Pot. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave, By laboursome petition; and, at last,

Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy best graces: spend it at thy will.

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,

Xam. A little more kilouds still hang on you?

Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind.* [Aside.

Ham. Not so, my lord, I am too much i'the sun. Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids,"

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know'st, 'tis common ; all, that live, must die
Passing through nature to eternity.]

Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.

Queen. If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother

Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: These, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play :
But I have that within, which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe
King.'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, lizmlet
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bourd
In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: But to perséver
In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief:

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;

[4] Kind is the Teutonick word for child. If we understand kind in its ancient sense, then the meaning will be,---I am more than thy kinsman, for 1 am shy step-son; being such, I am less near to thee than thy natural offspring, and therefore not entitled to the appellation of son, which you have now given me.

[5] With lowering eyes, cast down eyes. JOHNSON. fej Obsequious, is here for obsequies, or funeral ceremonies.

MALONE JOHNSON.

A heart unfortified, or mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what, we know, must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,

Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fye! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse, till he that died to-day,

This must be so. We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe; and think of us

As of a father for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And, with no less nobility of love’

Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire :
And, we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet;
I pray thee, stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.
Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply;
Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come
This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No jocund health, that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;
And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

8

[Exeunt King, Queen, Lords, &c. POLONIUS, and LAERTES.

Ham. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!'

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

The king's intemperance is very strongly impressed; every thing that happens to him gives him occasion to drink. JOHNSON.

[9] The king's draught of jollity. See Othello, act 2. sc. 3.

STEEVENS.

[1] Resolve means the same as dissolve. The word is so used by Ben Jonson.

STEEVENS.

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fye on't! O fye! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead!-nay, not so much, not two :
So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven3
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,-
Let me not think on't, Frailty, thy name is woman!-
A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears :-why she, even she,-

O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse 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 salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married ;-O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
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!

Ham. I am glad to see you well :

Horatio, or I do forget myself.

‚—or

Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. Ham. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with

you.

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

Mar. My good lord,

Ham. I am very glad to see you ;-good even, sir.

[2] This similitude at first sight seems to be a little far-fetched; but it has an exquisite, beauty. By the Satyr is meant Pan, as by Hyperion, Apollo. Pan and Apollo were brothers, and the allusion is to the contention between those gods for the preference in music. WARBURTON.

[3] Beteem occurs in the tenth book of Arthur Golding's version of Ovid's Metamorphosis, 1587, and from the corresponding Latin, must necessarily signify, to vouchsafe, deign, permit, or suffer:

"Yet could he not beteeme

"The shape of anie other bird than egle for to seeme." Sign. R. 1. p.

nulla tamen alite verti

"Dignatur, nisi quæ possit sua fulmina fere." V. 157.

STEEVENS.

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg ?
Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.
Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself: I know, you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore ?

We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart.
Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
I think, it was to see my mother's wedding.

Hor. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.

Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd meats* Did coldly furnish forth the marriage-tables. Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven' Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio !--My father, Methinks, I see my father. Hor. Where,

My lord?

Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio.

Hor. I saw him once, he was a goodly king.
Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Ham. Saw! who?

Hor. My lord, the king your father.

Ham. The king my father!

Hor. Season your admiration for a while With an attent ear; till I may deliver, Upon the witness of these gentlemen,

This marvel to you.

Ham. For God's love, let me hear.

Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead waist and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like
Armed at point, exactly, cap-à-pé,

your

father,

Appears before them, and, with solemn march,

Goes slow and stately by them thrice he walk'd,
By their oppress'd and fear-surprized eyes,

[4] It was anciently the general custom to give a cold entertainment to mourners at a funeral. In distant counties this practice is still continued among the yeomanry. See Romeo and Juliet, p. 381.

COLLINS.

[5] Dearest, for direst, most dreadful, most dangerous.

JOHNSON.

Dearest signifies, most consequential, important. See Timon of Athens, act 5. sc.

ii.

STEEVENS.

Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distill'd
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb, and speak not to him.
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;

This to me

And I with them, the third night kept the watch:
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,

Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: I knew your father ;

These hands are not more like.

Ham. But where was this?

Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd. Ham. Did you not speak to it?

Hor. My lord, I did;

But answer made it none: yet once, methought,
It lifted up its head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak:

But, even then, the morning cock crew loud;
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish'd from our sight.

Ham. 'Tis very strange.

Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty,
To let you know of it.

Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch to-night?

All. We do, my lord.

Har n'd say you?

All. Arm'd, my lord.

Ham. From top to toe?

All. My lord, from head to foot.

Ham. Then saw you not

His face?

Hor. O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
Ham. What, look'd he frowningly?

Hor. A countenance more

In sorrow than in anger.

Ham. Pale, or red?

Hor. Nay, very pale.

Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you?

Hor. Most constantly.

Ham. I would, I had been there.

Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.

Ham. Very like,

Very like Staid it long?

:

[dred.

Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hun