in Merchant of Venice, i. 1. 178; 'either,' in Measure for Measure, ii. 2. 96; whither,' in Hamlet, i. 5. I.

Ib. or else, a reduplication, like ‘or ere,' 'an if.' It occurs in Genesis xlii. 16.

182. not needs. For this construction compare Tempest, ii. 1. 121:

'I not doubt

He came alive to land.'

And Much Ado about Nothing, iv. 1. 175: 'She not denies it.' 184. seasons, ripens, brings to maturity in his true character. 185. begun, for 'began,' as in Richard II, i. 1. 158:

'Good uncle let this end where it begun.'

194. an anchor's cheer, an anchorite's, or hermit's fare. The A. S. is ancer, or ancor, abbreviated from the Greek ȧvaxwpnths, one who is withdrawn from the world. It is applied both to men and women. Compare The Vision of Piers Ploughman, l. 55:

'As ancres and heremites,

That holden hem in hire selles.'

The Ancren Riwle, or the Rules of Nuns, is one of the most valuable publications of the Camden Society.

194. my scope, my utmost aim.

195. opposite, an opponent, here denotes any obstacle to joy. For the literal sense see v. 2. 62, and Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 293: 'He is indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody, and fatal opposite that you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria.'

Ib. blanks, blanches, makes pale, as with fear.

200. deeply sworn. Compare King John, iii. 1. 231: 'Deep-sworn faith.' 212. Tropically, figuratively. The quarto of 1603 reads 'trapically' as if a pun were intended, which indeed may be the case.

216. free. See ii. 2. 544.

Ib. let the galled jade wince. Steevens quotes from Edwards's Damon and Pythias, 1582: 'I know the gall'd horse will soonest wince.' See Lyly's Euphues, p. 119 (ed. Arber): For well I know none will winch except she bee gawlded.' See also Mother Bombie, i. 3.

217. our withers are unwrung. The withers of a horse is the part between the shoulders. Compare 1 Henry IV, ii. 1. 7: 'Poor jade, is wrung in the withers out of all cess.' And Markham's Maister Peece (1615), lib. ii. ch. 40: Both to a horses withers, and also to his backe, do happen many infirmities and sorrances, some proceeding from inward causes, as of the corruption of humors, and sometime of outward causes, as through the galling, pinching, & wringing of some naughty saddle.'

219. a chorus, which explained the action of the play, as in Winter's Tale Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, and Gower in Pericles.

227. Confederate season, the opportunity conspiring to assist the murderer

229. Hecate, a dissyllable, as in Macbeth, ii. 1. 52, and elsewhere. 231. On wholesome life usurp. Compare Pericles, iii. 2. 82:

'Death may usurp on nature many hours.'

Ib. wholesome, healthy. See iii. 4. 65.

233. writ. See i. 2. 27.

242. Compare As You Like It, ii. 1. 33, &c.

Ib. stricken, the reading of the quarto of 1603. The folios have ' strucken,' and the early quartos' strooken,' or 'stroken.'

247. turn Turk. To turn Turk' is to change completely, as from a Christian to an infidel. Compare Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 4. 57:

'Well, an you be not turned Turk, there's no more sailing by the star.' Ib. Provincial roses, that is, rosettes of ribbon in the shape of roses of Provins, or Provence. Douce favours the former, Warton the latter locality. Cotgrave (French Dict.) gives both: Rose de Provence. The Prouince Rose, the double Damaske Rose;' and 'Rose de Provins. The ordinarie double red Rose.' In either case it was a large rose. The Province or damask Rose was probably the better known. Gerarde, in his Herbal, says that the damask rose is called by some Rosa provincialis.' Mr. Fairholt (Costume in England, p. 238) quotes from Friar Bacon's Prophecy, 1604: When roses in the gardens grew,

And not in ribbons on a shoe:

Now ribbon roses take such place,

That garden roses want their grace.'

At p. 579 he gives several instances of the extravagances to which this fashion led.

