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Thou com'st in such a questionable shape 7,
That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee, Hamlet,

"Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, "Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,

"Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,

"That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee," &c.

This he says while his father is advancing; he then, as he had determined, speaks to him, and calls him-"Hamlet, King, Father, Royal Dane: O! answer me." JOHNSON.

6 Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, &c.] So, in Acolastus his After-Wit, 1600:

"Art thou a god, a man, or else a ghost?

"Com'st thou from heaven, where bliss and solace dwell? "Or from the airie cold-engendering coast ?

"Or from the darksome dungeon-hold of hell?”

The first known edition of this play is in 1604.

The same question occurs also in the MS. known by the title of William and the Werwolf, in the Library of King's College, Cambridge:

"Whether thou be a gode gost in goddis name that speakest, "Or any foul fiend fourmed in this wise,

"And if we schul of the hent harme or gode." P. 36.

Again, in Barnaby Googe's Fourth Eglog:

"What soever thou art y' thus dost com,
"Ghoost, hagge, or fende of hell,

"I the comaunde by him that lyves

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Thy name and case to tell."

STEEVENS.

7 — QUESTIONABLE shape,] By questionable is meant provoking question. HANMER.

So, in Macbeth:

"Live you, or are you aught

"That man may question?" JOHNSON.

Questionable, I believe, means only, propitious to conversation: easy and willing to be conversed with. So, in As You Like It: "An unquestionable spirit, which you have not." Unquestionable in this last instance certainly signifies unwilling to be talked with. STEEVENS.

Questionable perhaps only means capable of being conversed with. To question, certainly in our author's time signified to converse. So, in his Rape of Lucrece, 1594:

"For after supper long he questioned

"With modest Lucrece-.'

Again, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"Out of our question wipe him."

See also King Lear, Act V. Sc. III. MALONE.

King, Father, Royal Dane: O,* answer me:
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
* First folio, oh! oh!

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Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,

Have burst their cerements!] Hamlet, amazed at an apparition, which, though in all ages credited, has in all ages been considered as the most wonderful and most dreadful operation of supernatural agency, enquires of the spectre, in the most emphatick terms, why he breaks the order of nature, by returning from the dead; this he asks in a very confused circumlocution, confounding in his fright the soul and body. Why, (says he,) have thy bones, which with due ceremonies have been entombed in death, in the common state of departed mortals, burst the folds in which they were embalmed? Why has the tomb, in which we saw thee quietly laid, opened his mouth, that mouth which, by its weight and stability, seemed closed for ever? The whole sentence is this: Why dost thou appear, whom we know to be dead?' JOHNSON.

By the expression "hearsed in death" is meant, shut up and secured with all those precautions which are usually practised in preparing dead bodies for sepulture, such as the winding-sheet, shrowd, coffin, &c. perhaps embalming into the bargain. So that death is here used, by a metonymy of the antecedent for the consequents, for the rites of death, such as are generally esteemed due, and practised with regard to dead bodies. Consequently, I understand by cerements, the waxed winding-sheet or windingsheets, in which the corpse was enclosed and sown up, in order to preserve it the longer from external impressions from the humidity of the sepulchre, as embalming was intended to preserve it from internal corruption. HEATH.

"-canoniz'd bones," &c. This word should be printed with an accent over the second syllable, in this and the other places in which it occurs in our author: as in King John, Act III. Sc. I. : "Canònized and worshipp'd as a saint."

And again:

"And thou shalt be canòniz'd cardinal.”

Troilus and Cressida, Act II. Sc. II. :

"And fame in time to come canònize us.”

This is also the accentuation of Massinger:

"That have canòniz'd them you'll find them worse."

And again :

Virgin Martyr, Act III. Sc. I.

"What the canòniz'd Spartan ladies were." And in The Fatal Dowry, Act IV. Sc. I. BLAKEWAY.

Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd9,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in cómplete steel',
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous; and we fools of nature 2,
So horridly to shake our disposition3,

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?

HOR. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

9-quietly IN-URN'D,] The quartos read-interr'd. 'STEEVENS. That thou, dead corse, again, in cómplete steel,] Thus also is the adjective complete accented by Chapman in his version of the fifth Iliad :

"And made his complete armour cast a far more complete light."

Again, in the nineteeth Iliad :

"Grave silence strook the complete court."

