Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

LAER. Must there no more be done?

1 PRIEST.

No more be done :

We should profane the service of the dead,
To sing sage requiem, and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls. (28)

LAER.

Lay her i'the earth;-
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh,

May violets spring! (29)-I tell thee, churlish priest,(30)
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,

When thou liest howling.

Нам.

What, the fair Ophelia!

QUEEN. Sweets to the sweet: Farewell!

[Scattering Flowers. I hop❜d, thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought, thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,

* So 4tos. And not have strew'd thy grave.

terrible woer and wooer.

1623, 32.

4tos.

LAER.

O, treble woe* Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense + double. Depriv'd thee of!-Hold off the earth a while, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms: [Leaps into the grave. Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead; Till of this flat a mountain you have made, To o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head Of blue Olympus.

‡ grief. 4tos.

HAM. [Advancing.] What is he, whose griefs Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow

$ conjure. Conjures & the wand'ring stars, and makes them

1623.

stand

church, and this sepulture in consecrated ground.
"maiden flowers." H. VIII. IV. 2. Kath.

And see

a Fall ten times treble] See " treble in silence." I. 2. Haml. bingenious sense] i. e. life and sense, or more literally, according to our Author's use of the words lively sensations or feeling.

"How stiff is my vile sense

That I stand up and have ingenious feeling
Of my huge sorrows." Lear, IV. 6. Glost.

Like wonder-wounded hearers? this is I,
Hamlet the Dane.

LAER.

[Leaps into the Grave.

The devil take thy soul!

HAM. Thou pray'st not well.

[Grappling with him.

* For. 4tos.

I pr'ythee, take thy fingers from my throat;
Sir, though I am not splenetive and rash,
Yet have I in me something+ dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear: Away § thy hand.
KING. Pluck them asunder.

QUEEN.

GENTLEMEN.

+ So 4tos. something in me. 1623, 32.

I wisdom. 4tos.

Hamlet, Hamlet! hold off.

Good my lord, be quiet.

[The Attendants part them, and they come

out of the Grave.]

HAM. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme,

Until my eye-lids will no longer wag.

QUEEN. O my son! what theme?

HAM. I lov❜d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum..... What wilt thou do for her?
KING. O, he is mad, Laertes.

QUEEN. For love of God, forbear him.
HAM. 'Zounds, show me what thou❜lt do :
Wou'lt weep? wou'lt fight? [wou'lt fast ?]
tear thyself?¶

wou❜lt

Wou'lt drink up Esil ?(31)** eat a crocodile ?
I'll do't.-Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?"
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us; till our ground,

a outface me with leaping in her grave] i. e. brave me. See As you &c. III. Rosal.

b Be buried quick] i. e. alive. "Thou'rt quick; but yet I'll bury thee." Tim. IV. 3. Tim.

4tos.

|| So 4tos. come.1623,

32.

¶ wilt pray. 4to. 1603.

** vessels. Ib.

[blocks in formation]

Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou.

KING. (32)

This is mere madness:

And thus a while the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclos'd,(33)
His silence will sit drooping.

Нам.

Hear you, sir;

What is the reason that you use me thus ?
I lov'd you ever.(34) But it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,

a

The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

[Exit. KING. I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.— [Exit HORATIO. Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech;" TO LAERTES. We'll put the matter to the present push.Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.This grave shall have a living monument :(35) An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

Till then, in patience our proceeding be. [Exeunt.

a The cat will mew, the dog &c.] "Things have their appointed course; nor have we power to divert it," may be the sense here conveyed; though the proverb is in general applied to those who for a time fill stations to which their merits give them no claim.

b Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech] i. e. let the consideration of the topics, then urged, confirm your resolution taken of quietly waiting events a little longer.

SCENE II.

A Hall in the Castle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO.

[ocr errors]

HAM. So much for this, sir: now let me see the shall you.

other;

You do remember all the circumstance?

HOR. Remember it, my lord!

HAM. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, That would not let me sleep; (36) methought, I lay

4tos.

32. prais'd. 4tos.

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes.(37) Rashly, + So 1623,
And praise be rashness for it,"-Let us know,"
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,

When our dear plots do pall:(38) and that should deep.4tos.

teach & us,

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will. (39)

HOR.

HAM. Up from my cabin,

That is most certain.

My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
Grop'd I to find out them: had my desire;
Finger'd their packet; and, in fine, withdrew
To mine own room again: making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,
(O ||royal knavery) an exact command,

a And praise be rashness for it] i. e. praise be to rashness ! b Let us know] i. e. be it understood.

c sea-gown] "Like sea pitch upon a mariner's gown." The

Puritan.

"Lent upon a sea-gown of Captain Swanes xvs." Henslowe's MSS. MALone.

§ learn. 4tos.

|| A royal. 4tos.

[blocks in formation]

⚫ reasons. Larded with many several sorts of reason,a*

4tos.

+ now. 4tos.

Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,
With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That, on the supervise, no leisure bated, (40)
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,

My head should be struck off.

HOR.

Is't possible?

HAM. Here's the commission; read it at more

leisure.

But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

[blocks in formation]

HAM. Being thus benetted round with villains,
or. 4tos. Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play: I sat me down;
Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair :
I once did hold it, as our statists do,

A baseness to write fair, (41) and labour'd much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now

It did me yeoman's service.

The effect of what I wrote ?

HOR.

Wilt thou know

Ay, good my lord.

HAM. An earnest conjuration' from the king,As England was his faithful tributary;

• Larded with many several sorts of reason] i. e. garnished. IV. 5. Ophel.

b such bugs and goblins in my life] i. e. such multiplied causes of alarm, such bugbears, if I were suffered to live. See Tam. of Shrew, I. 2. Petr.

the supervise] i. e. at sight, on the mere inspection.

d Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,

They had begun the play] i. e. ere I could well conceive what they were about, what could be their object in this mission; before I had time to give my first thoughts to their process, they were carrying their projects into act.

• It did me yeoman's service] i. e. as good service as a yeoman performed for his feudal lord; in the sense in which we yet use knight's service.

conjuration] i. e. requisition. See " conjuring," IV. 3. King.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »