Imatges de pàgina
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Wherein we faw thee quietly in-urn'd",
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,.
To caft thee up again? What may this mean,
That thou, dead corfe, again, in cómplete fteel',
Revifit'ft thus the glimpfes of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature
So horridly to thake our difpofition 5,

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our fouls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As ifit fome impartment did defire

To you alone.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action, It waves you to a more removed ground: But do not go with it.

Hor. No, by no means.

Ham. It will not fpeak; then I will follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham. Why, what fhould be the fear?

I do not fet my life at a pin's fee";

And, for my foul, what can it do to that,

death, fuch as are generally esteemed due, and practifed with regard to dead bodies. Consequently, I understand by cerements, the waxed winding-sheet or winding-fheets, in which the corpfe was enclosed and fown up, in order to preferve it the longer from external impreffions from the humidity of the fepulchre, as embalming was intended to preferve it from internal corruption. HEATH.

2- quietly in-urn'd,] The quartos read interr'd. STEEVENS.

3 That thou, dead corfe, again, in complete fteel,] It is probable that Shakspeare introduced his ghoft in armour, that it might appear more folemn by fuch a difcrimination from the other characters; though it was really the cuftom of the Danish kings to be buried in that manVide Olaus Wormius, cap. 7.

ner.

"Struem regi nec veftibus, nec odoribus cumulant, fua cuique arma, quorundam igni et equus adjicitur."

fed poftquam magnanimus ille Danorum rex collem fibi magnitudinis confpicuæ extruxiffet, (cui poft obitum regio diademate exornatum, armis indutum, inferendum effet cadaver," &c. STEEV. 4-we fools of nature-] i. e. making us, who are the sport of nature, whofe myfterious operations are beyond the reaches of our fouls, &c. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "O, I am fortune's fool." MALONE. 5 -to shake our difpofition,] Difpofition, for frame. WARBURTON. 6 pin's fee;] The value of a pin. JOHNSON.

VOL. IX.

e

Being

Being a thing immortal as itfelf?

It waves me forth again;-I'll follow it.

Hor. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful fummit of the cliff,

That beetles o'er his bafe into the fea?
And there affume fome other horrible form,
Which might deprive your fovereignty of reafon",
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of defperation",
Without more motive, into every brain,
That looks fo many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

Ham. It waves me ftill:-
Go on, I'll follow thee.

Mar. You fhall not go, my lord.

Ham. Hold off your hands.

Hor. Be rul'd, you shall not go.

Ham. My fate cries out,

And makes each petty artery in this body

As hardy as the Némean lion's nerve'.-[Ghoft beckons. Still am I call'd;-unhand me, gentlemen ;

[Breaking from them.

7 That beetles o'er bis base] That bangs o'er his base, like what is called a beetle-brow. This verb is, I believe, of our authour's coinage. MALONE.

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deprive your fovereignty, &c.] Dr. Warburton would read deprave; but feveral proofs are given in the notes to King Lear of Shakspeare's ufe of the word deprive, which is the true reading.

STEEVENS.

I believe, deprive in this place fignifies fimply to take away. JOHNS, 9-puts toys of defperation,] Toys, for whims. WARBURTON. This and the three following lines are omitted in the folio.

MALONE.

As bardy as the Némean lion's nerve.-] Shakspeare has again accented the word Nemean in this manner, in Love's Labour's Loft: "Thus doft thou hear the Némean lion roar."

Spenfer, however, wrote Neméan, Faery Queene, B. V. c. i.:

"Into the great Neméan lion's grove."

Our poet's conforming in this inftance to Latin profody was certainly accidental, for he and almost all the poets of his time difregarded the quantity of Latin names. So, in Locrine, 1595, (though undoube edly the production of a scholar,) we have Amphion instead of Amphion, &c. See also p. 204, n. 7. MALONE.

By

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me 2:-
I fay, away :-Go on,-I'll follow thee.

[Exeunt Ghoft, and HAMLET. Hor. He waxes defperate with imagination.

Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Hor. Have after :-To what ifflue will this come?
Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Hor. Heaven will direct it 3.

Mar. Nay, let's follow him.

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[Exeunt.

Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? fpeak, I'll go no further.

Ghost. Mark me.

Ham. I will.

Ghost. My hour is almost come,

When I to fulphurous and tormenting flames

Muft render up myself.

Ham. Alas, poor ghoft!

Ghoft. Pity me not, but lend thy ferious hearing To what I fhall unfold.

Ham. Speak, I am bound to hear.

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Ghoft. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. Ham. What?

Ghoft. I am thy father's fpirit;

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night;

And, for the day, confin'd to faft in fires 4,

Till

2- that lets me :] To let among our old authors fignifies to prevent, to hinder. STEEVENS.

So, in No Wit like a Woman's, a comedy by Middleton, 1657:

"That lets her not to be your daughter now.” MALONE. 3 Heaven will direct it.] Marcellus anfwers Horatio's queftion, "To what iffue will this come ?" and Horatio alfo anfwers it himfelf, with a pious refignation, "Heaven will direct it." BLACKSTONE. 4 Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,

And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,] Chaucer has a fimilar paffage with regard to the punishments of hell. Parfon's Tale, p.

Q 2

1937

Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purg'd away 5.

But that I am forbid

To tell the fecrets of my prifon-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lighteft word

Would harrow up thy foul; freeze thy young blood; Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ;

193, Mr. Urry's edition: "And moreover the mifefe of hell fhall be in defaute of mete and drinke." SMITH.

Nafh, in his Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the Devil, 1595, has the fame idea: "Whether it be a place of horror, ftench, and darknefs, where men fee meat, but can get none, and are ever thirsty," &c. Before I had read the Perfones Tale of Chaucer, I fuppofed that he meant rather to drop a ftroke of fatire on facerdotal luxury, than to give a ferious account of the place of future torment. Chaucer, however, is as grave as Shakspeare. So likewife at the conclufion of an ancient pamphlet called The Wyll of the Devyll, bl. 1. no date: "Thou shalt lye in froft and fire

"With sicknesse and bunger;" &c. STEEVENS.

5 Are burnt and purg'd away.] Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonic hell into the "punytion of faulis in purgatory:" and it is obfervable, that when the ghoft informs Hamlet of his doom there, "Till the foul crimes, done in his days of nature,

"Are burnt and purg'd away,—

the expreffion is very fimilar to the bishop's. I will give you his verfion as concifely as I can: "It is a nedeful thyng to fuffer panis and "torment;-Sum in the wyndis, fum under the watter, and in the fire "uthir fum: thus the mony vices –

"Contrakkit in the corpis be done away

"And purgitt."-Sixte Book of Eneados, fol. p. 191. FARMER. Shakspeare might have found this expreffion in the Hyftorie of Hamblet, bl. let. F. 2. edit. 1608: "He fet fire in the four corners of the hal, in fuch fort, that of all that were as then therein not one efcaped away, but were forced to purge their finnes by fire." MALONE. Shakspeare talks more like a papift than a platonist; but the language of bishop Douglas is that of a good proteftant:

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Thus the many vices

"Contrackit in the corpis be done away

"And purgit."

These are the very words of our liturgy in the commendatory prayer for a fick perfon at the point of departure, in the office for the vifitation of the fick "whatsoever defilements it may have contra&edbeing purged and done away.” WHALLEY.

6 Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ;] So, in our poet's 108th fonnet:

"How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,
"In the distraction of this madding fever!" MALONE.

Thy

Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to ftand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine 7:
But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood:-Lift, lift, O lift!-
If thou did❜ft ever thy dear father love,-

Ham. O heaven!

Ghoft. Revenge his foul and moft unnatural murderR. Ham. Murder?

Ghoft. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this moft foul, ftrange, and unnatural.

Ham. Hafte me to know it; that I, with wings as swift As meditation, or the thoughts of love",

7-fretful porcupine:] The quartos read fearful porcupine. Either may ferve. This animal is at once irafcible and timid. The fame image occurs in the Romant of the Rofe, where Chaucer is defcribing the perfonage of danger:

"Like fharpe urchons his beere was grow."

An urchin is a hedge-hog. STEEVENS.

Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.] As a proof that this play was written before 1597, of which the contrary has been aflerted by Mr. Holt in Dr. Johnson's appendix, I must borrow, as ufual, from Dr. Farmer. "Shakspeare is faid to have been no extraordinary actor; and that the top of his performance was the Ghoft in his own Hamlet. Yet this chef d'oeuvre did not please: I will give you an original ftroke at it. Dr. Lodge published in the year 1596 a pamphlet called Wit's Miferie, or the World's Madness, difcovering the incarnate devils of the age, quarto. One of thefe devils is, Hate-virtue, or forrow for another man's good fucceffe, who, fays the doctor, " is a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the vizard of the Gboft, which cried fo miferably at the theatre, Hamlet revenge." STEEVENS,

I fufpect that this ftroke was levelled, not at Shakspeare, but at the performer of the Ghoft in an older play on this fubject, exhibited before 1589. See An Attempt to afcertain the order of Shakspeare's plays, Vol. I. MALONE.

9 As meditation, or the thoughts of love,] This fimilitude is extremely beautiful. The word meditation is confecrated, by the myftics, to fig nify that stretch and flight of mind which afpires to the enjoyment of the fupreme good. So that Hamlet, confidering with what to compare the swiftnefs of his revenge, choofes two of the moft rapid things in nature, the ardency of divine and human paffion, in an entbufiaft and a lover, WARBURTON.

The comment on the word meditation is fo ingenious, that I hope at is juft. JOHNSON.

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