248. razed shoes, shoes slashed or streaked in patterns. Stubbes, in his Anatomie of Abuses, quoted by Steevens, has a chapter on corked shoes, which he describes as some of black veluet, some of white, some of red, some of greene, razed, carued, cut, and stitched all ouer with Silke' (fol. 28, ed. 1585). In Randle Holme's Academy of Armory, Book iii. ch. i. p. 14, we find, Pinked or raised Shooes, have the over leathers grain part cut into Roses, or other devices.'

Ib. cry, company. Used of a pack of hounds, and metaphorically in Coriolanus, iii. 3. 120: You common cry of curs!' and again iv. 6. 148: 'You have made

Good work, you and your cry!'

Compare Cotgrave (French Dict.): 'Meute: f. A kennell, or crie of hounds.' 250. share. In Henslowe's Diary (pp. 5, 8) are memoranda of £15 being lent to Francis Henslowe for a share with the Queen's players, and £9 for a half share with another company.

255. pajock. This is the reading of the third and fourth folios. The other editions have 'paiock,' 'paiocke,' or 'pajocke,' and in the later quartos the word was changed to 'paicock' and 'pecock,' whence Pope printed

'peacock.' Dyce says that in Scotland he had often heard the peacock called the 'pea-jock.' Mr. McGrath, in Notes and Queries, conjectures that the word is the same as patchocke' which occurs in Spenser's View of the Present State of Ireland. It is said of the English settled in that country that 'some in Leinster and Ulster are degenerate, and growen to be as very patchockes as the wild' Irish' (p. 636, Globe ed.). The latter word may be from the Italian pazzuccio.

262. recorders. The recorder was a kind of flageolet, or flute with a mouthpiece. Milton (Paradise Lost, i. 551) distinguishes flutes and soft recorders,' and from Bacon's description of the instrument it had evidently a mouth-piece (Natural History, cent. ii. § 161). Shakespeare uses the word again in Midsummer Night's Dream, v. i. 123: 'He hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder.'

264. perdy, corrupted from par Dieu, as in Comedy of Errors, iv. 4. 74. 270. marvellous, adjective for adverb, as in i. I. 8.

Ib. distempered, disordered, distracted in mind, by passion or emotion. See Tempest, iv. I. 145:

'Never till this day

Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd.'

The word was also used of bodily disorder, and so Hamlet pretends to understand it. Compare 2 Henry IV, iii. 1. 41: 'It is but as a body yet distemper'd.'

272. choler, anger. See 1 Henry IV, i. 3. 129:

'What, drunk with choler? stay and pause awhile.'

And Richard II, i. I. 153:

'Let's purge this choler without letting blood.'

273. should, for would,' as in ii. 2. 203.

Ib. more richer. Compare more better,' Tempest, i. 2. 19, and 'more braver,' Tempest, i. 2. 439.

275. put him to his purgation. A play upon the legal and medical senses of the word. For the former see As You Like It, v. 4. 45: If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation.'

277. frame.

Compare Measure for Measure, v. 1. 61:

Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense.' 284. wholesome, sane, sound, sensible. So Coriolanus, ii. 3. 66:

'Speak to 'em, I pray you,

In wholesome manner.'

285. pardon, permission to leave, as in i. 2. 56.

294. amazement, perturbation of mind from whatever cause. Compare

301. trade, business, dealings. Compare Twelfth Night, iii. 1. 83: 'My niece is desirous you should enter, if your trade be to her.'

303. these pickers and stealers, that is, these hands. The phrase 'picking and stealing' in the Catechism is familiar, and probably suggested this. 'By this hand!' is a frequent form of asseveration. See Tempest, iii. 2. 56, 78; Merchant of Venice, v. I. 161; and compare 2 Henry VI, i. 3. 193, 'By these ten bones, my lord.'

304. your cause of distemper, the cause of your disorder. So your sovereignty of reason' in i. 4. 73.

309. See i. 2. III, &c.

310. 'While the grass grows the steed starves' is the proverb in full.

