Ham. I lov'd Ophelia: forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum. - What wilt thou do for her? King. O! he is mad, Laertes. Queen. For love of God, forbear him. Ham. 'Zounds, show me what thou'lt do: Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself? Woo't drink up Esill,28 eat a crocodile ? Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Nay, an thou'lt mouth, 28 So this name is spelt in the quartos, all but that of 1603, which has vessels. The folio spells it Esile. What particular ake, river, firth, or gulf was meant by the Poet, is something uncertain. The more common opinion is, that he had in mind the river Yesel which, of the larger branches of the Rhine, is the one nearest to Denmark. In the maps of our time, Isef is the name of a gulf almost surrounded by land, in the island of Zealand, not many miles west of Elsinore. Either of these names might naturally enough have been spelt and pronounced Esill or Isell by an Englishman in Shakespeare's time. As for the notion held by some, that the Poet meant eysell or eisel, an old word for vinegar, it seems pretty thoroughly absurd. In strains of hyperbole, such figures of speech were often used by the old poets. Thus in King Richard II.: "The task he undertakes is numbering sands, and drinking oceans dry." And in Chaucer's Romaunt of the Rose: "He underfongeth a great paine, that undertaketh to drinke up Saire." Also, in Eastward Hoe: Come, drink up Rhine, Thames, and Meander dry." And in Greene's Orlando Furioso: "Else would I set my mouth to Tygris streams, and drink up overflowing Euphrates." And in Marlowe's Jew of Malta: "Sooner shalt thou drink the ocean dry than conquer Malta."Woo't is a contraction of wouldst thou, said to be common in the northern counties of England. As it is spelt woo't in the old copies, we know not why certain editors read wool't. H. Queen. This is mere madness: And thus awhile the fit will work on him; When that her golden couplets are disclosed, Ham. Hear you, sir: What is the reason that you use me thus ? The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. [Exit. King. I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon [Exit HORATIO. [To LAERTES.] Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech; him. We'll put the matter to the present push. [Exeunt. SCENE II. A Hall in the Castle. Enter HAMLET and HORATIO. Ham. So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other. You do remember all the circumstance? 29 The folio gives this speech to the King, in whose mouth it is about as proper as a diamond in a swine's snout.The golden couplets are the two eggs of the dove; the nestlings, when first hatched, being covered with a yellow down; and in her patient tenderness the mother rarely leaves the nest, till her little-ones attain to some degree of dove-discretion. - Disclose was often used for hatch. Thus in the Boke of St. Albans, 1496: "For to speke of hawkes Fyrst, they ben egges, and afterwarde they ben dis closyd hawkys." Again: "Comynly goshawkes ben disclosyd assoone as the choughs." H. Hor. Remember it, my lord! Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fight ing, That would not let me sleep: methought, I lay Rashly, – And prais'd be rashness for it: let us know, 2 When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us, There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Hor. Ham. Up from my cabin, That is most certain My sea-gown scarf'd about me,3 in the dark 4 1 The bilboes were bars of iron with fetters annexed to them, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa, in Spain, where the things were made. To understand the allusion, it should be known that as these fetters connected the legs of the offenders very closely together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as those of Hamlet, in whose mind there was a kind of fighting that would not let him sleep. The bilboes are still shown in the Tower, among the other spoils of the Armada. · Mutines is for mutineers. See King John, Act ii. sc. 2, note 10. 2 To pall was to fade or fall away; to become, as it were, dead, or without spirit: from the old French pasler. Thus in Antony and Cleopatra: "I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more."- The quartos have learn instead of teach. 3" Esclavine," says Cotgrave, "a sea-gowne, a coarse, highcollar'd and short-sleeved gowne, reaching to the mid-leg, and used mostly by seamen and sailors." Unseal is shown to be 4 Thus the folio; the quartos, unfold. right by his resealing the packet. In the second line after, the quartos read "A royal knavery." H. Larded with many several sorts of reasons, Hor. Is't possible? Ham. Here's the commission: read it at more leisure. But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?" Hor. I beseech you. Ham. Being thus benetted round with villains, — Ere I could make a prologue to my brains, They bad begun the play, I sat me down, Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair. I once did hold it, as our statists do, A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much The effect of what I wrote ? Wilt thou know Hor. The Poet several times uses bugs for bugbears. See 3 Henry VI., Act v. sc. 2, note 1. H. The supervise is the looking over; no leisure bated means without any abatement or intermission of time. 7 The quartos have now instead of me. H. 8 Statists are statesmen. Blackstone says, that "most of our great men of Shakespeare's time wrote very bad hands; their sec retaries very neat ones." This must be taken with some qualification; for Elizabeth's two most powerful ministers, Leicester and Burleigh, both wrote good hands. It is certain that there were some who did write most wretched scrawls, but probably not from affectation; though it was accounted a mechanical and vulgar accomplishment to write a fair hand. Sir Thomas Smyth says of the yeoman soldiers, that they were "the stal troop of footmen that affraide all France." H. As England was his faithful tributary; As love between them like the palm might flourish; As peace should still her wheaten garland wear, And stand a cement 'tween their amities; 10 And many such like ases of great charge, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Hor. How was this seal'd? Ham. Why, even in that was Heaven ordinant : I had my father's signet in my purse, Which was the model of that Danish seal; Hor. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't Ham Why, man, they did make love to this em ployment:"1 They are not near my conscience; their defeat 'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes Of mighty opposites. Hor. Why, what a king is this! Ham. Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon ! He that hath kill'd my king, and whor'd my mother; Popp'd in between th' election and my hopes; Thrown out his angle for my proper life, 10 This is oddly expressed, as Johnson observes; but the mean. ing appears to be, «Stand as a note of connexion between their amities, to prevent them from being brought to a period." 11 This line is met with only in the folio. R. |