For we have closely fent for Hamlet hither; Queen. I shall obey you : And, for your part 7, Ophelia, I do wish, Of Hamlet's wildness; fo fhall I hope, your virtues To both your honours. Oph. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit Queen. Pol.Ophelia, walk you here:-Gracious, fo please you, We will bestow ourselves:-Read on this book; That fhow of fuch an exercise may colour [to Ophelia. Your loneliness .-We are oft to blame in this, 'Tis too much prov'd 9,-that, with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do fugar o'er The devil himself. King. O, 'tis too true! how fmart A lafh that fpeech doth give my confcience! The harlot's cheek, beauty'd with plast'ring art, [Afide. 5 Affront Ophelia :] To affront, is only to meet directly. JOHNSON. Affrontare, Ital. So, in the Devil's Charter, 1607: "Affronting that port where proud Charles fhould enter." STEEVENS. 6 Her father, and myself-] Thus the quarto. The folio after thefe words adds-lawful elpials, i. e. fpies. MALONE. 7 And, for your part,] Thus the quarto 1604, and the folio. The modern editors, following a quarto of no authority, read-for my part. MALONE. 8 Your loneliness.] Thus the folio. The first and fecond quartos read lowlinefs. STEEVENS. 9 'Tis too much prov'd,-] It is found by too frequent experience. JOHNSON. Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it', Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord. Enter HAMLET. Ham. To be, or not to be2, that is the question :Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to fuffer The more ugly to the thing that helps it,] That is, compared with the thing that helps it. JOHNSON. 2 To be, or not to be,-] Of this celebrated foliloquy, which bursting from a man distracted with contrariety of desires, and overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes, is connected rather in the fpeaker's mind, than on his tongue, I fhall endeavour to difcover the train, and to fhew how one fentiment produces another. Hamlet, knowing himself injured in the most enormous and atrocious degree, and feeing no means of redrefs, but such as must expofe him to the extremity of hazard, meditates on his fituation in this manner: Before I can form any rational scheme of action under this preffure of diftrefs, it is neceffary to decide, whether, after our prefent ftate, we are to be, or not to be. That is the question, which, as it hall be answered, will determine, whether 'tis nobler, and more fuitable to the dignity of reafon, to suffer the outrages of fortune patiently, or to take arms against them, and by oppofing end them, though perhaps with the lofs of life. If to die, were to fleep, no more, and by a fleep to end the miferies of our nature, fuch a sleep were devoutly to be wished; but if to fleep in death, be to dream, to retain our powers of fenfibility, we must pause to confider, in that fleep of death what dreams may come. This confideration makes calamity fo long endured; for who would bear the vexations of life, which might be ended by a bare bodkin, but that he is afraid of fomething in unknown futurity? This fear it is that gives efficacy to confcience, which, by turning the mind upon this regard, chills the ardour of refolution, checks the vigour of enterprize, and makes the current of defire ftagnate in inactivity. We may suppose that he would have applied these general obfervations to his own cafe, but that he difcovered Ophelia. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson's explication of the firft five lines of this paffage is furely wrong. Hamlet is not deliberating whether after our prefent ftate we are to exift or not, but whether he fhould continue to live or put an end to his life as is pointed out by the fecond and the three following lines, which are manifeftly a paraphrafe on the firft; "whether 'tis nobler in the mind to fuffer, &c. or to take arms." The question concerning our existence in a future ftate is not confidered till the tenth line:-" to fleep! perchance, to dream," &c. The train of Hamlet's 2 The flings and arrows of outrageous fortune3; And, by oppofing, end them ?-To die,-to fleep,- 3 To fleep! perchance, to dream ;-ay, there's the rub; Hamlet's reafoning from the middle of the fifth line, "If to die, were to fleep," &c. Dr. Johnfon has marked out with his ufual accuracy. In our poet's Rape of Lucrece we find the fame queftion ftated, which is propofed in the beginning of the prefent foliloquy: 66 with herself fhe is in mutiny, "To live or die, which of the twain were better." MALONE, 3- arrows of outrageous fortune;] "Homines nos ut effe meminerimus, eâ lege natos, ut omnibus telis fortunæ propofita fit vita nostra.” Cic. Epift. Fam. v. 16. STEEVENS. 