"But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
"The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
"Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
"Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash
"Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword
"Which was declining on the milky head
"Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick :
"So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood;
"And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
"Did nothing.

"But, as we often see, against some storm,
"A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
"The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
"As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
"Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
"Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work,
"And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
"On Mars's armour, forg'd for proof eterne,
"With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
"Now falls on Priam.-

"Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune!-All you gods,
"In general synod, take away her power;

'Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,

"And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,

"As low as to the fiends!"

Pol. This is too long.

Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard.-Pr'ythee, say on he's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.Say on: come to Hecuba.

8

1 Play. "But who, oh! who had seen the mobled

queen

999

Ham. The mobled queen?

Pol. That's good; mobled queen is good.

1 Play. "Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames

he's for a jig,] A jig was the technical name for a coarse comic species of entertainment, usually performed by the clown of the company after the play. See "History of Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage," iii. 378.

"But who, oh! WHO had seen the MOBLED queen "] Thus the line stands in the 4to, 1603, the oldest authority, as far as it is to be considered such: the 4to, 1604, has," But who, a woe, had seen the mobled queen." The folio, 1623, misprints "mobled" inobled. "Mobled" means hastily or carelessly dressed. According to Holloway's " General Provincial Dictionary," to mab or mob in the north of England still means, "to dress in a slatternly manner." Hence, perhaps, what is called a mob cap.

"With bisson rheum'; a clout upon that head,
"Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe,
"About her lank and all o'erteemed loins,
"A blanket, in th' alarm of fear caught up;
"Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd
"'Gainst fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd:
"But if the gods themselves did see her then,
"When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
"In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
"The instant burst of clamour that she made,
"(Unless things mortal move them not at all)

"Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
"And passion in the gods"."

Pol. Look, whether he has not turned his colour, and has tears in's eyes!-Pr'ythee, no more.

Ham. 'Tis well; I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.-Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstracts, and brief chronicles, of the time: after your death you were better have a bad epitaph, than their ill report while you live.

Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Ham. God's bodkin', man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping! Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

-

Pol. Come, sirs. [Exit POLONIUS, with some of the Players. Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.Dost thou hear me, old friend? can you play the murder of Gonzago?

1 Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. We'll have it to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in't, could you not?

1 With BISSON rheum ;] "Bisson" is blind. We have had the word employed twice in "Coriolanus," A. ii. sc. 1, and A. iii. sc. 1, Vol. iv. pp. 631. 658.

2 And PASSION IN the gods.] We preserve the old reading here, because it is intelligible, but the corr. fo. 1632 has passionate for "passion in," with some plausibility. The expression in the preceding line, "to have made milch," means, of course, to have made weep, or shed tears.

3 God's BODKIN,] So the 4tos, 1604, &c. The word does not occur in the 4to, 1603, and the folio has “God's bodykins," omitting "much." In the next line we print," who should 'scape whipping." because it so stands in the 4to, 1603, and in the folio, not shall as in the 4tos, 1604, &c.

1 Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Very well.-Follow that lord; and look you mock him not. [Exit Player.] My good friends, [To Ros. and GUIL.] I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore. Ros. Good my lord!

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. Ham. Ay, so, good bye you.-Now I am alone. Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous, that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit, That, from her working, all his visage wann'd'; Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing! For Hecuba?

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba',

That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion,

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears.

Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John a-dreams', unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property, and most dear life,

A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks

4

my pate across

all his visage WANN'D;] Or became wan, a very Shakespearian expression in the 4tos, 1604, &c., and much superior to warm'd, which is the tame, and comparatively unmeaning reading of the folio. In the preceding line the 4tos. have 46 own" for whole of the folio.

3

- or he to HECUBA,] So the 4to, 1603, confirming the same reading in the folio the later 4tos. have "or he to her."

6 and APPAL the free,] The word is not in the 4to, 1603, but that of 1604 has appale, and the folio, 1623, apale. The 4to, 1611, and the subsequent editions in that form, read appeale. The "free" are, of course, the innocent.

7 Like John a-dreams,] "A nickname, I suppose (says Steevens), for any ignorant, silly fellow :" rather for a sleepy, apathetic fellow. The only mention yet met with of "John a-dreams," is in Armin's "Nest of Ninnies," 1608, reprinted by the Shakespeare Society in 1842, where the following passage occurs: "His name is John, indeed, says the cinnick; but neither John a-nods, nor John a-dreames, yet either, as you take it," p. 49.

Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Ha!
'Swounds! I should take it; for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall

To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Oh, vengeance'!

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave;
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd',
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion!

Fie upon't! foh! About my brains! Humph! I have heard,
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,

Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul, that presently

They have proclaim'd their malefactions';

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father,
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench3,

8 To make OPPRESSION bitter,] It is "To make transgression bitter" in the corr. fo. 1632, but "oppression" is no doubt the proper reading: Hamlet is alluding to his own lack of gall and to "oppression" being bitter to himself. The old annotator seems to have thought, that the hero was referring to transgression on the part of others, which he lacked gall to make bitter to them.

9 Oh, vengeance!] This exclamation is from the folio, which begins the next line "Who? What an ass am I!" which the corr. fo. 1632 amends to "Why, what an ass am I !"

1- of a dear FATHER murder'd,] Some modern editors, following the reading of the folio, have left out the material word "father" in this line; and it is certainly not found in the 4tos, 1604 or 1605. It is, however, in some copies of an undated 4to, which may be assigned to the year 1607, and in that of 1611, but not in the 4to. of 1637.

2 They have proclaim'd their malefactions ;] See a very curious and apposite instance of the kind in T. Heywood's "Apology for Actors," 1612, reprinted for the Shakespeare Society in 1841, p. 57. The same story is told in the old tragedy, "A Warning for Fair Women," 4to, 1599.

I'll TENT him to the quick if he but BLENCH,] Both "tent" and "blench” are words that have occurred in previous plays. To "tent" is to search or try, and to "blench" to start, or start away. See Vol. iv. pp. 482, 510, 512.

I know my course. The spirit, that I have seen,
May be the devil': and the devil hath power
T'assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

[Exit.

ACT III. SCENE I.

A Room in the Castle.

Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and

GUILDENSTERN.

King. And can you, by no drift of conference, Get from him, why he puts on this confusion,

Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof,

When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

Queen.

Did he receive you well?

Ros. Most like a gentleman.

Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply.

4 May be THE DEVIL:]

May be a deale," in the 4to, 1604, but that of 1611 alters it to "d. vil." Possibly "devil" was then sometimes pronounced as it is still in Scotland. The folio has it, "May be the devil."

5 no drift of CONFERENCE,] So the 4tos, 1604, &c. The folio substitutes circumstance, which, from what follows, was probably not the word.

-

6- but, or our demands,] In the corr. fo. 1632 "of" is altered to to, but needlessly, because "of" has here the force of on. No doubt in the time of the

old annotator it was recited "but to our demands."

VOL. V.

M m