The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An
eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury,

New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ;7

5 Hyperion's curls;] It is observable, that Hyperion is used by Spenser with the same error in quantity. Farmer.

I have never met with an earlier edition of Marston's Insatiate Countess than that in 1613. In this the following lines occur, which bear a close resemblance to Hamlet's description of his father:

“A donative he hath of every god;

66

Apollo gave him locks, Fove his high front."

dignos et Apolline crines.”

Ovid's Metam. B. III, thus translated by Golding, 1587:

"And haire that one might worthily Apollo's haire it deeme." Steevens.

6 A station like the herald Mercury, &c.] Station, in this instance, does not mean the spot where any one is placed, but the act of standing. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act III, sc. iii:

"Her motion and her station are as one."

On turning to Mr. Theobald's first edition, I find that he had made the same remark, and supported it by the same instance. The observation is necessary, for otherwise the compliment designed to the attitude of the King, would be bestowed on the place where Mercury is represented as standing. Steevens. In the first scene of Timon of Athens, the poet, admiring a picture, introduces the same image:

66 How this grace

Speaks his own standing!" Malone.

I think it not improbable that Shakspeare caught this image from Phaer's translation of Virgil, (Fourth Æneid,) a book that without doubt he had read:

"And now approaching neere, the top he seeth and mighty lims

"Of Atlas, mountain tough, that heaven on boyst❜rous

shoulders beares;

"There first on ground with wings of might doth Mercury arrive,

"Then down from thence right over seas himselfe doth headlong drive."

In the margin are these words: "The description of Mercury's journey from heaven, along the mountain Atlas in Afrike, highest on earth." Malone.

7 heaven-kissing hill,] So, in Troilus and Cressida: "Yon towers whose wanton tops do buss the clouds." Again, in Chapman's version of the fourteenth Iliad:

"A fir it was that shot past air, and kiss'd the burning sky," Steevens.

A combination, and a form, indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:

This was your husband.-Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it, love: for, at your age,

The hey-day in the blood1 is tame, it 's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; And what judgment

Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have, stoop
Else, could you not have motion:2 But, sure, that sense

like a mildew'd ear,

Blasting his wholesome brother.] This alludes to Pharaoh's Dream, in the 41st chapter of Genesis. Steevens.

9

batten] i. e. to grow fat. So, in Claudius Tiberius

"I batten'd was with blood."

Again, in Marlowe's Few of Malta, 1633:

66 make her round and plump,

"And batten more than you are aware.

Bat is an ancient word for increase. Hence the adjective batful, so often used by Drayton in his Polyolbion. Steevens.

The hey-day in the blood-] This expression occurs in Ford's 'Tis Pity she's a Whore, 1633:

t

66

must

"The hey-day of your luxury be fed

"Up to a surfeit ?" Steevens.

2 Sense, sure, you have,

Else, could you not have motion:] But from what philosophy our editors learnt this, I cannot tell. Since motion depends so little upon sense, that the greatest part of motion in the universe, is amongst bodies devoid of sense. We should read:

Else, could you not have notion.

i. e. intellect, reason, &c. This alludes to the famous peripatetic principle of Nil fit in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu. And how fond our author was of applying, and alluding to, the principles of this philosophy, we have given several instances. The principle in particular has been since taken for the foundation of one of the noblest works that these latter ages have produced. Warburton.

The whole passage is wanting in the folio; and which soever of the readings be the true one, the poet was not indebted to this boasted philosophy for his choice. Steevens

Is apoplex'd: for madness would not err;
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd,
But it reserv'd some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference. What devil was 't,
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?3
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.5

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious helly
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,

Sense is sometimes used by Shakspeare for sensation or sensual appetite; as motion is the effect produced by the impulse of nature. Such, I think, is the signification of these words here. So, in Measure for Measure:

she speaks, and 'tis

"Such sense, that my sense breeds with it."

Again, more appositely in the same play, where both the words

"The wanton stings and motions of the sense."

So, in Braithwaite's Survey of Histories, 1614: "These continent relations will reduce the straggling motions to a more settled and retired harbour."

