With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent: Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven: The King rises, and advances. [Exit. King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go. SCENE IV. Another Room in the same. [Exit. Enter Queen and POLONIUS. Pol. He will come straight Look, you lay nome to him : Tell him, his pranks have been too broad to bear with Queen, I'll warrant you; Fear me not :--withdraw, I hear him coming. [POLONIUS hides himself. Enter HAMLET. Ham. Now, mother; what's the matter? Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. [2] To hent is used by Shakespeare for to seize, to catch, to lay hold on. Hent is, therefore, hold, seizure. Lay hold on him, sword, at a more horrid time. JOHNSON. [3] This speech, in which Hamlet, represented as a virtuous character, is not con tent with taking blood for blood, but contrives damnation for the man that he would. punish, is too horrible to be read or to be uttered. JOHNSON. This speech of Hamlet, as Dr. Johnson observes, is horrible indeed yet some moral may be extracted from it, as all his subsequent calamities were owing to this savage refinement of revenge. M. MASON. Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet? Ham. No, by the rood, not so: You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife; Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak. Where you may see the inmost part of you. Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me? Help, help, ho! Pol. [behind.] What, ho! help! dead. [HAMLET makes a pass Is it the king? Dead, for a ducat, through the arras. [Falls and dies. [Lifts up the arras, and draws forth POLONIUS. Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Ham. A bloody deed ;—almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother. Queen. As kill a king! Ham. Ay, lady, 'twas my word. -- Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! [TO POLONIUS. I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune: If it be made of penetrable stuff; If damned custom have not braz'd it so, Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me? Ham. Such an act, That blurs the grace and blush of modesty ; The very soul; and sweet religion makes With tristful visage, as against the doom, Queen. Ah me, what act, That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ?5 6 New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; This was your husband.--Look you now, what follows: Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd, To serve in such a difference. What devil was't, Could not so mope. O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, [4] Contraction for marriage-contract. WARBURTON. [5] The meaning is, What is this act, of which the discovery or mention, cannot be made, but with this violence of clamour? JOHNSON. [6] Station, in this instance, does not mean the spot where any one is placed, STEEVENS. And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame, And reason panders will. Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more : Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; Ham. Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed ;9 Queen. O, speak to me no more ; These words, like daggers enter in mine ears; Ham. A murderer, and a villain : A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe :-a vice of kings:' A cutpurse of the empire and the rule; That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, Of shreds and patches :3 Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings, You heavenly guards !--What would your gracious figure ? Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, Ghost. Do not forget: This visitation JOHNSON. [8] Grained---dyed in grain. [1] Vice of kings---a low mimic of kings. The vice is the fool of a farce; from JOHNSON. whence the modern Punch is descended. [2] The usurper came not to the crown by any glorious villany that carried danger with it, but by the low cowardly theft of a common pilferer. WARBURTON. [3] 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. JOHNSON. Bing [4] That, having suffered time to slip, and passion I suse Speak to her, Hamlet. Ham. How is it with you, lady? That you do bend your eye on vacancy, And with the incorporal air do hold discourse! Ham. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale he glares! His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.-Do not look upon me ; Lest, with this piteous action, you convert 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? Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see. Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves. Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he liv'd! Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal! [Exit Ghost. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain : This bodiless creation ecstacy Is very cunning in. Ham. Ecstasy! My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, [5] The hairs are excrementitious, that is, without life or sensation; yet those very hairs, as if they had life, start up, &c. POPE. [6] Ecstacy, in this place, and many others, means a temporary alienation of mind, a fit. STEEVENS. |