4 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,] One cannot but wonder that the smalleft doubt should be entertained concerning an expreffion which is fo much in Shakspeare's manner; yet, to preferve the integrity of the metaphor, Dr. Warburton reads affail of troubles, and Mr. Pope propofed fiege. In the Prometheus Vinčius of Æfcbylus a fimilar imagery is found: Δυσχείμερον με πέλαγος ατέρας δύης, The ftormy fea of dire calamity. and in the fame play, as an anonymous writer has obferved, (Gent Magazine, Aug. 1772,) we have a metaphor no less harsh than that of the text: Θολεροι δε λόγοι παιουσ' εικη Στυγνής προς κύμασιν στης "My plaintive words in vain confufedly beat Shakspeare might have found the very phrafe that he has employed, in The Tragedy of Queen Cordila, MIRROUR FOR MAGISTRATES, 1575, which undoubtedly he read: For lacke of frendes to tell my feas of giltleffe fmart." MALONE. A fea of troubles among the Greeks grew into a proverbial usage; κακῶν θάλασσα, κακών τρικυμία. So that the expreflion Aguratively means, the troubles of human life, which flow in upon us, and encompafs us round, like a fea. THEOBALD. I know not why there fhould be fo much folicitude about this metaphor. Shakspeare breaks his metaphors often, and in this defultory Speech there was lefs need of preferving them. JOHNSON. S To die,-to fleep,-] This paffage is ridiculed in the Scornful Lady of B. and Fletcher, as follows: 66 - be deceas'd, that is, afleep, for fo the word is taken. “To fleep, to die; to die, to fleep; a very figure, fir." &c. &c. STEEV. For For in that fleep of death what dreams may come, For who would bear the whips and scorns of times, 6 mortal coil,] i. e. turmoil, buftle. WARBURTON. The 7 There's the refpect,] i. e. the confideration. See Vol. X. p. 102, n. 3. MALONE. 8 the whips and fcorns of time,] The evils here complained of are not the product of time or duration fimply, but of a corrupted age or manners. We may be fure, then, that Shakspeare wrote the whips and fcorns of th' time. And the defcription of the evils of a corrupt age, which follows, confirms this emendation. WARBURTON. It may be remarked, that Hamlet, in his enumeration of miseries, forgets, whether properly or not, that he is a prince, and mentions many evils to which inferior ftations are expofed. JOHNSON. I think we might venture to read the whips and fcorns o'tb' times, i. e. of times fatirical as the age of Shakspeare, which probably furnished him with the idea. In the reigns of Elizabeth and James (particularly in the former) there was more illiberal private abufe and peevish fatire publifhed, than in any others I ever knew of, except the prefent one. I have many of thefe publications, which were almost all pointed at individuals. Daniel, in his Mufopbilus, 1599, has the fame complaint: "Do you not fee thefe pamphlets, libels, rhimes, "Thefe ftrange confufed tumults of the mind, "Are grown to be the fickness of these times, "The great difeafe inflicted on mankind?" Whips and fcorns are furely as infeparable companions, as public punishment and infamy. Quips, the word which Dr. Johnfon would introduce, is derived, by all etymologifts, from whips. Hamlet is introduced as reafoning on a queftion of general concern. ment. He therefore takes in all fuch evils as could befall mankind in general, without confidering himself at prefent as a prince, or wishing to avail himself of the few exemptions which high place might once have claimed. In part of K. James Ift's Entertainment paffing to bis Coronation, by Ben Jonfon and Decker, is the following line, and note on that line: "And firft account of years, of months, OF TIME." "By time we understand the prefent." This explanation affords the fenfe for which I have contended, and without alteration. STEEV. The The oppreffor's wrong, the proud man's contumely?, The pangs of defpis'd love', the law's delay, The infolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, 2 Το The word whips is ufed by Marfton in his Satires, 1599, in the fenfe required here: 9 Ingenuous melancholy, "Inthrone thee in my blood; let me entreat, MALONE. the proud man's contumely,] Thus the quarto. The folio reads -the poor man's contumely; the contumely which the poor man is obliged to endure. "Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in fe, "Quam quod ridiculos homines facit." MALONE. of defpis'd love,] The folio reads-of difpriz'd love. STEEV. might bis quietus make With a bare bodkin?-] The firft expreffion probably alluded to the writ of difcharge, which was formerly granted to thofe barons and knights who perfonally attended the king on any foreign expedition. This discharge was called a quietus. It is at this time the term for the acquittance which every sheriff receives on fettling his accounts at the exchequer. The word is ufed for the difcharge of an account, by Webster, in his Dutchess of Malfy, 1623: "You had the trick in audit-time to be fick, A bodkin was, the ancient term for a small dagger. So, in the Se cond Part of The Mirrour of Knighthood, 4to. bl. let. 1598: "Not having any more weapons but a poor poynado, which ufually he did weare about him, and taking it in his hand, delivered these speeches unto it: Thou, filly bodkin, fhalt finish the piece of worke," &c. In the margin of Stowe's Chronicle, edit. 1614, it is faid, that Cæfar was flain with bodkins. Again, in Chaucer, as he is quoted at the end of a pamphlet called The Serpent of Divifion, &c. whereunto is annexed the Tragedy of Gorbodus, &c. 1591: "With bodkins was Cæfar Julius "Murder'd at Rome, of Brutus Craffus." STEEVENS. Lydgate in his Fall of Princes, ays that Julius Cæfar was flain in the Capitol with bodkins. The first Lord Lyttelton, it feems, was of opinion that Pope's edition of Shakspeare was better than that of Theobald's, because VOL. VII. U "Theobald |