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Rof. Good my lord, what is your caufe of dif temper? You do, furely, bar the door of your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend. Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

Rof. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your fucceffion in Denmark? Ham. Ay, but while the grafs grows the proverb is fomething mufty.

Enter one, with a recorder.

Oh, the recorders; let me fee one.-To withdraw with you-Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

Guil. 5 Oh my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.

Ham. I do befeech you.

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord.

Ham. 'Tis as eafy as lying. Govern these 6 ventages with your fingers and thumb 7, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent mufic. Look you, thefe are the stops.

5 Oh my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.] i. e. if my duty to the king makes me prefs you a little, my love to you makes me ftill more importunate. If that makes me bold, this makes me even unmannerly. WARBURTON. 6-ventages-] The holes of a flute. JOHNSON.

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-and thumb,-] One of the quartos reads-with your fingers and the umber. This may probably be the ancient name for that piece of moveable brafs at the end of a flute, which is either raifed or depreffed by the finger. The word umber is ufed by Stowe the chronicler, who, defcribing a fingle combat between two knights-fays, "he braft up his umber "three times." In this laft fenfe I can give no probable guess at its meaning. STEEVENS.

Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the fkill.

Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me? you would play upon me; you would feem to know my ftops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would found me from my lowest note to the top of my compafs: and there is much mufic, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. S'blood, do you think, that I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me what inftrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. you, Sir.

Enter Polonius.

God blefs

Pol. My lord, the queen would fpeak with you, and prefently.

Ham. Do you fee yonder cloud, that's almoft in fhape of a camel?

Pol. By the mass, and it's like a camel, indeed.
Ham. Methinks it is like a weazel 8,

Pol. It is back'd like a weazel.

Ham. Or, like a whale?

Pol. Very like a whale.

Ham. Then will I come to my mother by and by9 they fool me to the top of my bent.—I will come by and by.

Pol. I will fay fo.

Methinks, &c.] This paffage has been printed in modern editions thus:

Methinks it like an ouzle, &c. Pol. It is black like an buzel. The first folio reads, it is like a WEAZEL.

Pol. It is back'd like a weafel; and what occafion for alteration there was, I cannot find out. The weafel is remarkable for the length of its back; but though I believe a black weajel is not eafy to be found, yet it is as likely that the cloud fhould refemble a weafel in fhape, as an ouzle (i. e. black-bird) in colour. STEEVENS.

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. JOHNSON.

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Ham.

Ham. By and by is easily said. Leave me, friends.

[Exeunt. 'Tis now the very witching time of night, When church-yards yawn, and hell itself breathes

out

Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,

'And do fuch bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft; now to my mo

ther

O heart, lofe not thy nature; let not ever
The foul of Nero enter this firm bofom :
Let me be cruel, but not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
My tongue and foul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words foever fhe be fhent 2,
3 To give them feals never my foul confent!

And to do fuch BITTER bufinefs as the day

Would quake to lock on.] The expreffion is almost burlefque. The old quarto reads,

And do fuch bufinefs as the BITTER day
Would quake to lock on.

This is a little corrupt indeed, but much nearer Shakespeare's words, who wrote,

BETTER day,

which gives the fentiment great force and dignity. At this very time (fays he) hell breathes out contagion to the world, whereby night becomes polluted and execrable; the horror therefore of this feafon fits me for a deed, which the pure and facred day would quake to look on. This is faid with great claffical propriety. According to ancient fuperftition, night was prophane and execrable; and day, pure and holy. WARB.

And to do fuch bitter business] This expreffion bitter business is still in ufe, and though at prefent a vulgar phrafe, might not have been fuch in the age of Shakespeare.

WATTS, in his Logic, fays: "Bitter is an equivocal word; "there is bitter wormwood, there are bitter words, there are "bitter enemies, and a bitter cold morning." It is, in fhort, any thing unpleafing or hurtful. STEEVENS.

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be fhent,] To fhend, is to treat with injurious language. So in The Coxcomb of B. and Fletcher: -We fhall be fent foundly." STIEVENS. • To give them feals-] i. e. put them in execution._ WARB.

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SCENE

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Enter King, Rofencrantz, and Guildenstern.

King. I like him not; nor ftands it safe with us To let his madness range. Therefore, prepare you; I your commiffion will forthwith dispatch, And he to England fhall along with you. The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard fo near us, as doth hourly grow 4 Out of his lunes.

Guil. We will ourselves provide:
Moft holy and religious fear it is

To keep those many, many bodies, safe,
That live and feed upon your majefty.

Rof. The fingle and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from 'noyance; but much more,
5 That fpirit, on whofe weal depend and rest

+ Out of his lunacies.] The old quartos read, Out of his brows.

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

-as doth hourly grow

Out 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 perverfe humours; which being, I fuppofe, not understood, was changed to lunacies. But of this I am not conflent. JOHNSON.

I would receive THEOBALD's emendation, because Shakespeare ufes the word lunes in the fame fenfe in The Merry Wives of Windfor. From the redundancy of the measure nothing can be inferred.

STEEVENS.

5 That Spirit, on whofe weal-] So the quarto. The folio gives,

On whose spirit.

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The lives of many. The ceafe of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it, with it. It is a maffy wheel
Fix'd on the fummit of the highest mount,
To whofe huge fpokes ten thousand leffer things
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty confequence,
Attends the boifterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king figh, but with a general groan.
King. Arm you, I pray you, to this fpeedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,

Which now grows too free-footed.

Both. We will hafte us.

Enter Polonius.

[Exeunt Gentlemen.

Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet; Behind the arras I'll convey myself

To hear the procefs. I'll warrant fhe'll tax him home :

And, as you faid, and wifely was it faid,

'Tis meet, that fome more audience than a mother, 6 Since nature makes them partial, fhould o'er-hear The fpeech, 7 of vantage. Fare you well, my

liege;

I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.

King. Thanks, dear my lord.

Oh! my offence is rank, it finells to heaven;

It hath the primal, eldeft, curfe upon't;
A brother's murder !-Pray I cannot,

• Since nature makes them partial, &c.]

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-Matres omnes filias

[Exit.

"In peccato adjutrices, auxilii in paterna injuria

"Solent effe."

Ter. Heaut. A&. 5. Sc. 2.

STEEVENS.

of vantage.] By fome opportunity of fecret obfervation. JOHNSON.

Though

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