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you:-[taking Guil. afide.] Why do you go about to recover the wind of me 3, as if you would drive me into a toil? Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly *.

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.

Ham. I do befeech you.

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord.

Ham. 'Tis as eafy as lying: govern thefe ventages 5 with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your

mouth,

3-to recover the wind of me,] So, in an ancient Mf. play entitled The fecond Maidens Tragedy:

Is that next?

"Why then I have your ladyfhip in the wind." STEEVENS, 40, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.] i. e. if my duty to the king makes me prefs you a little, my love to you makes me ft 11 more importunate. If that makes me bold, this makes me even unmannerly. WARBURTON.

I believe we should read-my love is not unmannerly. My concep tion of this paffage is, that, in confequence of Hamlet's moving to take the recorder, Guildenstern also shifts his ground, in order to place himself beneath the prince in his new pofition. This Hamlet ludicroufly calls "going about to recover the wind," &c. and Guildenftern may anfwer properly enough, I think, and like a courtier; "if my dury to the king makes me too bold in preffing you upon a difagreeable fubject, my love to you will make me not unmannerly, in fhewing you all poflible marks of refpe&t and attention." TYRWHITT.

5-ventages] The holes of a flute. JOHNSON.

6 and thumb, The firft quarto reads-with your fingers and the umber. This may probably be the ancient name for that piece of moveable brafs at the end of a flute, which is either raised or depreffed by the finger. The word umber is ufed by Stowe the chronicler, who, defcribing a fingle combat between two knights-fays, "he braft up his umber three times." Here, the umber means the vifor of the helmet. So, in Spenfer's Faery Queene, b. 3. c. 1. ft. 42: "But the brave maid would not difarmed be,

"But only vented up her umbriere,

"And fo did let her goodly vifage to appere." STEEVENS. If a recorder had a brais key like the German Flute, we are to follow the reading of the quarto; for then the thumb is not concerned in the government of the ventages or ftops. If a recorder was like a tabourer's

mouth, and it will difcourfe moft eloquent mufick. Look you, these are the stops 7.

Guil. But thefe cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me? You would play upon me; you would feem to know my ftops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would found me from my lowest note to the top of my compafs: and there is much mufick, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it fpeak. 'Sblood, do you think, I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me what inftrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. Enter POLONIUS.

God blefs you, fir!

Pol. My lord, the queen would fpeak with you, and prefently.

Ham. Do you fee yonder cloud, that's almoft in fhape of a camel?

Pol. By the mafs, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Ham. Methinks, it is like a weazel.
Pol. It is back'd like a weazel.

Ham

pipe, which has no brafs key, but has a stop for the thumb, we are to read-Govern these ventages with your finger and thumb. In Cotgrave's Dictionary, ombre, ombraire, ombriere, and ombrelle, are all from the Latin umbra, and fignify a fhadow, an umbrella, or any thing that fhades or hides the face from the fun; and hence they may have been applied to any thing that hides or covers another; as for example, they may have been applied to the brass key that covers the hole in the German flute. So Spenfer ufed umbriere for the vifor of the helmet, as Rous's hiftory of the Kings of England ufes umbrella in the fame fenfe. TOLLET.

7-the ftops.] The founds formed by occafionally stopping the holes, while the inftrument is played upon, So, in the Prologue to K. Henry V. "Rumour is a pipe

"And of fo eafy and so plain a stop," &c. MALONE.

8 Methinks, it is like a weazel.

Pol. It is back'd like a weazel.] Thus the quarto, 1604, and the folio. The weazel, Mr. Steevens obferves, is remarkable for the length of its back. In a more modern quarto, that of 1611, back'd, the original reading, was corrupted into black.,

VOL. IX.

Y

Perhaps

Ham. Or, like a whale?

Pol. Very like a whale.

Ham. Then will I come to my mother by and by.They fool me to the top of my bent 9.-I will come by and by.

Pol. I will fay fo.

[Exit POLONIUS.

Ham. By and by is eafily faid.-Leave me, friends. [Exeunt Ros. GUIL. HOR. &c. "Tis now the very witching time of night;

When church-yards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: Now could I drink hot blood, And do fuch business as the bitter day'

Would quake to look on. Soft; now to my mother.O, heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever

Perhaps in the original edition the words camel and weazel were huffled out of their places. The poet might have intended the dialogue to proceed thus:

Ham. Do you fee yonder cloud, that's almost in the shape of a weazel?

Pol. By the mafs, and 'tis like a weazel, indeed.

Ham. Methinks, it is like a camel.

Pol. It is back'd like a camel.

The protuberant back of a camel feems more to resemble a cloud, than the back of a weazel does. MALONE.

