The Plays of William Shakspeare

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven?
Vifit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven-] In for mer editions:

That he permitted not the winds of heaven, This is a fophifticated reading, copied from the players in fome of the modern editions, for want of understanding the poet, whole text is corrupt in the old impreffions: all of which that I have had the fortune to fee, concur in reading:

-fo loving to my mother,

That he might not beteene the winds of heaven
Vifit her face too roughly.

Beteene is a corruption without doubt, but not fo inveterate a one, but that, by the change of a single letter, and the separation of two words miftakenly jumbled together, I am verily perfuaded, I have retrieved the poet's reading

That he might not let e'en the winds of heaven &c.

THEOBALD.

The obfolete and corrupted verb-beteene, (in the first folio) which fhould be written (as in all the quartos) beteeme, was changed, as above, by Mr. Theobald; and with the aptitude of his conjecture fucceeding criticks appear to have been fatisfied.

Beteeme, however, occurs in the tenth Book of Arthur Golding's vertion of Ovid's Metamorphofis, 4to. 1587; and, from the correfponding Latin, muft neceffarily fignify, to vouchfafe, deign, permit, or fuffer:

"The fhape of anic other bird than egle for to feeine."

nulla tamen alite verti

Sign. R. 1. b.

Dignatur, nifi qua poffit fua fulmina ferre." V.157. Jupiter (though anxious for the poffetlion of Ganymede) would not deign to affume a meaner form, or juffer change into an humbler fhape, than that of the auguft and vigorous fowl, who bears the thunder in his pounces.

The existence and fignification of the verb beteem being thus eftablished, it follows, that the attention of Hamlet's father to his queen was exactly such as is described in the Enterlude of the Life and Repentaunce of Marie Magdalaine, &c. by Lewis Wager, 4to. 1567 :

"But evermore they were unto me very tender,

"They would not fuffer the wynde on me to blowe.” I have therefore replaced the ancient reading, without the flightest hesitation, in the text.

Muft I remember? why, fhe would hang on him,
As if increafe of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,-
Let me not think on't;-Frailty, thy name is wo-

man !—

A little month; or ere thofe thoes were old,
With which the follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears ;'-why fhe, even she,-
O heaven! a beaft, that wants difcourfe of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,-married with my

uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father, Than I to Hercules: Within a month;

Ere

yet the falt of most unrighteous tears

This note was inferted by me in The Gentleman's Magazine, fome years before Mr. Malone's edition of our author (in which the fame juftification of the old reading-beteeme, occurs,) had made its appearance. STEEVENS.

This paffage ought to be a perpetual memento to all future editors and commentators to proceed with the utmoft caution in emendation, and never to difcard a word from the text, merely because it is not the language of the prefent day.

Mr. Hughes or Mr. Rowe, fuppofing the text to be unintelligible, for beteem boldly fubftituted permitted. Mr. Theobald, in order to favour his own emendation, ftated untruly that all the old copies which he had feen, read beteene. His emendation appearing uncommonly happy, was adopted by all the subsequent editors.

We find a fentiment fimilar to that before us, in Marston's Infatiate Countefs, 1613:

"Jealous that air fhould ravish her chafte looks."

MALONE.

Like Niobe, all tears;] Shakspeare might have caught this idea from an ancient ballad intitled The falling out of Lovers is the renewing of Love:

"Now I, like weeping Niobe,

"May wash my handes in teares," &c.

Of this ballad Amantium iræ &c. is the burden. STEEVENS.

Had left the flufhing in her galled eyes,
She married :-O moft wicked fpeed, to poft
With fuch dexterity to incestuous fheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good;

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue!

Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS.

HOR. Hail to your lordship?

Нам.

I am glad to fee you Horatio, or I do forget myself.

well:

HOR. The fame, my lord, and your poor fervant

ever.

HAM. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name2 with you.

And what make you 3 from Wittenberg, Horatio?Marcellus?

MAR. My good lord,

HAM. I am very glad to fee you; good even, fir.4But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

I'll change that name-] I'll be your fervant, yoù fhall be my friend. JOHNSON.

what make you ] A familiar phrase for what are you doing. JOHNSON.

See Vol. VIII. p. 4, n. 7. STEEVENS.

Sir Thomas Hanmer
The alteration is of
There is no need

good even, fir.] So the copies. and Dr. Warburton put it-good morning. no importance, but all licence is dangerous. of any change. Between the first and eighth scene of this A& it is apparent, that a natural day muft pafs, and how much of it is already over, there is nothing that can determine. The King has held a council. It may now as well be evening as morning. JOHNSON.

HOR. A truant difpofition, good my lord.
HAM. I would not hear your enemy say so;
Nor fhall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it trufter of your own report
Against yourself: I know, you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elfinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart.
HOR. My lord, I came to fee your father's funeral.
HAM. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-
ftudent;

I think, it was to fee my mother's wedding.
HOR. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.

HAM. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd

meats 5

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

The change made by Sir T. Hanmer might be juftified by what Marcellus faid of Hamlet at the conclufion of fc. i:

and I this morning know

"Where we shall find him moft convenient."

STEEVENS.

the funeral bak'd meats-] It was anciently the general custom to give a cold entertainment to mourners at a funeral. In diftant counties this practice is continued among the yeomanry. See The Tragique Hiftorie of the Faire Valeria of London, 1598: "His corpes was with funerall pompe conveyed to the church, and there follemnly enterred, nothing omitted which neceffitie or custom could claime; a fermon, a banquet, and like obfervations." Again, in the old romance of Syr Degore, bl. 1. no date :

"A great feafte would he holde

"Upon his quenes mornynge day,

"That was buryed in an abbay." COLLINS.

See also, Hayward's Life and Raigne of King Henrie the Fourth, 4to. 1599, p. 135: "Then hee [King Richard II.] was conveyed to Langley Abby in Buckinghamshire,-and there obfcurely interred,-without the charge of a dinner for celebrating the funeral." MALONE.

'Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven" Or ever I had feen that day, Horatio !— My father, Methinks, I fee my

HOR.

My lord?

father.

HAM. In my mind's eye, Horatio.

Where,

dearest foe in heaven-] Dearest for direfi, moft

dreadful, moft dangerous. JOHNSON.

Dearest is most immediate, confequential, important. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

-a ring that I must use

"In dear employment."

Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid in the Mill : "You meet your dearest enemy in love,

"With all his hate about him.' STEEVENS.

See Timon of Athens, A& V. fc. ii. Vol. XIX. MALONE. 7 Or ever-] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio reads-ere This is not the only inftance in which a familiar phraseology has been fubftituted for one more ancient, in that valuable copy. MALONE.

ever.

8 In

my mind's eye,] This expreffion occurs again in our author's Rape of Lucrece: