As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this? Why, I should take it: for it cannot be, 1623, 32. lain! O vengeance! Who? What an ass am I? ay sure, this is most brave; Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, A scullion! Fye upon't! foh! About my brains? I have That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,(65) For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak a kindless] Unnatural. See "kin and kind," I. 2. Haml. b about my brains] Wits to work. Mr. Steevens points out the phrase in Heywood's Iron age, 1632. с blench] Shrink, start aside. See M. for M. V. 5. Duke, and Wint. T. I. 2. Camil. d more relative than this] Directly applicable. ACT III. SCENE I. A Room in the Castle. Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN. KING. And can you, by no drift of circumstance" Get from him, why he puts on this confusion; Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy? Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted; But from what cause he will by no means speak. GUIL. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded; But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof, When we would bring him on to some confession Of his true state. QUEEN. Did he receive you well? Ros. Most like a gentleman. GUIL. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply. QUEEN. To any pastime? 2 Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players drift of circumstance] Introduction and shaping of topics and facts. The quartos read conference. c forward] Disposed, inclinable. niggard of question, &c.] Rarely started any topic, but to our questions most frank and open in answering. d assay him to] Try his disposition towards. See II. 1. Polon, and 2 Volt. F We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him ; 'Tis most true: POL. KING. With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclin'd. Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, KING. [Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUIldenstern. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too: For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither; That he, as 'twere by accident, may here* heere 4tos. Affront Ophelia : (2) ⚫ there, 1623, 32. Her father, and myself (lawful espials,") QUEEN. I shall obey you: And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish, That your good beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope, your virtues To both your honors. ОРН. Madam, I wish it may. [Exit Queen. a " o'er-raught on the way] Reached or overtook. "Was not the samyn misfortoun me over-raucht?" Gaw. Dougl. Æn. STEEVENS. blawful espials] Spies justifiably inquisitive. See 1 H, VI. Master Gunner, Ï. 4. POL. Ophelia, walk you here: Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves: Read on this book; That show of such an exercise may colour Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,'Tis too much prov'd, that, with devotion's visage, a And pious action, we do sugar o'er KING. [Aside. Enter HAMlet. HAM. To be, or not to be, that is the question: rub; a too much proved] Found by too frequent experience. More ugly to the thing that helps it, Than is my deed to my most painted word.] JOHNSON. To is, in comparison, with. See All's W. III. 5, Hel. Painted is falsely coloured, • So 4tos. surge. 1623, 32. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, b Must give us pause. There's the respect, For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,* The oppressor's wrong, the poor man's contumely,* • despised, The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns 4to. * That patient merit of the unworthy takes, With a bare bodkin? (6) who would fardels bear, (7) But that the dread of something after death, a when we have shuffled off this mortal coil] Coil is here used in each of its senses, that of turmoil or bustle, and that which entwines or wraps round. "This muddy vesture of decay," M. of V. Lor. V. i. Those folds of mortality that encircle and entangle us. Snakes generally lie in folds like the coils of ropes : and, it is conceived, that an allusion is here had to the struggle which that animal is obliged to make in casting his slough, or extricating himself from the skin, that forms the exterior of this coil. And this he throws off annually. must give us pause] Stop our career, occasion reflection. There's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life.] The consideration that makes the evils of life so long submitted to, lived under. Those sufferings of body and The whips and scorns of time] mind, those stripes and mortifications to which, in its course, the life of man is subjected. Of the "whips of heaven," he speaks in Timon, V. 1. Poet. The poor man's contumely] The slight, the spurnings, to which that condition subjects him. "Ridiculos homines facit," says Juvenal, III. 153. The reading of the 4to is proud: and certainly that which the one, the proud man, offers, is more in the course of the idea, and a more natural form of speaking, than that which the other, the poor man, suffers. |