Sense has already been used in this scene, for sensation: "That it be proof and bulwark against sense.”

3

Malone.

at hoodman-blind?] This is, I suppose, the same as blindman's-buff. So, in The Wise Woman of Hogsden, 1638: Why should I play at hood-man blind?”.

Again, in Two Lamentable Tragedies in One, the One a Murder of Master Beech, &c. 1601:

"Pick out men's eyes, and tell them that's the sport
"Of hood-man blind." Steevens.

Eyes without feeling, &c.] This and the three following lines are omitted in the folio. Steevens.

5 Could not so mope.] i. e. could not exhibit such marks of stupidity. The same word is used in The Tempest, sc. ult:

6

"And were brought moping hither." Steevens.

Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones, &c.] Thus the old copies. Shakspeare calls mutineers,—mutines, in a subsequent scene. Steevens.

So, in Othello:

66

this hand of yours requires

"A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,
"Much castigation, exercise devout;

"For here's a young and sweating devil here,
"That commonly rebels."

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame,
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.7.

Queen. O Hamlet, speak no moret Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; And there I see such black and grained spots, As will not leave their tinct.9

Ham.

Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed;1

To mutine, for which the modern editors have substituted mutiny, was the ancient term, signifying to rise in mutiny. So, in Knolles's History of the Turks, 1603: "The Janisaries-became wonderfully discontented, and began to mutine in diverse places of the citie." Malone.

7 — reason panders will.] So the folio, I think, rightly; but the reading of the quarto is defensible:

reason pardons will. Johnson. Panders was certainly Shakspeare's word. So, in Venus and Adonis :

8

"When reason is the bawd to lust's abuse." Malone,

grained-] Died in grain. Johnson.

I am not quite certain that the epithet-grained, is justly interpreted. Our author employs the same adjective in The Comedy of Errors:

"Though now this grained face of mine be hid," &c. and in this instance the allusion is most certainly to the furrows in the grain of wood.

Shakspeare might therefore design the Queen to say, that her spots of guilt were not merely superficial, but indented.-A passage, however, in Twelfth Night, will sufficiently authorize Dr. Johnson's explanation: ""Tis in grain, sir, 'twill endure wind and weather." Steevens.

9 As will not leave their tinct.] To leave is to part with, give up, resign. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"It seems, you lov'd her not, to leave her token."

The quartos read:

1

As will leave there their tinct. Steevens.

enseamed bed;] Thus the folio: i. e. greasy bed.

Johnson.

Thus also the quarto, 1604. Beaumont and Fletcher use the word inseamed in the same sense, in the third of their Four Plays in One:

"His leachery inseam'd upon him.”

In The Book of Haukyng, &c. bl. 1. no date, we are told that Ensayme of a hauke is the grece.”

Stew'd in corruptions; honeying, and making love

Over the nasty stye;

Queen.

These words, like daggers enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet.

Ham.

O, speak to me no more;

A murderer, and a villain:

A slave, that is not twentieth part the tythe
Of your precedent lord:-a vice of kings:2
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule;
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,3
And put it in his pocket!

Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards!-What would your gracious

figure?

Queen. Alas, he 's mad.

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

In Randle Holme's Academy of Armory and Blazon, B. II, ch. , p. 238, we are told that " Enseame is the purging of a hawk from her glut and grease." From the next page in the same work, we learn that the glut is "a slimy substance in the belly of the hawk."

In some places it means hogs' lard, in others, the grease or oil with which clothiers besmear their wool to make it draw out in spinning.

Incestuous is the reading of the quarto, 1611.

Steevens.

In the West of England, the inside fat of a goose, when dissolved by heat, is called its seam; and Shakspeare has used the word in the same sense in his Troilus and Cressida:

2

shall the proud lord,

"That bastes his arrogance with his own seam." Henley. vice of kings] A low mimick of kings. The vice is the fool of a farce; from whence the modern punch is descended. Johnson.

3 That from a shelf &c.] This is said not unmeaningly, but to show, that 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.

4 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 partycoloured patches. Johnson.