, Royal Dane: oh! answer me_. (1773)

I.iv.43 (180,4) questionable shape] [By _questionable_ is meant provoking question. HANMER.] So in _Macbeth_,

_Live you, or are you aught That man may_ question?

I.iv.46 (180,5) tell,/Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,/ Have burst their cearments?] [W: in earth] It were too long to examine this note period by period, though almost every period seems to me to contain something reprehensible. The critic, in his zeal for change, writes with so little consideration, as to say, that Hamlet cannot call his father _canonized_, because _we are told he was murdered with all his sins fresh upon him_. He was not then told it, and had so little the power of knowing it, that he was to be told it by an apparition. The long succession of reasons upon reasons prove nothing, but what every reader discovers, that the king had been buried, which is implied by so many adjuncts of burial, that the direct mention of _earth_ is not necessary. Hamlet, amazed at an apparition, which, though in all ages credited, has in all ages been considered as the most wonderful and most dreadful operation of supernatural agency, enquires of the spectre, in the most emphatic terms, why he breaks the order of nature, by returning from the dead; this he asks in a very confused circumlocution, confounding in his fright the soul and body. Why, says he, have _thy bones_, which with due ceremonies have been intombed _in death_, in the common state of departed mortals, _burst_ the folds in which they were embalmed? Why has the tomb, in which we saw thee quietly laid, opened his mouth, that mouth which, by its weight and stability, seemed closed for ever? The whole sentence is this: _Why dost thou appear, whom we know to be dead?_

Had the change of the word removed any obscurity, or added any beauty, it might have been worth a struggle; but either reading leaves the sense the same.

If there be any asperity in this controversial note, it must be imputed to the contagion of peevishneas, or some resentment of the incivility shewn to the Oxford editor, who is represented as supposing the ground _canonized_ by a funeral, when he only meant to say, that the _body_ has deposited in _holy ground_, in ground consecrated according to the _canon_.

I.iv.65 (183,9) I do not set my life at a pin's fee] The value of a pin. (1773)

I.iv.73 (183,1) deprive your sovereignty] I believe _deprive_ in this place signifies simply to _take away_.

I.iv.77 (184,4) confin'd to fast in fires] I am rather inclined to read, _confin'd to_ lasting _fires_, to fires _unremitted_ and _unconsumed_. The change is slight.

I.v.30 (186,7) As meditation or the thoughts of love] The comment [Warburton's] on the word _meditation_ is so ingenious, that I hope it is just.

I.v.77 (188,6) Unhonsel'd, disappointed, unaneal'd] This is a very difficult line. I think Theobald's objection to the sense of _unaneal'd_, for _notified by the bell_, must be owned to be very strong. I have not yet by my enquiry satisfied myself. Hanmer's explication of _unaneal'd_ by _unprepar'd_, because to _anneal_ metals, is to _prepare_ them in manufacture, is too general and vague; there is no resemblance between any funeral ceremony and the practice of _annealing_ metals.

_Disappointed_ is the same as _unappointed_, and may be properly explained _unprepared_; a man well furnished with things necessary for any enterprize, was said to be well _appointed_.

I.v.80 (190,7) Oh, horrible! oh, horrible! most horrible!] It was ingeniously hinted to me by a very learned lady, that this line seems to belong to Hamlet, in whose mouth it is a proper and natural exclamation; and who, according to the practice of the stage, may be supposed to interrupt so long a speech. (1773)

I.v.154 (193,5) Swear by my sword] [Here the poet has preserved the manners of the ancient Danes, with whom it was _religion_ to swear upon their swords. WARBURTON.] I was once inclinable to this opinion, which is likewise well defended by Mr. Upton; but Mr. Garrick produced me a passage, I think, in _Brantoms_, from which it appeared, that it was common to swear upon the sword, that is, upon the cross which the old swords always had upon the hilt.

II.i.25 (197,8) drinking, fencing, swearing] I suppose, by _fencing_ is meant a too diligent frequentation of the fencing-school, a resort of violent and lawless young men.

II.i.46 (197,4) _Good Sir_, or so, or _friend_, or _gentleman_] [W: sire] I know not that _sire_ was ever a general word of compliment, as distinct from _sir_; nor do I conceive why any alteration should be made. It is a common mode of colloquial language to use, _or so_, as a slight intimation of more of the same, or a like kind, that might be mentioned. We might read, but we need not,

_Good sir_, forsooth, _or friend, or gentleman_.

_Forsooth_, a term of which I do not well know the original meaning, was used to men as well as to women.

II.i.71 (198,5) Observe his inclination in yourself] HANMER reads, _e'en_ yourself, and is followed by Dr. Warburton; but perhaps _in_ yourself means, _in your own person_, not by spies.

II.i.112 (200,7) I had not quoted him] To _quote_ is, I believe, to _reckon_, to take an account of, to take the _quotient_ or result of a computation.