Mr. Tollet obferves, that we might read-" it is beck'd like a weafel," i. e. weafel-fnouted. So, in Holinfhed's Defcription of England, p. 172: "if he be wefell-becked." Quarles ufes this term of reproach in his Virgin Widow :" Go, you weazel-frouted, addle-pated," &c. Mr. Tollett adds, that Milton, in his Lycidas, calls a promontory beaked, i. e. prominent like the beak of a bird. STEEVENS.

9 They fool me to the top of my bent.-] They compel me to play the fool, till I can endure it no longer. JOHNSON.

See p. 246, n. 5. MALONE.

And do fuch business as the bitter day-] Thus the quarto. The

folio reads:

And do fuch bitter bufinefs as the day, &c. MALONE.

The expreffion bitter business is ftill in ufe, and though at prefent a vulgar phrafe, might not have been fuch in the age of Shakspeare. The bitter day is the day rendered hateful or bitter by the commiffion of fome act of mischief.

Watts, in his Logic, fays: "Bitter is an equivocal word: there is bitter wormwood, there are bitter words, there are bitter enemies, and a bitter cold morning." It is, in short, any thing unpleafing or hurtful. STEEVENS. The

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The foul of Nero enter this firm bofom :
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:

I will speak daggers to her, but ufe none;
My tongue and foul in this be hypocrites:
How in my words foever the be fhent3,
To give them feals* never, my foul, confent!

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[Exit.

Enter King, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King, I like him not; nor stands it fafe with us,
To let his madnefs range. Therefore, prepare you;
I your commiffion will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England fhall along with you:
The terms of our eftate may not endure
Hazard fo near us, as doth hourly grow

2 I will speak daggers to her,] A fimilar expreffion occurs in The Return from Parnaffus: "They are peftilent fellows, they speak no. thing but bodkins." It has been already obferved, that a bodkin anciently fignified a fhort dagger. STEEVENS.

3

be fhent,] To fhend, is to reprove harshly, to treat with inju rious language. So, in The Coxcomb of B. and Fletcher:

"We fhall be fhent foundly." STEEVENS.

See Vol. VII. p. 286, n. 3. MALONE.

4 To give them feals-] 1. c. put them in execution. WARBURTON, 5 I like bim not; nor flands it fafe with us,

To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you;

I your commiffion will forthwith dispatch,

And be to England shall along with you :] In The Hyftory of Hamblett, bl. let. the king does not adopt this fcheme of fending Hamlet to England till after the death of Polonius; and though he is defcribed as doubtful whether Polonius was flain by Hamlet, his apprehenfion left he might himself meet the fame fate as the old courtier, is affigned as the motive for his wishing the prince out of the kingdom. This at firft inclined me to think that this fhort fcene, either from the negligence of the copyift or the printer, might have been misplaced; but it is certainly printed as the authour intended, for in the next fcene Hamlet fays to his mother, "I must to England; you know that?" before the king could have heard of the death of Polonius.

Y 2

MALONE.

Out

Out of his lunes 6.

Guil. We will ourselves provide:
Moft holy and religious fear it is,
To keep those many many bodies safe,
That live, and feed, upon your majesty.

Rof. The fingle and peculiar life is bound,
With all the firength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more,
That spirit upon whofe weal' depend and reft
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it, with it: it is a maffy wheels,
Fix'd on the fummit of the highest mount,
To whofe huge fpokes ten thousand leffer things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty confequence,
Attends the boift'rous ruin. Never alone

Out of bis lunes.] The quarto reads-out of his brows; the folia -out of his lunacies. Lunes was introduced by Mr. Theobald. Shakfpeare probably had here the following paffage in The Hiftory of Hamb lett, bl. 1. in his thoughts: "Fengon could not content himselfe, but ftill his mind gave him that the foole [Hamlet] would play him fome tricke of legerdemaine. And in that conceit feeking to be rid of him, determined to find the meanes to doe it, by the aid of a ftranger; making the king of England minifter of his maffacrous refolution, to whom he purposed to fend him." MALONE.

i take brows to be, properly read, frows, which, I think, is a provincial word for perverfe bumours; which being, I fuppofe not underftood, was changed to lunacies. But of this I am not confident. JOHNSON.

I would receive Theobald's emendation, because Shakspeare ufes the word lunes in the fame fenfe in The Merry Wives of Windfor, and The Winter's Tale. From the redundancy of the measure nothing can be inferred.

Since this part of my note was written, I have met with an inftance in fupport of Dr. Johnfon's conjecture:

"were you but as favourable as you are frowish,—.” Tully's Love, by Greene, 1616. Perhaps, however, Shakspeare defigned a metaphor from horned cattle, whofe powers of being dangerous encrease with the growth of their brows. STEEVENS.

7 That Spirit upon whofe weal-] So the quarto. The folio gives, That fpirit, upon whofe Spirit, STEEVENS. 8-it is a mafy wheel,] Thus the folio. The quarto reads-Or it is, &c. MALONE.

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