Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies

II.ii.414 (220,3) Then came each actor on his ass] This seems to be a line of a ballad.

II.ii.420 (221,6) For the law of writ, and the liberty, these are the only men] All the modern editions have, the law of wit, and the liberty; but both my old copies have, the law of writ, I believe rightly. Writ, for writing, composition. Wit was not, in our author's time, taken either for imagination, or acuteness, or both together, but for understanding, for the faculty by which we apprehend and judge. Those who wrote of the human mind distinguished its primary powers into wit and will. Ascham distinguishes boys of tardy and of active faculties into quick wits and slow wits.

II.ii.438 (221,8) the first row of the pious chanson] [It is pons chansons in the first folio edition. POPE.] It is pons chansons in the quarto too. I know not whence the rubric has been brought, yet it has not the appearance of an arbitrary addition. The titles of old ballads were never printed red; but perhaps rubric may stand for marginal explanation.

II.ii.439 (222,9) For, look, where my abridgment comes] He calls the players afterwards, the brief chronicles of the time; but I think he now means only those who will shorten my talk.

II.ii.448 (223,2) be not crack'd within the ring] That is, crack'd too much for use. This is said to a young player who acted the parts of women.

II.ii.450 (223,3) like French faulconers] HANMER, who has much illustrated the allusions to falconry, reads, like French falconers. [French falconers is not a correction by Hanmer, but the reading of the first folio. STEEVENS.] (see 1765, VIII, 198, 1)

II.ii.459 (223,5) (as I received it, and others whose judgment in such matters cried in the top of mine)] [i.e. whose judgment I had the highest opinion of. WARBURTON.] I think it means only that were higher than mine.

II.ii.466 (224,8) but called it, an honest method] Hamlet is telling how much his judgment differed from that of others. One said, there was no salt in the lines, &c. but call'd it an honest method. The author probably gave it, But I called it an honest method, &c.

II.ii.525 (226,9) the mobled queen] Mobled signifies huddled, grossly covered.

II.ii.587 (228,5) the cue for passion] The hint, the direction.

II.ii.589 (228,6) the general ear] The ears of all mankind. So before, Caviare to the general, that is, to the multitude.

II.ii.595 (229,7) unpregnant of my cause] [Unpregnant, for having no due sense of. WARBURTON.] Rather, not quickened with a new desire of vengeance; not teeming with revenge.

II.ii.598 (229,8) A damn'd defeat was made] [Defeat, for destruction. WARBURTON.] Rather, dispossession.

II.ii.608 (229,1) kindless] Unnatural.

II.ii.616 (229,3) About, my brain!] Wits, to your work. Brain, go about the present business.

II.ii.625 (230,5) tent him] Search his wounds.

II.ii.632 (230,7) More relative than this] [Relative, for convictive. WARB.] Convictive is only the consequential sense. Relative is, nearly related, closely connected.

III.i.17 (231,2) o'er-raught on the way] Over-raught is over-reached, that is, over-took.

III.i.31 (232,4) Affront Ophelia.] To affront, is only to meet directly.

III.i.47 (233,5) 'Tis too much prov'd] It is found by too frequent experience.

III.i.52 (233,6) more ugly to the thing that helps it] That is, compared with the thing that helps it.

III.i.56-88 (233,7) To be, or not to be?] Of this celebrated soliloquy, which bursting from a man distracted with contrariety of desires, and overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes, is connected rather in the speaker's mind, than on his tongue, I shall endeavour to discover the train, and to shew how one sentiment produces another. Hamlet, knowing himself injured in the most enormous and atrocious degree, and seeing no means of redress, but such as must expose him to the extremity of hazard, meditates on his situation in this manner: Before I can form any rational scheme of action under this pressure of distress, it is necessary to decide, whether, after our present state, we are to be or not to be. That is the question, which, as it shall be answered, will determine, whether 'tis nobler, and more suitable to the dignity of reason, to suffer the outrages of fortune patiently, or to take arms against them, and by opposing end them, though perhaps with the loss of life. If to die, were to sleep, no more, and by a sleep to end the miseries of our nature, such a sleep were devoutly to be wished; but if to sleep in death, be to dream, to retain our powers of sensibility, we must pause to consider, in that sleep of death what dreams may come. This consideration makes calamity so long endured; for who would bear the vexations of life, which might be ended by a bare bodkin, but that he is afraid of something in unknown futurity? This fear it is that gives efficacy to conscience, which, by turning the mind upon this regard, chills the ardour of resolution, checks the vigour of enterprize, and makes the current of desire stagnate in inactivity. We may suppose that he would have applied these general observations to his own case, but that he discovered Ophelia.

III.i.59 (234,8) Or to take arms against a sea of troubles] [W: against assail] Mr. Pope proposed siege. I know not why there should be so much solicitude about this metaphor. Shakespeare breaks his metaphors often, and in this desultory speech there was less need of preserving them.

III.i.70 (235,2) the whips and scorns of time] [W: of th' time] I doubt whether the corruption of this passage is not more than the editor has suspected. Whips and scorns have no great connexion with one another, or with time: whips and scorns are evils of very different magnitude, and though at all times scorn may be endured, yet the times that put men ordinarily in danger of whips, are rery rare. Falstaff has said, that the courtiers would whip him with their quick wits; but I know not that whip can be used for a scoff or insult, unless its meaning be fixed by the whole expression.

I am afraid lest I should venture too far in correcting this passage. If whips be retained, we may read,

For who would bear the whips and scorns of tyrant.

But I think that quip, a sneer, a sarcasm, a contemptuous jest, is the proper word, as suiting very exactly with scorn. What then must be done with time? it suits no better with the new reading than with the old, and tyrant is an image too bulky and serious. I read, but not confidently,

For who would bear the quips and scorns of title.

It say be remarked, that Hamlet, in his enumeration of miseries, forgets, whether properly or not, that he is a prince, and mentions many evils to which inferior stations only are exposed.

III.i.77 (236,4) To groan and sweat] All the old copies have, to grunt and sweat. It is undoubtedly the true reading, but can scarcely be borne by modern ears.

III.i.89 (237,5) Nymph, in thy orisons] This is a touch of nature. Hamlet, at the sight of Ophelia, does not immediately recollect, that he is to personate madness, but makes her an address grave and solemn, such as the foregoing meditation excited in his thoughts.

III.i.107 (237,6) That if you be honest and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty] This is the reading of all the modern editions, and is copied from the quarto. The folio reads, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. The true reading seems to be this, If you be honest and fair, you should admit your honesty to no discourse with your beauty. This is the sense evidently required by the process of the conversation.

III.i.127 (238,7) I have thoughts to put them in] To put a thing into thought, is to think on it.

III.i.148 (239,8) I have heard of your paintings too, well enough] This is according to the quarto; the folio, for painting, has prattlings, and for face, has pace, which agrees with what follows, you jig, you amble. Probably the author wrote both. I think the common reading best.

III.i.152 (239,9) make your wantonness your ignorance] You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to mistake by ignorance.

III.i.161 (239,2) the mould of form] The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves.

III.ii.12 (241,3) the groundlings] The meaner people then seem to have sat below, as they now sit in the upper gallery, who, not well understanding poetical language, were sometimes gratified by a mimical and mute representation of the drama, previous to the dialogue.

III.ii.14 (242,4) inexplicable dumb shews] I believe the meaning is, shews, without words to explain them.

III.ii.26 (242,6) the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure] The age of the time can hardly pass. May we not read, the face and body, or did the author write, the page? The page suits well with form and pressure, but ill with body.

III.ii.28 (242,7) pressure] Resemblance, as in a print.

III.ii.34 (242,8) (not to speak it profanely)] Profanely seems to relate, not to the praise which he has mentioned, but to the censure which he is about to utter. Any gross or indelicate language was called profane.

III.ii.66 (243,9) the pregnant hinges of the knee] I believe the sense of pregnant in this place is, quick, ready, prompt.

III.ii.68 (244,1) my dear soul] Perhaps, my clear soul.

III.ii.74 (244,2) Whose blood and judgment] According to the doctrine of the four humours, desire and confidence were seated in the blood, and judgment in the phlegm, and the due mixture of the humours made a perfect character.

III.ii.89 (244,3) Vulcan's stithy] Stithy is a smith's anvil.

III.ii.103 (245,4) nor mine now] A man's words, says the proverb, are his own no longer than he keep them unspoken.

III.ii.112 (245,5) they stay upon your patience] May it not be read more intelligibly, They stay upon your pleasure. In Macbeth it is, "Noble Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure."

III.ii.123 (245,6) Do you think I meant country matters?] I think we must read, Do you think I meant country manners? Do you imagine that I meant to sit in your lap, with such rough gallantry as clowns use to their lasses?

III.ii.137 (246,7) Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables] I know not why our editors should, with such implacable anger, persecute our predecessors. The dead, it is true, can make no resistance, they may be attacked with great security; but since they can neither feel nor mend, the safety of mauling them seems greater than the pleasure; nor perhaps would it much misbeseem us to remember, amidst our triumphs over the nonsensical and the senseless, that we likewise are men; that debemur morti, and, as Swift observed to Burnet, shall soon be among the dead ourselves.

I cannot find how the common reading is nonsense, nor why Hamlet, when he laid aside his dress of mourning, in a country where it was bitter cold, and the air was nipping and eager, should not have a suit of sables. I suppose it is well enough known, that the fur of sables is not black.

III.ii.147 (249,1) Marry, this is miching maliche; it means mischief] [W: malhechor] I think Hanmer's exposition most likely to be right. Dr. Warburton, to justify his interpretation, must write, miching for malechor, and even then it will be harsh.

III.ii.167 (250,3) sheen] Splendor, lustre.

III.ii.177 (250,4) For women fear too much, even as they love] Here seems to be a line lost, which should have rhymed to love.

III.ii.192 (251,6) The instances, that second marriage move] The motives.

III.ii.202 (252,7)

Most necessary 'tis, that we forgetTo pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt]

The performance of a resolution, in which only the resolver is interested, is a debt only to himself, which he may therefore remit at pleasure.

III.ii.206 (252,8)

The violence of either grief or joy,Their own enactures with themselves destroy]

What grief or joy enact or determine in their violence, is revealed in their abatement. Enactures is the word in the quarto; all the modern editions have enactors.

III.ii.229 (252,9) An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope] May my whole liberty and enjoyment be to live on hermit's fare in a prison. Anchor is for anchoret.

III.ii.250 (253,1) Baptista] Baptista is, I think, in Italian, the name always of a man.

III.ii.262 (254,4) So you must take your husbands] Read, So you must take your husbands [in place of "mistake"]; that is, for better, for worse.

III.ii.288 (255,5) with two provencial roses on my rayed shoes] When shoe-strings were worn, they were covered, where they met in the middle, by a ribband, gathered into the form of a rose. So in an old song,

Gil-de-Roy was a bonny boy,Had roses tull his shoen.

Rayed shoes, are shoes braided in lines.

III.ii.304 (256,1) For if the king like not the comedy/Why, then, belike] Hamlet was going on to draw the consequence when the courtiers entered.

III.ii.314 (256,2) With drink, Sir?] Hamlet takes particular care that his uncle's love of drink shall not be forgotten.

III.ii.346 (257,3) further trade] Further business; further dealing.

III.ii.348 (257,4) by these pickers] By these hands.

III.ii.373 (258,6) ventages] The holes of a flute.

III.ii.401 (259,9) they fool me to the top of my bent] They compel me to play the fool, till I can endure to do it no longer.

III.iii.7 (261,4) Out of his lunes] [The old quartos read,

Out of his brows.

This was from the ignorance of the first editors; as is this unnecessary Alexandrine, which we owe to the players. The poet, I am persuaded, wrote,

—us doth hourly growout of his lunes.

i.e. his madness, frenzy. THEOBALD.]

