Enter HORATIO, and MARCELLUS.

Fran.I think, I hear them.-Stand,ho! Who is there?

Hor. Friends to this ground.

Mar. And liegemen to the Dane.

Fran. Give you good night.

Mar. O, farewel, honeft foldier:

Who hath reliev'd you?

Fran. Bernardo hath my place.

Give you good night.

Mar. Holla! Bernardo!

Ber. Say,

What, is Horatio there?

Hor. A piece of him.

[Exit Francifco.

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus. Hor. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night? Ber. I have feen nothing.

Mar. Horatio fays, 'tis but our fantasy;

And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded fight, twice feen of us :
Therefore I have entreated him along,

With us to watch the minutes of this night';
That, if again this apparition come,

He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.

Hor.

5 A piece of bim.] But why a piece? He fays this as he gives his hand. Which direction fhould be marked. WARBURTON,

A piece of bim, is, I believe, no more than a cant expreffion,

STEEVENS.

6 Hor. What, &c.] Thus the quarto, 1604. These words in the folio are given to Marcellus. MALONE.

7-the minutes of this night;] This feems to have been an expreffion common in Shakspeare's time. I find it in one of Ford's plays, The Fancies, A&t V.

"I promise ere the minutes of the night,-." STEEVENS.

8 He may approve our eyes,-] He may make good the teftimony of our eyes; be affured by his own experience of the truth of that which we have related, in confequence of having been eye-witneffes to it. To approve in Shakspeare's age fignified to make good, or establish, and is fo defined in Cawdrey's Alphabetical Table of bard English words, 8vo. 1604. So, in King Lear:

"Good

Hor. Tush! tufh! 'twill not appear.
Ber. Sit down a while;

And let us once again affail your ears,
That are fo fortified against our flory,
What we two nights have feen9.

Hor. Well, fit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Ber, Laft night of all,

When yon fame ftar, that's weftward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,

The bell then beating one,

Mar. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

Enter GHOST.

Ber. In the fame figure, like the king that's dead.
Mar. Thou art a scholar, fpeak to it, Horatio.
Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
Hor. Most like:-it harrows me with fear, and won-

der.

Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar. Speak to it, Horatio.

Hor. What art thou, that ufurp'ft this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of bury'd Denmark

Did fometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak. Mar. It is offended.

Ber. See! it ftalks away.

Hor. Stay; fpeak; speak I charge thee, speak.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

[Exit Ghoft.

"Good king, that must approve the common faw!
"Thou out of heaven's benediction com'ft

"To the warm fun." MALONE.

9 What we two nights bave seen.] This line is by Hanmer given to Marcellus, but without neceffity. JOHNSON.

It harrows me, &c.] To barrow is to conquer, to fubdue. The word is of Saxon origin. So, in the old bl. 1. romance of Syr Eglanoure of Artoys:

"He wore by him that barrowed hell." STEEVENS.

Ber

Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale: Is not this fomething more than fantasy ?

What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the fenfible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on,
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
He smote the fledded Polacks on the ice 3.

'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour*,

2-an angry parle,] This is one of the affected words introduced by Lilly. So, in Two Wife Men and all the Reft Fools, 1619: you told me at our laft parle." STEEVENS.

66 that

3 He fmote the fedded Polacks on the ice.] Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland: Polaque, French. As in F. Davifon's tranflation of Pafferatius's epitaph on Henry III, of France, published by Camden:

Whether thy chance or choice thee hither brings,
"Stay, paffenger, and wail the hap of kings.
"This little ftone a great king's heart doth hold,
"That rul'd the fickle French and Polacks bold:
"Whom, with a mighty warlike host attended,
"With trait'rous knife a cowled monfter ended.
"So frail are even the highest earthly things!

"Go, paffenger, and wail the hap of kings." JOHNSON.

A fed or fledge is a carriage without wheels, made ufe of in the cold countries. So, in Tamburlaine or the Scythian Shepherd, 1590: upon an ivory fled

"Thou shalt be drawn among the frozen poles." STEEVENS. All the old copies have Polax.-Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-Polack; but the corrupted word fhews, I think, that ShakSpeare wrote-Polacks. MALONE.

4-jump at this dead bour-] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio, where we fometimes find a familiar word fubftituted for one more an cient, reads-juft at this dead hour. MALONE.

Jump and just were fynonymous in the time of Shakspeare. So, in Chapman's May Day, 1611:

"Your appointment was jump at three, with me." Again, in M. Kyffin's translation of the Andria of Terence, 1588: "Comes he this day to jump in the very time of this marriage?" STEEVENS.

་

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not;
But, in the grofs and fcope of mine opinion,

This bodes fome ftrange eruption to our state.

Mar. Good now, fit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this fame ftrict and moft obfervant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land?
And why fuch daily caft of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war!
Why fuch imprefs of fhip-wrights, whofe fore task
Does not divide the funday from the week?
What might be toward, that this sweaty hafte
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me ?

Hor. That can I;

At least, the whifper goes fo. Our laft king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a moft emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which, our valiant Hamlet
(For fo this fide of our known world efteem'd him)
Did flay this Fortinbras; who, by a feal'd compact,
Well ratify'd by law, and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all thofe his lands,
Which he stood feiz'd of, to the conqueror :

5 In what particular thought to work,] i. e. What particular train of thinking to follow. STEEVENS.

• — grofs and scope-] General thoughts, and tendency at large.

7-daily caft-] The quartos read coft. STEEVENS.

8

JOHNSON.

- by law and heraldry,] i. e. well ratified by the rules of law, and the forms prescribed jure feciali; such as proclamation, &c.

MALONE.

Mr. Upton fays, that Shakspeare fometimes expreffes one thing by two fubftantives, and that law and beraldry means, by the berald law. So Antony and Cleopatra, A& IV.

"Where rather I expect victorious life,

"Than death and honour, "i. e. honourable death. STEEV. Puttenbam, in his Art of Porfit, fpeaks of the Figure of Twinnes, "borfes and barbes, for barbed borses; venim & dartes, for venimous dartes," &c. FARMER.

Against

Against the which, a moiety competent

Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the fame co-mart”,
And carriage of the article defign'd',

His fell to Hamlet: Now, fir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle 2 hot and full,

Hath in the fkirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a lift of landless refolutes 3,
For food and diet, to fome enterprize
That hath a ftomach in't*: which is no other
{As it doth well appear unto our state)
But to recover of us, by ftrong hand,
And terms compulfatory 5, thofe forefaid lands
So by his father loft: And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;

The fource of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this poft-hafte and romage in the land.
Ber. I think, it be no other, but even so:

Well

as by the fame co-mart,] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio reads as by the fame covenant: for which the late editions have given us-as by that covenant.

Co-mart is, I fuppofe, a joint bargain, a word perhaps of our poet's coinage. A mart fignifying a great fair or market, he would not have fcrupled to have written to mart, in the fenfe of to make a bargain. In the preceding fpeech we find mart used for bargain or purchafe. MALONE.

1 And carriage of the article defign'd,] Carriage, is import: defign'd, is formed, drawn up between them. JOHNSON.

Cawdrey in his Alpbabetical Table, 1604, defines the verb defign thus. "To marke out or appoint for any purpose.' See alfo Minfheu's Dict. 1617. "To defigne or fhew by a token." Defigned is yet ufed in this fenfe in Scotland. The old copies have dejeigne. The correction was made by the editor of the fecond folio. MALONE.

2 Of unimproved mettle-] Full of unimproved mettle, is full of fpirit not regulated or guided by knowledge or experience. JOHNSON. 3 Shark'd up a lift, &c.] believe to bark up means to pick up without distinction, as the bark fish collects his prey. The quartos read lawless inftead of landlefs. STEEVENS.

4 That bath a ftomach in't:-] Stomach, in the time of our author, was used for conftancy, refolution. JOHNSON.

5-compulfatory,] So the quarto. Folio-compulfative. MALONE: romage-Tumultuous hurry. JOHNSON.

6

7 Ithink, &c.] Thefe, and all other lines confin'd within crotchets shroughout this play, are omitted in the folio edition of 1623. The

omiffions