Left, with this piteous action, you convert
My ftern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?

Ham. Do you fee nothing there?

Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I fee.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves.

Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!

[Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: This bodilefs creation ecftafy

Is very cunning in 2.

Ham. Ecftafy!

My pulfe, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful mufick: It is not madness,
That I have utter'd: bring me to the teft,

And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your foul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, fpeaks:
It will but fkin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unfeen. Confefs yourself to heaven;

9 My ftern effects:] Effects for actions; deeds effected. MALONE. My father, in his babit as be liv'd!] If the poet means by this expreffion, that his father appeared in his own familiar babit, he has either forgot that he had originally introduced him in armour, or muft have meant to vary his dress at this his last appearance. The difficulty might perhaps be a little obviated by pointing the line thus: My father-in bis habit-as be liv'd. STEEVENS.

2 This is the very coinage of your brain:

This bodilefs creation ecftafy

Is very cunning in.] So, in The Rape of Lucrece:

"Such fhadows are the weak brain's forgeries." MALONE. Ecftafy in this place, and many others, means a temporary aliena❤ tion of mind, a fit. So, in Eliefto Libidinofo, a novel, by Jobn Hinde, 1606: "that bursting out of an ecftafy wherein she had long ftood, like one beholding Medusa's head, lamenting," &c. STEEVENS. See Vol. IV. p. 361, n. 9. MALONE.

Repent

Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compoft on the weeds 3,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue :
For, in the fatnefs of thefe purfy times,

Virtue itself of vice muft pardon beg;

Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good.

Queen. O Hamlet! thou haft cleft my heart in twain.

Ham. O, throw away the worfer part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to my uncle's bed;
Affume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, cuftom, who all fenfe doth eat
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this 5;
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewife gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night;
And that shall lend a kind of eafinefs
To the next abstinence: the next more eafy 6:
For ufe almost can change the ftamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out

3 do not spread the compoft, &c.] Do not, by any new indul gence, heighten your former offences. JOHNSON

4

curb] That is, bend and truckle. Fr. courber. So, in Pierce Plowman:

"Then I courbid on my knees," &c. STEEVENS.

5 That monfter, cuftom, who all fenfe doth eat

Of babit's devil, is angel yet in this ;] Dr. Thirlby conjectured that Shakspeare wrote-of habits evil. I incline to think with him; though I have left the text undisturbed. From That monfler to put on, is not in the folio. MALONE.

I think Thirlby's conjecture wrong, though the fucceeding editors have followed it; angel and devil are evidently oppofed. JOHNSON..

-the next more eafy: &c.] This paffage, as far as potency, is omitted in the folio. STEEVENS.

7 And either curb the devil, &c.] In the quarto, where alone this paffage is found, fome word was accidentally omitted at the prefs in the line before us. The quarto, 1604, reads:

And either the devil, or throw him out, &c.

For the infertion of the word curb I am anfwerable. The printer or corrector of a later quarto, finding the line nonfenfe, omitted the word either, and fubftituted mafter in its place. The modern editors have accepted the fubftituted word, and yet retain either; by which the metre is deftroyed. The word omitted in the first copy was undoubtedJy a monofyllable. MALONE.

Z 3

With

With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are defirous to be bleft,

I'll bleffing beg of you.-For this fame lord,

[pointing to Polonius.

8

I do repent; But heaven hath pleas'd it fo,-
To punish me with this, and this with me
That I must be their fcourge and minifter.
I will beftow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night!→
I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.-
One word more, good lady 9.

Queen. What fhall I do?

do:

Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; cali you, his mouse2;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses 3,

Ог

8 To punish me with this, and this with me,] To punish me by mak ing me the instrument of this man's death, and to punish this man by my hand. For this, the reading of both the quarto and folio, Sir T. Hanmer and the fubfequent editors have fubftituted,

To punish bim with me, and me with this. MALONE.

9 One word more, &c.] This paffage I have restored from the quartos. STEEVENS.

Let the bloat king-] i. e. the fwollen king. Bloat is the reading of the quarto, 1604. The folio reads the blunt king. MALONE. This again hints at his intemperance. He had drunk himself into a dropfy. BLACKSTONE.

2

bis moufe ;] Moufe was once a term of endearment. So, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, b. 2. chap. 10:

"God bless thee, moufe, the bridegroom faid," &c. Again, in the Menæchmi, 1595: “Shall I tell thee, sweet mouse ? I never look upon thee, but I am quite out of love with my wife.'i

STEEVENS.

This term of endearment is very ancient, being found in A new and merry Enterlude, called the Trial of Treasure, 1567:

3-

66

My moufe, my nobs, my cony fweete;

"My hope and joye, my whole delight." MALONE.

reechy kifles,] Reecby is fmoky. The author meant to convey a coarfe idea, and was not very fcrupulous in his choice of an epithet. The fame, however, is applied with greater propriety to

the

Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I effentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft 4. 'Twere good, you let him know:

the neck of a cook-maid in Coriolanus. Again, in Hans Beer-Pot's Invifible Comedy, 1618: bade him go

66

"And wash his face, he look'd fo reechily,

"Like bacon hanging on the chimney's roof." STEEVENS.. Reecby includes, I believe, beat as well as fmoke. The verb to reech, which was once common, was certainly a corruption of-to reek. In a former paffage Hamlet has remonstrated with his mother, on her living

"In the rank feat of an enfeamed bed." MALONE. 4 That I effentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft.-] The reader will be pleased to see Dr.. Farmer's extract from the old quarto Hiftorie of Hamblet, of which he had a fragment only in his poffeffion." It was not without cause, "and juft occafion, that my geftures, countenances, and words, "feeme to proceed from a madman, and that I defire to haue all "men esteeme mee wholy depriued of fenfe and reasonable underftanding, bycaufe I am well affured, that he that hath made no "confcience to kill his owne brother, (accustomed to murthers, and allured with defire of gouernement without controll in his treasons) << will not fpare to faue himselfe with the like crueltie, in the blood "and flefh of the loyns of his brother, by him maffacred: and there"fore it is better for me to fayne madnesse, then to use my right "fences as nature hath beftowed them upon me. The bright shining « clearnes thereof I am forced to hide vnder this fhadow of diffimulation, as the fun doth hir beams under fome great cloud, when << the wether in fummer-time ouercafteth: the face of a madman "ferueth to couer my gallant countenance, and the geftures of a fool "are fit for me, to the end that, guiding myself wifely therin, I "may preferue my life for the Danes and the memory of my late

deceased father; for that the defire of reuenging his death is fo in"graven in my heart, that if I dye not shortly, hope to take fuch "and fo great vengeance, that these countryes fhall for euer speake "thereof. Neuertheleffe I muft stay the time, meanes, and occafion, " left by making ouer-great haft, I be now the cause of mine own «fodaine ruine and ouerthrow, and by that meanes end, before I be "ginne to effect my hearts defire: hee that hath to doe with a wicked, difloyall, cruell, and difcourteous man, muft vfe craft, and politike "inuentions, fuch as a fine witte can be imagine, not to discouer his interprife; for feeing that by force I cannot effect my defire, "reafon alloweth me by diffimulation, fubtiltie, and fecret practifes Es to proceed therein." STEEVENS.

For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib',
Such dear concernings hide? who would do fo?
No, in defpight of fenfe, and fecrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the houfe's top,

Let the birds fly; and, like the famous ape,
To try conclufions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou affur'd, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou haft faid to me.

Ham. I must to England; you know that?

Queen. Alack, I had forgot; 'tis fo concluded on. Ham. There's letters feal'd: and my two school-fellows,

a gib,] So, in Drayton's Epifle from Elinor Cobham to Duke Humphrey :

"And call me beldam, gib, witch, night-mare, trot." Gib was a common name for a cat. STEEVENS.

See Vol. V. p. 123, n. 5.

MALONE.

6 Un eg the basket on the boufe's top,

Let the birds fiy;] Sir John Suckling, in one of his letters, may poffibly allude to the fame ftory: "It is the ftory of the jackanapes and the partridges; thou stareft after a beauty till it is loft to thee, and then let'ft out another, and ftareft after that till it is gone too." WARNER.

7 To try conclufions,] i. e. experiments. STEEVENS. See Vol. VIII. p. 334, n. 3. MALONE.

I muft to England;] Shakspeare does not inform us, how Hamlet came to know that he was to be fent to England. Rofencrantz and Guildenstern were made acquainted with the king's intentions for the first time in the very laft fcene; and they do not appear to have had any communication with the prince fince that time. Add to this, that in a fubfequent scene, when the king, after the death of Polonius, informs Hamlet he was to go to England, he expreffes great furprife, as if he had not heard any thing of it before. This laft, however, may perhaps be accounted for, as contributing to his defign of paffing for a madman. MALONE.

9 There's letters feal'd: &c.] The nine following verfes are added out of the old edition. PorE

Whom