It is probable that Shakspeare introduced his Ghost in armour, that it might appear more solemn by such a discrimination from the other characters; though it was really the custom of the Danish kings to be buried in that manner. Vide Olaus Wormius, cap. vii: "Struem regi nec vestibus, nec odoribus cumulant, sua cuique arma, quorundam igni et equus adjicitur."

"-sed postquam magnanimus ille Danorum rex collem sibi magnitudinis conspicuæ extruxisset, cui post obitum regio diademate exornatum, armis indutum, inferendum esset cadaver," &c. STEEVENS.

2- we fools of nature,] The expression is fine, as intimating we were only kept (as formerly, fools in a great family,) to make sport for nature, who lay hid only to mock and laugh at us, for our vain searches into her mysteries. WARBURTon.

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we fools of nature," i. e. making us, who are the sport of nature, whose mysterious operations are beyond the reaches of our souls, &c. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

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"O, I am fortune's fool." MALONE.

fools of nature," This phrase is used by Davenant, in the Cruel Brother, 1630, Act V. Sc. I. REED.

3 to shake our DISPOSITION,] Disposition for frame.

WARBURTON.

MAR.

Look, with what courteous action

It waves you to a more removed ground*:
But do not go with it.

HOR.

No, by no means.

HAM. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
HOR. Do not, my lord.

Why, what should be the fear?

HAM.
I do not set my life at a pin's fee 3;
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again ;—I'll follow it.
HOR. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my
lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,

That beetles o'er his base into the sea?

And there assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason',

*First folio, wafts.

4-a more REMOVED ground:] i. e. remote. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream:

"From Athens is her house remov'd seven leagues."

The first folio reads-remote. STEEVENS.

It is removed in Mr. Malone's copy of the first folio. BOSWELL. - pin's fee;] The value of a pin. JOHNSON.

6 That BEETLES o'er his base-] So, in Sidney's Arcadia, b. i.: "Hills lifted up their beetle brows, as if they would overlooke pleasantnesse of their under prospect." STEEVENS.

"That beetles o'er his base-" That hangs o'er his base, like what is called a beetle-brow. This verb is, I believe, of our author's coinage. MALONE.

7 - DEPRIVE your SOVEREIGNTY of reason.] Sovereignty of reason is the same as sovereign or supreme reason, reason which governs man, and thus it was used by the best writers of those times. Sidney says, "It is time for us both to let reason enjoy its due soveraigntie." Arcad. And King Charles : "At once to betray the soveraignty of reason in my own soul.” Εἰκὼν Βασιλιχη. It is evident that Shakspeare wrote

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Deprave your sovereignty of reason." WARBURton. I believe, deprive in this place signifies simply to take away.

JOHNSON.

8

And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain,
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

HAM.

Go on, I'll follow thee.

It waves* me still :

MAR. You shall not go, my lord.
Нам.

Hold off your hands.

My fate cries out,

HOR. Be rul'd, you shall not go.
HAM.
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Némean lion's nerve'.

*First folio, wafts.

[Ghost beckons.

When poets wish to invest any quality or virtue with uncommon splendor, they do it by some allusion to regal eminence. Thus, among the excellencies of Banquo's character, our author distinguishes his royalty of nature," i. e. his natural superiority over others, his independent dignity of mind. I have selected this instance to explain the former, because I am told that "royalty of nature" has been idly supposed to bear some allusion to Banquo's distant prospect of the crown.

To" deprive your sovereignty of reason," therefore, does not signify, to deprive your princely mind of rational powers, but, to take away from you the command of reason, by which man is governed.'

So, in Chapman's version of the first Iliad:

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I come from heaven to see

'Thy anger settled: if thy soul will use her soveraigntie "In fit reflection."

Dr. Warburton would read deprave; but several proofs are given in a note to King Lear, Act I. Sc. II. of Shakspeare's use of the word deprive, which is the true reading. STEEVENS. The very place] The four following lines added from the first edition. POPE.

9-puts TOYS of desperation,] Toys, for whims.

WARBURTON.

'As hardy as the NEMEAN lion's nerve.] Shakspeare has again accented the word Nemean in this manner, in Love's Labour's Lost:

"Thus dost thou hear the Némean lion roar."

Spenser, however, wrote Neméan, Fairy Queen, b. v. c. i.:

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