With all his crimes broad blown, as flush a as May; Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent": Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven ; And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black, The KING rises and advances. KING. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Exit. [Exit. SCENE IV.-Another Room in the same. Enter QUEEN and POLONIUS. POL. He will come straight. Look, you lay home to him: HAM. [Within.] Mother! mother! motherd! I'll warrant you; [POLONIUS hides himself. Fear me not-withdraw, I hear him coming. Enter HAMLET. HAM. Now, mother; what's the matter? QUEEN. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. the iniquity of thy sister Sodom; pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters." (Ezekiel, xvi. 49.) a Flush. The folio, fresh. To hent, is to seize; "know thou a more horrid hent," is, have a more horrid grasp. • Silence. So all the editions except the first quarto, which has "I'll shroud myself." Mr. Hunter very ingeniously suggests that silence is a misprint for ensconce-a word used by Falstaff in a similar situation. d This call of Hamlet is not in the quartos. HAM. Mother, you have my father much offended. HAM. Go, go, you question with a wicked a tongue. HAM. QUEEN. Have you forgot me? НАМ. What's the matter now? No, by the rood, not so: You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife; But would you were not so! You are my mother. QUEEN. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak. HAM. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge; You go not, till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you. QUEEN. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther me? POL. [Behind.] What, ho! help! help! help! НАМ. Ay, lady, 't was my word.— Leave wringing of your hands: Peace, sit you down, If it be made of penetrable stuff; If damned custom have not braz'd it so, That it is proof and bulwark against sense. QUEEN. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue HAM. Such an act, That blurs the grace and blush of modesty; Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, [TO POLONIUS. Sets, in the quarto (B); in folio, makes. The repetition of makes is certainly inelegant. As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed QUEEN. Ah me, what act, This was your husband,-look you now, what follows: Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd; But it reserv'd some quantity of choice, To serve in such a difference."] What devil was 't, Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope.] O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, a This solidity-this earth. Heaven and earth are ashamed of your act. The index is here used as in 'Othello:'-" An index and obscure prologue to the history." • Station-manner of standing, attitude. The lines in brackets are found in quarto (B), but are not in the folio. So also the four lines below. • Hoodman-blind-the game which we call blind-man's-buff. HAM. A king of shreds and patches: Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards!—What would you, gracious figure? QUEEN. Alas! he's mad. HAM. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by QUEEN. Alas, how is 't with you? That you do bend your eye on vacancy, a Vice of kings-the Vice of the old Moralities. See ' Henry IV., Part II.,' Act III., Scene 2. And as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, My stern 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 see nothing there? No, nothing, but ourselves. [Exit GHOST. My father, in his habit as he lived! Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal! QUEEN. This is the very coinage of your brain : This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in. HAM. Ecstasy! My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, my Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good. virtue : QUEEN. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain. HAM. O throw away the worser part of it, a Excrements-hair, nails, feathers, were called excrements. Isaac Walton, speaking of fowls, "their very excrements afford him a soft lodging at night." says, In quartos, ranker; rank, in the folio. Curb-to bend-courber. |