312. To withdraw with you. For this use of the infinitive compare iii. 4. 213, and King John, i. 1. 236: Marry, to confess.' Editors have supposed a corruption of the text to exist. Mason conjectured 'So, withdraw you,' or 'So, withdraw, will you?' Malone added the stage direction, 'Taking Guildenstern aside.' Steevens supposed that Hamlet referred to some gesture used by Guildenstern to suggest a private interview, and read the words interrogatively, 'To withdraw with you?' Staunton imagines them to be addressed to the players, and suggests, 'So, (taking a recorder) withdraw with you.'

313. to recover the wind of me, a hunting term, signifying to get to windward of the game so as to startle it and make it run in the direction of the toil. Compare Beaumont and Fletcher, The Woman's Prize, iv. 4:

How daintily and cunningly you drive me

Up like a deer to the toil! yet I may leap it;

And what's the woodman then?'

316. Tyrwhitt proposed to read 'not unmannerly.'

Probably Shake

speare intended Guildenstern's words to express an unmeaning compliment. As Hamlet did not well understand them, commentators may be excused from attempting to explain them.

324. ventages, the holes of the recorder.

325. thumb. The quarto of 1604, and that printed from it, read the umber,' a mere misprint corrected in the following quartos.

་

338. fret. Frets' on a lute or guitar are pieces of wire fastened on the body of the instrument to serve as guides to the fingers.

349. by and by, immediately. Compare Matthew xiii. 21, where 'by and by' translates evoús.

350. to the top of my bent, to the height of my inclination. For 'bent' compare Cymbeline, i. 1. 13:

Although they wear their faces to the bent

Of the king's looks.'

357. The reading in the text is that of the folios. In the quartos it is And do such business as the bitter day,' &c.

358. Soft! Compare i. 1. 126, and iii. 1. 88.

360. Nero, the murderer of his mother Agrippina. Compare King John, v. 2. 152:

'You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb

Of your dear mother England.'

362. speak daggers. Compare iii. 4. 92, and Much Ado about Nothing, ii. 1. 255: She speaks poniards and every word stabs.' See Proverbs xii. 18. 364. shent, reproved, rebuked, as in Twelfth Night, iv. 2. 112: 'I am shent for speaking to you.'

365. To give seals' to, or confirm, his words would be to use daggers as well as speak them. Hamlet shrinks from the guilt of matricide.

1

Scene III.

4. shall along. Adverbs of motion are frequently used without the verb. So in Winter's Tale, v. 2. 121, 'Let's along.' And in Julius Cæsar, iii. 1. 119, Shall we forth?' See also Hamlet, iii. 4. 197.

6. so near us. The earlier quartos read 'neer's,' the folios' dangerous.' The former, which we have adopted, is better suited to the context.

7. lunacies. So the folios. The quartos have 'browes,' perhaps a misprint for lunes,' which Theobald introduced into the text.

9. many many. Compare Henry V, iv. 2. 33: A very little little let us do;' and 'too too,' Hamlet, i. 2. 129.

II. The single and peculiar life means the private individual, as contrasted with the king.

13. noyance, harm. Here used in a stronger sense than our modern 'annoyance.' Spenser, however (Fairy Queen, i. I. 23), has it with the weaker meaning:

'A cloud of cumbrous gnattes doe him molest,

All striving to infixe their feeble stinges

That from their noyance he no where can rest.'

14. For 'weal' the folios misprint 'spirit.'

Ib. depends and rests. See note on i. 2. 38.

15. The cease of majesty is used here for the king dying, as life,' in line II, is used for the living man.

16. gulf, whirlpool. Compare Henry V, ii. 4. 10:

'For England his approaches makes as fierce

As waters to the sucking of a gulf.'

17. massy, massive. Compare Tempest, iii. 3. 67:

'Your swords are now too massy for your strengths.'

21. annexment. This word is not found elsewhere.

29. home, thoroughly. Compare iii. 4. I, and Cymbeline, iii. 5. 92: