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Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Ha, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, true-penny?

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Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen, Swear by my sword.'

19

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Hic et ubique! then, we'll shift our ground.

Come hither, gentlemen,

And lay your hands again upon my sword:
Never to speak of this that you have heard,
Swear by my sword.

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.20

Ham. Well said, old mole! canst work i'the earth so fast?

A worthy pioneer! - Once more remove, good friends.

Hor. O, day and night! but this is wondrous

strange.

Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it wel

come.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.21

19 The custom of swearing by the sword, or rather by the cross at the upper end of it, is very ancient. The name of Jesus was not unfrequently inscribed on the handle. The allusions to this custom are very numerous in our old writers.

20 Here again we follow the folio, with which the first quarto agrees. In the other quartos, this speech reads, "Swear by his sword; and the last two lines of the preceding speech are transposed. In the next line, the folio has ground instead of earth.

H.

21 So read all the quartos; the folio, "our philosophy." The

But come;

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself;
As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on ;

That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,

As,

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Well, well, we know ;"

or, "We could, an

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if we would; - or, "If we list to speak ;' -or "There be, an if they might;

Or such ambiguous giving-out, to note
That you know aught of me:-

-this not to do,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you. Swear.

Ghost. [Beneath.] Swear.

Ham. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! So, gentle

men,

-

With all my love I do commend me to you:
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is

May do, t' express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.

The time is out of joint;-0, cursed spite!
That ever I was born to set it right.

Nay, come; let's go together.22

[Exeunt

passage has had so long a lease of familiarity, as it stands in the text, that it seems best not to change it. Besides, your gives a nice characteristic shade of meaning that is lost in our. Of course it is not Horatio's philosophy, but your philosophy, that Hamlet is speaking of.

H.

22 This part of the scene after Hamlet's interview with the Ghost has been charged with an improbable eccentricity. But the truth is, that after the mind has been stretched beyond its usual pitch and tone, it must either sink into exhaustion and inanity, or seek relief by change. It is thus well known, that persons conversant in deeds of cruelty contrive to escape from conscience by con

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Room in POLONIUS' House.

Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO.

Pol. Give him this money, and these notes, Rey. naldo.

Rey. I will, my lord.

Pol. You shall do marvellous wisely, good Rey

naldo,

Before you visit him, to make inquiry

Of his behaviour.

Rey.

My lord, I did intend it.

Look

Pol. Marry, well said; very well said.

you, sir,

Inquire me first what Danskers' are in Paris;

And how, and who, what means, and where they

keep,

necting something of the ludicrous with them, and by inventing grotesque terms and a certain technical phraseology to disguise the horror of their practices. Indeed, paradoxical as it may appear, the terrible by a law of the human mind always touches on the verge of the ludicrous. Both arise from the perception of something out of the common order of things, something, in fact, out of its place; and if from this we can abstract the danger, the uncommonness alone will remain, and the sense of the ridiculous be excited. The close alliance of these opposites - they are not contraries appears from the circumstance, that laughter is equally the expression of extreme anguish and horror as of joy: as there are tears of sorrow and tears of joy, so there is a laugh of terror and a laugh of merriment. These complex causes will naturally have produced in Hamlet the disposition to escape from his own feelings of the overwhelming and supernatural by a wild transition to the ludicrous, —a sort of cunning bravado, bordering on the flights of delirium.-COLERIDGE.

H.

That is, Danes. Warner, in his Albion's England, calls Denmark Danske.

What company, at what expense; and, finding,
By this encompassment and drift of question,
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it:

Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;
As thus, —“I know his father, and his friends,
And, in part, him : - do you mark this, Reynaldo?
Rey. Ay, very well, my lord.

Pol. "And, in part, him; but," you may say "not well:

But, if't be he I mean, he's very wild;
Addicted so and so; and there put on him
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
As may dishonour him, take heed of that;
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips,
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.

Rey.

As gaming, my lord? Pol. Ay, or drinking, fencing,2 swearing, quarrelling,

Drabbing: - you may go so far.

Rey. My lord, that would dishonour him.

Pol. 'Faith, no; as you may season it in the charge.

You must not put another scandal on him,

That he is open to incontinency;

That's not my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly,

That they may seem the taints of liberty;

The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind;

The cunning of fencers is now applied to quarrelling; they thinke themselves no men, if, for stirring of a straw, they prove not their valure uppon some bodies fleshe."- Gosson's Schole of Abuse, 1579.

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3

A savageness in unreclaimed blood,

Of general assault.

Rey.

But, my good lord,-
Pol. Wherefore should you do this?
Rey. Ay, my lord, I would know that.
Pol. Marry, sir, here's my drift,
And I believe it is a fetch of warrant:

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You laying these slight sullies on my son,

As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'the working,
Mark you,

Your party in converse, him you would sound,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur'd,
He closes with you in this consequence :
"Good sir," or so; or "friend," or "gentleman,"
According to the phrase, or the addition,

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What was I about to say?-By the mass, I was about to say something:- Where did I leave? Rey. At, closes in the consequence,

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ay, marry;

As "friend or so" and " gentleman.'
Pol. At, closes in the consequence,
He closes thus: "I know the gentleman;
I saw him yesterday," or "t'other day,"

Or then, or then; with such, or such; "and, as you

say,

3 A wildness of untamed blood. such as youth is generally assailed by.

4"A fetch of warrant" seems to mean an allowable stratagem or practice. -The quartos have " fetch of wit."

H.

This line is in the folio only. In the third line before, the folio omits " By the mass," probably on account of the statute against profanity; and, in the second line after, inserts with you between closes and thus.

H.

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