II.i.114 (201,8)

it as proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions, As it is common for the younger sort To lack discretion]

This is not the remark of a weak man. The vice of age is too much suspicion. Men long accustomed to the wiles of life _cast_ commonly _beyond themselves_, let their cunning go further than reason can attend it. This is always the fault of a little mind, made artful by long commerce with the world.

II.ii.24 (202,2)

For the supply and profit of our hope, Your visitation shall receive such thanks]

That the hope which your arrival has raised may be completed by the desired effect.

II.ii.47 (203,4) the trail of policy] The _trail_ is the _course of an animal pursued by the scent_.

Il.ii.52 (203,5) My news shall be the fruit of that great feast] The _desert_ after the meat.

II.ii.84 (204,7) at night we'll feast] The king's intemperance is never suffered to be forgotten.

II.ii.86-167 (205,8) My liege, and Madam, to expostulate] This account of the character of Polonius, though it sufficiently reconciles the seeming inconsistency of so much wisdom with so much folly, does not perhaps correspond exactly to the ideas of our author. The commentator Warburton makes the character of Polonius, a character only of manners, discriminated by properties superficial, accidental, and acquired. The poet intended a nobler delineation of a mixed character of manners and of nature. Polonius is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with observations, confident of his knowledge, proud of his eloquence, and declining into dotage. His mode of oratory is truly represented as designed to ridicule the practice of those times, of prefaces that made no introduction, and of method that embarrassed rather than explained. This part of his character is accidental, the rest is natural. Such a man is positive and confident, because he knows that his mind was once strong, and knows not that it is become weak. Such a man excels in general principles, but fails in the particular application. He is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant in foresight. While he depends upon his memory, and can draw from his repositories of knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and gives useful counsel; but as the mind in its enfeebled state cannot be kept long busy and intent, the old man is subject to sudden dereliction of his faculties, he loses the order of his ideas, and entangles himself in his own thoughts, till he recovers the leading principle, and falls again into his former train. This idea of dotage encroaching upon wisdom, will solve all the phaenomena of the character of Polonius.

II.ii.109 (207,1) _To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia_] [T: beatified] Both Sir Thomas Hanmer and Dr. Warburton have followed Theobald, but I am in doubt whether _beautified_, though, as Polonius calls it, a _vile phrase_, be not the proper word. _Beautified_ seems to be a _vile phrase_, for the ambiguity of its meaning, (rev. 1778, X, 241, 3)

II.ii.126 (208,2) more above] is, _moreover, besides_.

II.ii.145 (209,6) she took the fruits of my advice] She took the _fruits_ of advice when she obeyed advice, the advice was then made _fruitful_.

II.ii.181 (211,9) For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog,/Being a god, kissing carrion] [This is Warburton's emendation for "a good kissing"] This is a noble emendation, which almost sets the critic on a level with the author.

II.ii.265 (214,2) the shadow of a dream] Shakespeare has accidentally inverted an expression of Pindar, that the state of humanity is the _dream_ of a _shadow_.

II.ii.269 (215,3) Then are our beggars, bodies] Shakespeare seems here to design a ridicule of these declamations against wealth and greatness, that seem to make happiness consist in poverty.

II.ii.336 (217,7) shall end his part in peace] [After these words the folio adds, _the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' th' sere_. WARBURTON.] This passage I have omitted, for the same reason, I suppose, as the other editors: I do not understand it.

II.ii.338 (217,8) the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for't] _The lady shall have no obstruction, unless from the lameness of the verse._

II.ii.346 (217,9) I think, their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation] I fancy this is transposed: Hamlet enquires not about an _inhibition_, but an _innovation_; the answer therefore probably was, _I think, their_ innovation, _that is_, their new practice of strolling, _comes by the means of the late_ inhibition.

II.ii.352-379 (218,1) _Ham._ How comes it? do they grow rusty?] The lines marked with commas are in the folio of 1623, but not in the quarto of 1637, nor, I suppose, in any of the quartos.

II.ii.355 (218,2) cry out on the top of question] The meaning seems to be, they ask a common question in the highest notes of the voice.

II.ii.362 (218,3) escoted] Paid.

II.ii.362 (218,4) Will they pursue quality no longer than they can _sing_?] Will they follow the _profession_ of players no longer than they keep the voices of boys? So afterwards he says to the player, _Come, give us a taste of your_ quality; come, _a passionate speech_.

II.ii.370 (219,6) to tarre them on to controversy] To provoke any animal to rage, is _to tarre him_. The word is said to come from the Greek. (1773)

II.ii.380 (219,8) It is not very strange, for mine uncle is king of Denmark] I do not wonder that the new players have so suddenly risen to reputation, my uncle supplies another example of the facility with which honour is conferred upon new claimants.

II.ii.412 (220,2) Buz, buz!] Mere idle talk, the _buz_ of the vulgar.

II.ii.414 (220,3) _Then came each actor on his ass_] This seems to be a line of a ballad.