Lunacies is the reading of the folio.

I take brows to be, properly read, frows, which, I think, is a provincial word for perverse humours; which being, I suppose, not understood, was changed to lunacies. But of this I an not confident. [Steevens adopted Theobald's emendation]

III.iii.33 (262,7) of vantage] By some opportunity of secret observation.

III.iii.56 (263,9) May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence?] He that does not amend what can be amended, retains his offence. The king kept the crown from the right heir.

III.iii.66 (263,1) Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?] What can repentance do for a man that cannot be penitent, for a man who has only part of penitence, distress of conscience, without the other part, resolution of amendment.

III.iii.77 (264,1) I, his sole son, do this same villain send] The folio reads foule son, a reading apparently corrupted from the quarto. The meaning is plain. I, his only son, who am bound to punish his murderer.

III.iii.88 (264,2) Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent] [T: bent] This reading is followed by Sir T. HANMER and Dr. WARBURTON; but hent is probably the right vord. To hent is used by Shakespeare for, to seize, to catch, to lay hold on. Hent is, therefore, hold, or seizure. Lay hold on him, sword, at a more horrid time.

III.iii.94 (265,3) his soul may be as damn'd and black/As hell, whereto it goes] This speech, in which Hamlet, represented as a virtuous character, is not content vith taking blood for blood, but contrives damnation for the man that he would punish, is too horrible to be read or to be uttered.

III.iv.4 (266,4) I'll silence me e'en here:/Pray you, be round vith him] Sir T. HANMER, who is folloved by Dr. WARBURTON, reads,

—I'll sconce me here.

Retire to a place of security. They forget that the contrivance of Polonius to overhear the conference, was no more told to the queen than to Hamlet.—I'll silence me even here, is, I'll use no more words.

III.iv.48 (268,8)

Heaven's face doth glow;Yea, this solidity and compound mass,With tristful visage, as against the doom,It thought-sick at the act]

[W: O'er this … visage, and, as 'gainst] The word heated [from the "old quarto"], though it agrees well enough with glow, is, I think, not so striking as tristful, which was, I suppose, chosen at the revisal. I believe the whole passage now stands as the author gave it. Dr. WARBURTON's reading restores two improprieties, which Shakespeare, by his alteration, had removed. In the first, and in the new reading: Heaven's face glows with tristful visage; and, Heaven's face is thought-sick. To the common reading there is no just objection.

III.iv.52 (268,9) what act,/That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?] The meaning is, What is this act, of which the discovery, or mention, cannot be made, but with this violence of clamour?

III.iv.82 (270,5) Rebellious hell,/If thou canst mutiny in a matron's bones] I think the present reading right, but cannot admit that HANMER's emendation ["Rebellious heat"] produces nonsense. May not what is said of heat, be said of hell, that it will mutiny wherever it is quartered? Though the emendation be elegant, it is not necessary. (1773)

III.iv.88 (271,6) reason panders will] So the folio, I think rightly; but the reading of the quarto is defensible;

—reason pardons will.

III.iv.90 (271,7) grained] Dyed in grain.

III.iv.92 (271,8) incestuous bed] The folio has enseamed, that is, greasy bed.

III.iv.98 (271,9) vice of kings!] a low mimick of kings. The vice is the fool of a farce; from whom the modern punch is descended.

III.iv.102 (272,2) A king of shreds and patches] This is said, pursuing the idea of the vice of kings. The vice was dressed as a fool, in a coat of party-coloured patches.

III.iv.107 (272,3) lap's in time and passion] That, having suffered time to slip, and passion to cool, lets go, &c.

III.iv.151 (274,6) And do not spread the compost on the weeds/To make them ranker] Do not, by any new indulgence, heighten your former offences.

III.iv.155 (274,7) curb] That is, bend and truckle. Fr. courber.

III.iv.161 (274,8) That monster custom, who all sense doth eat/ Of habits evil, is angel yet in this] [Thirlby: habits evil] I think THIRLBY's conjecture wrong, though the succeeding editors have followed it; angel and devil are evidently opposed. [Steevens accepted "evil"]

III.iv.203 (277,5) adders fang'd] That is, adders with their fangs, or poisonous teeth, undrawn. It has been the practice of mountebanks to boast the efficacy of their antidotes by playing with vipers, but they first disabled their fangs.

IV.i (278,l) A royal apartment. Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern] This play is printed in the old editions without any separation of the acts. The division is modern and arbitrary; and is here not very happy, for the pause is made at a time when there is more continuity of action than in almost any other of the scenes.

IV.i.18 (278,2) out of haunt] I would rather read, out of harm.

IV.i.25 (279,3)

his very madness, like some oreamong a mineral of metals base,Shews itself pure]

Shakespeare seems to think ore to be or, that is, gold. Base metals have ore no less than precious.

IV.ii.19 (281,5) he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw] The quarto has apple, which is generally followed. The folio has ape, which HANMER has received, and illustrated with the following note.

"It is the way of monkeys in eating, to throw that part of their food, which they take up first, into a pouch they are provided with on the side of their jaw, and then they keep it, till they have done with the rest."

IV.ii.28 (281,6) The body is with the king] This answer I do not comprehend. Perhaps it should be, The body is not with the king, for the king is not with the body.

IV.ii.32 (282,7) Of nothing] Should it not be read, Or nothing? When the courtiers remark, that Hamlet has contemptuously called the king a thing, Hamlet defends himself by observing, that the king must be a thing, or nothing.

IV.ii.46 (283,9) the wind at help] I suppose it should be read, The bark is ready, and the wind at helm.

IV.ii.68 (284,3) And thou must cure me: till I know 'tis done,/ Howe'er my haps, my joys will ne'er begin] This being the termination of a scene, should, according to our author's custom, be rhymed. Perhaps he wrote,

Howe'er my hopes, my joys are not begun.

If haps be retained, the meaning will be, 'till I know 'tis done, I shall be miserable, whatever befall me (see 1785, VIII, 257, 3)

IV.iv.33 (286,4)

What is a man,If his chief good and market of his timeBe but to sleep and feed?]

If his highest good, and that for which he sells his time, be to sleep and feed.

IV.iv.36 (286,5) large discourse] Such latitude of comprehension, such power of reviewing the past, and anticipating the future.

IV.iv.53 (286,6) Rightly to be great,/Is not to stir without great argument] This passage I have printed according to the copy. Mr. THEOBALD had regulated it thus:

—'Tis not to be great,Never to stir without great argument;But greatly, &c.

The sentiment of Shakespeare is partly just, and partly romantic.

—Rightly to be great,Is not to stir without great argument;

is exactly philosophical.

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,When honour is at stake,

is the idea of a modern hero. But then, says he honour is an argument, or subject of debate, sufficiently great, and when honour is at stake, we must find cause of quarrel in a straw.

IV.iv.56 (287,7) Excitements of my reason and my blood] Provocations which excite both my reason and my passions to vengeance.

IV.v.37 (289,4) Larded all with sweet flowers] The expression is taken from cookery. (1773)

IV.v.53 (290,6) And dupt the chamber-door] To dup, is to do up; to lift the latch. It were easy to write,

And op'd—

IV.v.58 (290,7) By Gis] I rather imagine it should be read,

By Cis,—

That is, by St. Cecily.

IV.v.83 (291,8) but greenly] But unskilfully; with greenness; that is, without maturity of judgment.

IV.v.84 (291,9) In hugger-mugger to inter him] All the modern editions that I have consulted give it,

In private to inter him;—

That the words now replaced are better, I do not undertake to prove; it is sufficient that they are Shakespeare's: if phraseology is to be changed as words grow uncouth by disuse, or gross by vulgarity, the history of every language will be lost; we shall no longer have the words of any author; and, as these alterations will be often unskilfully made, we shall in time have very little of his meaning.