Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moodsa, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: These, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play :
But I have that within which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
KING. "T is sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound

In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: But to persever
In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 't is unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what, we know, must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fye! 't is a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse, till he that died to-day,
"This must be so." We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe; and think of us

As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne,

And, with no less nobility of love,

Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart towards you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,

It is most retrograde to our desire :
And, we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet;

I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

HAM. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

• Moods. So the folio and quartos. The modern reading is mode. Mood was sometimes used in the sense of mode; but it is, perhaps, here meant to signify something beyond the mere manner of grief-the manner as exhibited in the outward sadness. The forms are the ceremonials of grief, the moods its prevailing sullenness;—the shows (shapes in the quartos) its fits of passion. Obsequious sorrow-funeral sorrow,-from obsequies.

KING. Why, 't is a loving and a fair reply;
Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come;
This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;
And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, Lords, &c., POLONIUS, and Laertes.

HAM. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canona 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seems to me all the uses of this world!

Fye on 't! O fye! 't is an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead!-nay, not so much, not two;
So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem b the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,—

Let me not think on 't-Frailty, thy name is woman!—

A little month; or ere those shoes were old,

With which she follow'd my poor father's body,

Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,—

O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason",

• Canon. In the old editions this word is spelt cannon; and thus the commentators think it necessary to prove that the levelling of a piece of artillery is not here meant. By a curious analogy, ordnance in the old writers is spelt ordinance. Looking at the precision with which "our greatest ordinance" are described by Harrison,—their various names, weight of the shot, weight of powder used, &c., we are inclined to think that cannon and ordinance denoted such pieces of artillery as were made according to a strict technical rule, canon, or ordinance. In Harrison, cannon is spelt canon, showing the French derivation of the word.

⚫ Beteem. Steevens brought back this word, which had been modernised into let e'en; the sentence was afterwards changed to "that he permitted not." To beteem, in this passage, means to vouchsafe, to allow, to suffer. In Heywood's 'Britaine's Troy,' 1636, we have these lines:

"They call'd him God on earth, and much esteem'd him;

Much honour he receiv'd, which they beteem'd him."

• Discourse of reason. In Massinger we have:

"It adds to my calamity that I have

Discourse and reason."

Gifford thinks that this passage in Shakspere should also be "discourse and reason." But a

Would have mourn'd longer,-married with mine uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father,

Than I to Hercules: Within a month;

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing of her galled eyes,
She married :-O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets;
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good;

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue!

Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS.

HOR. Hail to your lordship!

HAM.

I am glad to see you well:

Horatio, or I do forget myself.

HOR. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

HAM. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you.
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?-

Marcellus?

MAR. My good lord,

HAM. I am very glad to see you; good even, sir a,

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

HOR. A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAM. I would not have your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself: I know, you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We ll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart.
HOR. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
HAM. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

subsequent passage in this play explains the phrase, and shows that by discourse is not meant language:

"Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after."

The discourse of reason is the discursion of reason—the faculty of pursuing a train of thought, or of passing from one thought to another;-" the discoursing thought," as Sir John Davies expresses it. The expression, "Discourse of reason" occurs twice in the 3rd book of Hooker's 'Ecclesiastical Polity:'"True and sound knowledge attained by natural discourse of reason." (Chap. viii., section 7)—and "If the knowledge thereof were possible without discourse of natural reason." (Chap. viii., section 11.)

Good even. This has been changed to good morning; and Steevens defends the change, because Marcellus has previously said of Hamlet,

"I this morning know

Where we shall find him."

The changers of the text forgot that the salutation "good even" was used immediately after

noon.

HOR. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.
HAM. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
'Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Ere I had ever seen that day, Horatio !—
My father, Methinks, I see my father.
HOR. O, where, my lord?

HAM. In my mind's eye, Horatio.

HOR. I saw him once, he was a goodly king.
HAM. He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

HOR. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
HAM. Saw who?

HOR. My lord, the king your father.
HAM.

The king my father!

HOR. Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear; till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

HAM.

For heaven's love, let me hear.

HOR. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Arm'd at all points, exactly, cap-à-pé,

Appears before them, and, with solemn march,

Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd,
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,

Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, bestill'da
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me

Thrift, thrift. It was a frugal arrangement,—a thrifty proceeding,-there was no waste"The funeral bak'd meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables."

Dearest foe. For an explanation of one of the apparently contradictory senses in which dear is used by Shakspere, see Note to 'Richard II.,' Act I., Scene 3. Upon the passage before us, Caldecott remarks, that throughout Shakspere, and all the poets of his day, and much later, we find this epithet applied to that person or thing which, for or against us, excites the liveliest interest."

66

• Dead waste. This is ordinarily printed "dead waist." The quarto of 1603, which was unknown to Steevens and Malone, reads "dead vast." In 'The Tempest' we find "vast of night," which Steevens explains thus:-"The vast of night means the night which naturally empty

and deserted, without action; or, when all things lying in sleep and silence makes the world appear one great uninhabited waste."

d Bestill'd, in the folio; the quartos, distill'd. To still, is to fall in drops;-they were dissolved separated drop by drop,

"Almost to jelly, with the act of fear.".

TRAGEDIES.-VOL. I.

I

This passage is sometimes read and acted, as if " Arm'd, say you?" applied to the manner in which Horatio and Marcellus prepared to hold their watch; and we have somewhere seen a criticism which notes "Then saw you not his face?" as a memorable example of the force of an abrupt transition. "Arm'd, say you?" without doubt, is asked with reference to the Ghost, who has been described by Horatio as

"Arm'd at all points, exactly, cap-à-pé."

Hamlet, with his mind full of this description, anticipates the re-appearance of the figure, when he asks,

"Hold you the watch to-night?"

and proceeds to those minute questions which carry forward the deep impressions of truth and reality with which everything connected with the supernatural appearance of Hamlet's father is invested.