II.ii.420 (221,6) For the law of writ, and the liberty, these are the only men] All the modern editions have, _the law of_ wit, _and the liberty_; but both my old copies have, _the law of_ writ, I believe rightly. _Writ_, for _writing, composition_. Wit_ was not, in our author's time, taken either for _imagination_, or _acuteness_, or _both together_, but for _understanding_, for the faculty by which we _apprehend_ and _judge_. Those who wrote of the human mind distinguished its primary powers into _wit_ and _will_. Ascham distinguishes _boys_ of tardy and of active faculties into _quick wits_ and _slow wits_.

II.ii.438 (221,8) the first row of the pious chanson] [It is _pons chansons_ in the first folio edition. POPE.] It is _pons chansons_ in the quarto too. I know not whence the _rubric_ has been brought, yet it has not the appearance of an arbitrary addition. The titles of old ballads were never printed red; but perhaps _rubric_ may stand for _marginal explanation_.

II.ii.439 (222,9) For, look, where my abridgment comes] He calls the players afterwards, _the brief chronicles of the time_; but I think he now means only _those who will shorten my talk_.

II.ii.448 (223,2) be not crack'd within the ring] That is, _crack'd too much for use_. This is said to a young player who acted the parts of women.

II.ii.450 (223,3) like French faulconers] HANMER, who has much illustrated the allusions to falconry, reads, _like_ French _falconers. [French falconers_ is not a correction by Hanmer, but the reading of the first folio. STEEVENS.] (see 1765, VIII, 198, 1)

II.ii.459 (223,5) (as I received it, and others whose judgment in such matters cried in the top of mine)] [i.e. whose judgment I had the highest opinion of. WARBURTON.] I think it means only that _were higher than mine_.

II.ii.466 (224,8) but called it, an honest method] Hamlet is telling how much his judgment differed from that of others. _One said, there was no salt in the lines_, &c. _but call'd it an honest method_. The author probably gave it, _But I called it an honest method_, &c.

II.ii.525 (226,9) _the mobled queen] Mobled signifies _huddled, grossly covered_.

II.ii.587 (228,5) the cue for passion] The _hint_, the _direction_.

II.ii.589 (228,6) the general ear] The ears of all mankind. So before, _Caviare to the_ general, that is, to the _multitude_.

II.ii.595 (229,7) unpregnant of my cause] [_Unpregnant_, for _having no due sense of_. WARBURTON.] Rather, _not quickened with a new desire of vengeance; not teeming with revenge_.

II.ii.598 (229,8) A damn'd defeat was made] [_Defeat_, for _destruction_. WARBURTON.] Rather, _dispossession_.

II.ii.608 (229,1) kindless] _Unnatural_.

II.ii.616 (229,3) About, my brain!] _Wits, to your work_. _Brain_, go _about_ the present business.

II.ii.625 (230,5) tent him] Search his wounds.

II.ii.632 (230,7) More relative than this] [_Relative_, for _convictive_. WARB.] _Convictive_ is only the consequential sense. _Relative_ is, _nearly related, closely connected_.

III.i.17 (231,2) o'er-raught on the way] _Over-raught_ is _over-reached_, that is, _over-took_.

III.i.31 (232,4) Affront Ophelia.] To _affront_, is only _to meet directly_.

III.i.47 (233,5) 'Tis too much prov'd] It is found by too frequent experience.

III.i.52 (233,6) more ugly to the thing that helps it] That is, _compared with_ the thing that helps it.

III.i.56-88 (233,7) To be, or not to be?] Of this celebrated soliloquy, which bursting from a man distracted with contrariety of desires, and overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes, is connected rather in the speaker's mind, than on his tongue, I shall endeavour to discover the train, and to shew how one sentiment produces another. Hamlet, knowing himself injured in the most enormous and atrocious degree, and seeing no means of redress, but such as must expose him to the extremity of hazard, meditates on his situation in this manner: _Before I can form any rational scheme of action under this pressure of distress_, it is necessary to decide, whether, _after our present state, we are_ to be or not to be. That is the question, which, as it shall be answered, will determine, _whether 'tis nobler_, and more suitable to the dignity of reason, _to suffer the outrages of fortune_ patiently, or to take arms against _them_, and by opposing end them, _though perhaps_ with the loss of life. If _to die_, were _to sleep_, no more, _and by a sleep to end_ the miseries of our nature, such a sleep were _devoutly to be wished_; but if _to sleep_ in death, be _to dream_, to retain our powers of sensibility, we must _pause_ to consider, _in that sleep of death what dreams may come_. This consideration _makes calamity_ so long endured; for _who would bear_ the vexations of life, which might be ended _by a bare bodkin_, but that he is afraid of something in unknown futurity? This fear it is that gives efficacy to conscience, which, by turning the mind upon _this regard_, chills the ardour of _resolution_, checks the vigour of _enterprize_, and makes the _current_ of desire stagnate in inactivity. We may suppose that he would have applied these general observations to his own case, but that he discovered Ophelia.

III.i.59 (234,8) Or to take arms against a sea of troubles] [W: against assail] Mr. Pope proposed _siege_. I know not why there should be so much solicitude about this metaphor. Shakespeare breaks his metaphors often, and in this desultory speech there was less need of preserving them.