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:

70

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

Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.

Queen.

If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

75

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 forced breath,

80

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.

85

King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,

Hamlet,

68. nighted] Q, nightly F. 70. vailed] Q.; veyled Ff 1, 2; veiled Ff 3, 4. 72. common;] Theobald, common, F, common Q. lives] Q, F; live Ff 2, 3, 4 and many editors. 77. good mother] F; coold mother Qq 2, 3 ; could smother Qq 4-6. 82. modes] Q 1695, Capell; moodes Q; Moods F and many editors. shows] F; chapes Qq 2, 3; shapes Qq 4-6. 83. denote] F, Q6; deuote Q. 85. passeth] F, passes Q. 87.] Q, two lines F. 82. modes] "Moods" may be right.

68. nighted] black. So in Lear, IV. v. 13: "his nighted life" (of the blind Gloster).

69. Denmark] the King; so "Norway" in line 28.

70. vailed cast down. Merchant of Venice, I. i. 28: "Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs."

82. shows] The "show" of line 85, as Furness observes, is an intentional and emphatic repetition of the shows" of this line.

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
bound

In filial obligation for some term

90

To do obsequious sorrow; but to persever

In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,

95

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:

100

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? Fie! '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

90. lost, lost dead, lost Q 1. prevailing] unavailing, Hanmer.

96. a mind] F, or minde`Q.

105

107. un

prevail" in Romeo and Juliet, III. iii. 60, Dryden, Essay on Dramatic Poetry: He may often prevail himself of the same advantages.

66

109. immediate] The throne of Denmark was elective; see v. ii. 65; but Hamlet was the probable successor to Claudius.

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.

P

115

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:

I 20

Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day, 125
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,

And the king's rouse the heavens shall bruit again,

112. toward] Q, towards F. 119. pray thee] Q, prythee] F. F, heaven Q.

113. in Wittenberg] to Wittenberg, Qq 4, 5. 120.] Q, two lines F. 127. heavens]

let Wittenberg was a foreign university, to which he might go at any age, after his earlier education had been completed.

114. retrograde] Prof. Hales notes in Chapman's May-Day (vol. ii. p. 373, ed. 1873): "Be not retrograde to our desires." Originally án astrological term. See All's Well, 1. i.212. Fitqt drunknes? 127. rouse] bumper, as in I. iv. and Othello, II. iii. 66; Swedish ras, drunkenness. Dekker, in The Gul's Horn-Booke, Proæmium, enumerating national drinking customs, mentions "the Danish Rowsa."

127. bruit] noise abroad, as in Macbeth, v. vii. 22.

Re-speaking earthly thunder.

Come away.

[Flourish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.

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

130

135

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! '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 140
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven

Flourish] Q, omitted F. 129. solid] F; sallied Q 1, Q; sullied Anon. conject. 132. O God! O God!] F, God, God Q. 134. Seem] Q, Seemes F. 135. O fie! ah fie Q; Oh fie, fie F; Oh fie Ff 3, 4 137. come to this!] F, come thus Q.

129. too too] Intensive reduplication; hyphened by some editors. Compare Two Gentlemen of Verona, II. iv. 205. 129. solid] Sed

and melt are found in conjunction, as here, in Henry IV. III. i. 48. The sallied of Q and QI is defended by Dr. Furnivall, who cites Cotgrave's French Dict. saillie, a sallie, eruption, violent issue; also assaille, assaulted, assayled. If we were to retain sallied, I should explain it as sullied, comparing II. i. 39, where F reads sullyes and Q sallies; and, seeing that QI has here "this too much griev'd and sallied flesh," we have some reason to think that sallied may be right.

130. resolve] Caldecott cites Baret's Alvearie: "To thaw or resolve that

which is frozen, regelo." Compare Timon, IV. iii. 442.

132. canon 'gainst self-slaughter] So also Cymbeline, 111. iv. 77-80. "Unless it be the sixth cominandment, the 'canon' must be one of natural religion" (Wordsworth, Shakespeare's Knowledge and Use of the Bible, p. 149).

137. merely] completely. Compare Tempest, 1. i. 59: "We are merely cheated of our lives."

140. Hyperion] Spenser, Gray, Keats, like Shakespeare, throw the accent on the second syllable.

141. beteem] permit; "beteene" in Ff 1, 2, So Golding, Ovid's Metamorphoses (published 1587):

"Yet could he not beteeme The shape of any other bird then eagle for to seeme.'

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- 145
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 God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, 150
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;

155

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

143. would] F, should Q.

145. month-] month, Q, month? F.
149. even she] F, omitted in Q.
my]Q, mine F,
153. month?] F,

147. shoes] Q, F; shows Ingleby conj.
150. O God!] Q, O Heaven F.
month, Q. 155. the] their Q 1; in] Q,

151.

of F.

Hamlet. The closing words are: "Hic Amlethi exitus fuit, qui si parem naturæ atq. fortunæ indulgentiam expertus fuisset, æquasset fulgore superos, Herculea virtutibus opera transcendisset."

155. flushing] Hudson and Rolfe explain this as redness. Clar. Press: "The verb 'flush' is still used transitively, meaning, to fill with water."

157. dexterity] adroitness. Clar. Press compares 1 Henry IV. 11. iv. 286.

159. break] "A subjunctive, not an imperative, and heart' is a subject, not a vocative" (Corson).