Maft I remember? why, fhe would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,

Let me not think on't ;-Frailty, thy name is woman!—
A little month; or ere thofe fhoes were old,
With which the follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears;-why fhe, even fhe,-
O heaven! a beaft, that wants difcourfe of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,-marry'd with my uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules: Within a month;
Ere yet the falt of moft unrighteous tears
Had left the flufhing in her galled eyes,
She marry'd:-O moft wicked fpeed, to poft
With fuch dexterity to incestuous fheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good:

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue!
Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS.
Hor. Hail to your lordship!

Ham. I am glad to see you well:
Horatio, or I do forget myself?

Hor. The fame, my lord, and your poor fervant ever. Ham. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you'.

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio ?— Marcellus ?

Mar. My good lord,

Ham. I am very glad to see you; good even, fir3.—

But

9 Like Niobe, all tears;] Shakspeare might have caught this idea from an ancient ballad entitled "The falling out of lovers is the renewing of love:"

"Now I, like weeping Niobe,

"May wash my hands in tears."

Of this ballad Amantium iræ, &c. is the burden.

STEEVENS.

-I'll change that name-] I'll be your fervant, you shall be my friend. JOHNSON.

2 — what make you -] A familiar phrase for what are you doing.

JOHNSON. 3-good even, fir.] So the copies. Sir Th. Hanmer and Dr. Warburton put it, good morning. The alteration is of no importance,

but

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg ?
Hor. A truant difpofition, good my lord.
Ham. I would not hear your enemy fay fo;
Nor fhall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it trufter of your own report
Against yourself: I know, you are no truant,
But what is your affair in Elfinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart.
Hor. My lord, I came to fee your father's funeral.
Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-ftudent;

I think, it was to fee my mother's wedding.
Hor. Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.

Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd
meats 4

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
'Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven",

Or

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 muft pafs, 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. JOHNSON.

4-the funeral bak'd meats-] It was anciently the general custom to give a cold entertainment to mourners at a funeral. In diftant counties this practice is continued among the yeomanry. See The

Tragique Hiftorie of the Faire Valeria of London, 1598. His corpes was with funerall pompe conveyed to the church, and there follemnly enterred, nothing omitted which neceffitie or custom could claime; a fermon, a banquet, and like obfervations, Again, in the old romance of Syr Degore, bl. 1. no date :

"A great feafte would he holde

"Upon his quenes mornynge day,

"That was buryed in an abbay." COLLINS.

See alfo Hayward's Life and Raigne of King Henrie the Fourib, 4to 1599, p. 135: "Then hee [King Richard II.] was conveyed to Langley Abby in Buckinghamshire, and there obfcurely interred,without the charge of a dinner for celebrating the funeral." MALONE. S ➡my dearest for -] Deareft, for direft, most dreadful, most dangerous. JOHNSON.

Dearest is most immediate, confequential, important; So, in Romeo and Juliet: a ring that I must use "In dear employment."

Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!-
My father, Methinks, I fee my father.
Hor. Where, my lord?

Ham. In my mind's eye 7, Horatio.

Hor. I faw him once, he was a goodly king.
Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,
I fhall not look upon his like again 3.

Hor. My lord, I think I faw him yefternight,
Ham. Saw! who?

Hor. My lord, the king your father.
Ham. The king my father!

Hor. Seafon your admiration for a while
With an attent ear'; till I may deliver,
Upon the witnefs of thefe gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

Again, in B. and Fletcher's Maid in the Mill:
"You meet your dearest enemy in love,

"With all his hate about him." STEEVENS.

See Vol. VIII. p. 130, n. 6. MALONE.

Or ever-] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio readsere ever. This is not the only inftance in which a familiar phrafeology has been fubftituted for one more ancient, in that valuable copy. MALONE. 7 In my mind's eye,] This expreffion occurs again in our author's Rape of Lucrece

himself behind

"Was left unfeen, fave to the eye of mind."

Ben Jonfon has borrowed it in his Masque called Love's Triumph through Callipolis:

"As only by the mind's eye may be seen."

Telemachus lamenting the abfence of Ulyffes, is represented in like

manner:

Οσσομένος πατέρ' ἐσθλὸν ἐνὶ φρεσὶν,

STEEVENS

This expreffion occurs again in our authour's 113th Sonnet:

"Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind." MALONE. 8 I shall not look upon his like again.] Mr. Holt proposes to read from Sir Thomas Stamwell, Bart. of Upton, near Northampton:

"Eye fhall not look upon his like again;"

and thinks it is more in the true fpirit of Shakspeare than the other. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 746: "In the greatest pomp that ever eye behelde." Again, in Sandys's Travels, p. 150: "We went this day through the most pregnant and pleasant valley that ever eye beheld." STEEVENS

9 Seafon your admiration-] That is, temper it. JOHNSON. With an attent ear,] Spenfer, as well as our poet, ufes attent for attentive. MALONE.

Ham. For God's love, let me hear.

Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waift and middle of the night",
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Armed at point 3, exactly, cap-à-pé,

Appears before them, and, with folemn march,
Goes flow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd,
By their opprefs'd and fear-furprized eyes,
Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, diftill'd
Almoft to jelly with the act of fear 4,

Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful fecrecy impart they did;

And I with them, the third night, kept the watch:
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,

Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: I knew your father;
Thefe hands are not more like.

Ham. But where was this?

Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd. Ham. Did you not speak to it?

2 In the dead waift and middle of the night,] This ftrange phraseology feems to have been common in the time of Shakspeare. By waift is meant nothing more than middle; and hence the epithet dead did not appear incongruous to our poet. So in Marfton's Malecontent, 1604: "Tis now about the immodeft waist of night." i. e. midnight. Again, in The Puritan, a comedy, 1607 :-" ere the day be spent to the girdle,"-.

In the old copies the word is fpelt waft, as it is in the second act, fc. ii. then you live about her waft, or in the middle of her favours." The fame fpelling is found in K. Lear, A&IV. fc. vi. "Down from the waft, they are centaurs." See alfo Mintheu's Dict. 1617: “Waft, middle, or girdle-fteed." We have the fame pleonasm in another line in this play :

"And given my heart a working mute and dumb.”

All the modern editors read-In the dead waste, &c. MALONE. 3 Armed at point,] Thus the quarto, 1604. Folio: Arm'd at all points. MALONE.

4 with the act of fear,] Fear was the caufe, the active caufe, that diffilled them by that force of operation which we strictly call a in voluntary, and power in involuntary, agents, but popularly call at in both. JOHNSON.

The folio readsbestil'd. STEEVENS.

Her.

Har. My lord, I did;

But anfwer made it none: yet once, methought,
It lifted up its head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak:
But, even then, the morning cock crew loud;
And at the found it shrunk in hafte away,
And vanish'd from our fight.

Ham. 'Tis very strange.

Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty,
To let you know of it.

Ham. Indeed, indeed, firs, but this troubles me.

Hold you the watch to-night?

All. We do, my lord.

Ham. Arm'd, say you?
All. Arm'd, my lord.

Ham. From top to toe?

All. My lord, from head to foot.

Ham. Then faw you not his face.

Hor. O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up 5.

Ham. What, look'd he frowningly?

Hor. A countenance more

In forrow than in anger.

Ham. Pale, or red?
Hor. Nay, very pale.

Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you?

Hor. Moft conftantly.

Ham. I would, I had been there.
Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.
Ham. Very like,

Very like Stay'd it long?

Hor. While one with moderate hafte

5-wore bis beaver up.] Though beaver properly fignified that part of the helmet which was let down, to enable the wearer to drink, Shakfpeare always uses the word as denoting that part of the helmet which, when raifed up, expofed the face of the wearer; and fuch was the popular fignification of the word in his time. In Bullokar's English Expofitor, 8vo. 1616, beaver is defined thus: "In armour it fignifies that part of the helmet which may be lifted up, to take breath the more freely." MALONE.

VOL. IX.

P

Might