1 dignity: The lefs they deferve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. POL. Come, firs. HAM. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play tomorrow.-Doft 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, ftudy a fpeech of fome dozen or fixteen lines, which I would fet down, and infert in't? could you not? 1. PLAY. Ay, my lord. HAM. Very well.-Follow that lord; and look you mock him not. [Exeunt POLONIUS and Players.] My good friends, [To Ros. and GUIL.] I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elfinore. Ros. Good my lord! [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. 2 Is it not monftrous, that this player here,] It should feem from the complicated nature of fuch parts as Hamlet, Lear, &c. that the time of Shakspeare had produced fome excellent performers. He would fcarce have taken the pains to form characters which he had no profpect of feeing reprefented with force and propriety on the stage. His plays indeed, by their own power, must have given a different turn to acting, and almost new-created the performers of his age. Mysteries, Moralities, and Enterludes, afforded no materials for art to work on, no difcriminations of character, or varieties of appropriated language. From tragedies like Cambyfes, Tamburlaine, and Jeronymo, nature was wholly banished; and the comedies of Gammer Gurton, Common Condycyons, and The Old Wives Tale, might have had juftice done to them by the lowest order of human beings. But in a fiction, in a dream of paffion, Sanctius his animal, mentifque capacius alte was wanting, when the dramas of Shakspeare made their firft appearance; and to these we were certainly indebted for the excellence of actors who could never have improved fo long as their fenfibilities were unawakened, their memories burthened only by pedantick or puritanical declamation, and their manners vulgarized by pleasantry of as low an origin. STEEVENS. 3 — all his vifage wann'd ;] [The folio-warm'd.] This might do, did not the old quarto lead us to a more exact and pertinent reading, which is-vifage wan'd; i. e. turned pale or wan. For fo the vifage appears when the mind is thus affectioned, and not warm'd or flufh'd. WARBURTON. 4 That, from her working, all his vifage wann'd; Tears in his eyes, diftraction in's afpét,] Wan'd (wann'd it fhould have been fpelt,) is the reading of the quarto, which Dr. Warburton, I think rightly, restored. The folio reads warm'd, for which Mr. Steevens contends in the following note: "The working of the foul, and the effort to fhed tears, will give a colour to the actor's face, instead of taking it away. The vifage is always warm'd and flush'd by any unusual exertion in a paffionate speech; but no performer was ever yet found, I believe, whofe feelings were of fuch exquifite fenfibility as to produce palenefs in any fituation in which the drama could place him. But if players were indeed poffeffed of that power, there is no fuch circumftance in the fpeech uttered before Hamlet, as could introduce the wannefs for which Dr. Warburton contends." Whether an actor can produce palenefs, it is, I think, unneceffary to enquire. That Shakspeare thought he could, and confidered the fpeech in queftion as likely to produce wannefs, is proved decifively by the words which he has put into the mouth of Polonius in this fcene; which add fuch fupport to the original reading, that I have without hesitation restored it. Immediately after the Player has finished his speech, Polonius exclaims, "Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in bis eyes." Here we find the effort to fhed tears, taking away, not giving a colour. If it be objected, that by turn'd bis colour, Shakspeare meant that the player grew red, a paffage in King A broken voice, and his whole function fuiting 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, Richard III. in which the poet is again defcribing an actor, who is master of his art, will at once anfwer the objection: "Rich. Come, coufin, can'ft thou quake, and change thy "Murder thy breath in middle of a word; "As if thou wert diftraught and mad with terror? "Buck. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian; "Tremble and start at wagging of a ftraw," &c. The words, quake, and terror, and tremble, as well as the whole context, fhew, that by " change thy colour," Shakspeare meant grow pale. MALONE. The word afpect (as Dr. Farmer very properly obferves) was in Shakspeare's time accented on the fecond fyllable. The folio exhibits the paffage as I have printed it. STEEVENS. s What's Hecuba to him, &c.] It is plain Shakspeare alludes to a story told of Alexander the cruel tyrant of Pherae in Theffaly, who feeing a famous tragedian act in the Troades of Euripides, was fo fenfibly touched that he left the theatre before the play was ended; being afhamed, as he owned, that he who never pitied thofe he murdered, fhould weep at the fufferings of Hecuba and Andromache. See Plutarch in the Life of Pelopidas. UPTON. Shakspeare, it is highly probable, had read the life of Pelopidas, but I fee no ground for fuppofing there is here an allufion to it. Hamlet is not ashamed of being feen to weep at a theatrical exhibition, but mortified that a player, in a dream of paffion, should appear more agitated by fictitious forrow, than the prince was by a real calamity. MALONE. 6 -the cue for paffion,] The hint, the direction. JOHNSON. This phrafe is theatrical, and occurs at least a dozen times in our author's plays. Thus, fays Quince to Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream," You fpeak all your part at once, cues and all." See alfo Vol. IX. p. 384, n. 6. STEEVENS. And cleave the general ear' with horrid fpeech; 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 rafcal, peak, 8 Like John a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause," 7 the general ear-] The ear of all mankind. So before,Caviare to the general, that is, to the multitude. JOHNSON. 8 Like John a-dreams,] John a-dreams, i. e. of dreams, means only John the dreamer; a nick-name, I fuppofe, for any ignorant filly fellow. Thus the puppet formerly thrown at during the feafon of Lent, was called Jack-a-lent, and the ignis fatuus Jacka-lanthorn. John-a-droynes however, if not a corruption of this nick-name, feems to have been fome well-known character, as I have met with more than one allufion to him. So, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, by Nafhe, 1596: The defcription of that poor John-a-droynes his man, whom he had hired," &c. John-a-Droynes is likewise a foolish character in Whetstone's Promos and Caffandra, 1578, who is feized by informers, has not much to fay in his defence, and is cheated out of his money. STEEVENS. 9 unpregnant of my caufe,] Unpregnant, for having no due Jenfe of. WARBURTON. Rather, not quickened with a new defire of vengeance; not teeming with revenge. JOHNSON. 2 A damn'd defeat was made.] Defeat, for deftruction. Rather, difpoffeffion, JOHNSON, WARBURTON. The word defeat, (which certainly means deftruction in the prefent inftance) is very licentiously ufed by the old writers. Shakfpeare in Othello employs it yet more quaintly." Defeat thy favour with an ufurped beard;" and Middleton, in his comedy called Any Thing for a Quiet Life, fays-" I have heard of your defeat made upon a mercer." Again, in Revenge for Honour, by Chapman: "That he might meantime make a fure defeat Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across? As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Why, I fhould take it: for it cannot be, lain! Why, what an afs am I? This is most brave; Again, in The Wits, by Sir W. D'Avenant, 1637: "Not all the skill I have, can pronounce him free of the defeat upon my gold and jewels." Again, in The Isle of Gulls, 1606: "My late fhipwreck has made a defeat both of my friends and treasure." STEEVENS. In the paffage quoted from Othello, to defeat is used for undo or alter: defaire, Fr. See Minfheu in v. Minfheu confiders the fubftantives defeat and defeature as fynonymous. The former he defines an overthrow; the latter, execution or flaughter of men. In King Henry V. we have a fimilar phraseology: Making defeat upon the powers of France." And the word is again ufed in the fame sense in the last act of this play: 3 66 Their defeat "Doth by their own infinuation grow." MALONE. kindlefs] Unnatural. JOHNSON. 4 Why, what an afs am I? This is moft brave;] The folio reads, "O vengeance! "Who? what an afs am I? Sure this is most brave." STEEVENS. |