Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. For who not needs, shall never lack a friend; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own: So think thou wilt no second husband wed; Sport and repose lock from me, day, and night! or joy enact or determine in their violence, is revoked in their abatement. Enactures is the word in the quarto; all the modern editions have enactors. JOHNSON. 8 SEASONS him his enemy.] This quaint phrase infests almost every ancient English composition. Thus, in Chapman's translation of the fifteenth book of Homer's Odyssey: 66 taught with so much woe "As thou hast suffer'd, to be season'd true." STEEVENS. 9 Nor earth TO ME GIVE food,] Thus the quarto 1604. The folio and the late editors read: "Nor earth to give me food “་ An imperative or optative verb was evidently intended here, as in the following line: 66 Sport and repose lock from me," &c. MALONE. A very similar imprecation, 66 'Day, yield me not thy light; nor night, thy rest!" &c. occurs in King Richard III. Act IV. Sc. IV. STEevens. To desperation' turn my trust and hope! HAM. If she should break it now, [TO OPHELIA. P. KING. "Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here a while; My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile P. QUEEN. [Sleeps. Sleep rock thy brain; And never come mischance between us twain! HAM. Madam, how like you this play? [Exit. QUEEN. The lady doth protest * too much, methinks. HAM. O, but she'll keep her word. *First folio, protests. To desperation, &c.] This and the following line are omitted in the folio. STEEVENS. An ANCHOR'S cheer in prison be my scope!] May my whole liberty and enjoyment be to live on hermit's fare in a prison. Anchor is for anchoret. JOHNSON. This abbreviation of the word anchoret is very ancient. I find it in the Romance of Robert the Devil, printed by Wynken de Worde: "We haue robbed and killed nonnes, holy aunkers, preestes, clerkes," &c. Again : "the foxe will be an aunker, for he begynneth to preche." Again, in The Vision of Pierce Plowman: 66 As ankers and hermits that hold them in her selles." This and the foregoing line are not in the folio. I believe we should read-anchor's chair. So, in the second satire of Hall's fourth book, edit. 1602, p. 18: "Sit seven yeres pining in an anchore's cheyre, "To win some parched shreds of minivere." STEEVENS. The old copies read-And anchor's cheer. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. KING. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't ? HAM. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest ; no offence i'the world. KING. What do you call the play? HAM. The mouse-trap 3. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name *; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: But what of that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. Enter LUCIANUS. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king". 3 The mouse-trap.] He calls it the mouse-trap, because it is— the thing 66 4 "In which he'll catch the conscience of the king." STEEVENS. Gonzago is the DUKE's name ;] Thus all the old copies : yet in the stage-direction for the dumb show, and the subsequent entrance, we have Enter a king and queen," &c. and in the latter part of this speech both the quarto and folio read: 66 Lucianus, nephew to the king." This seeming inconsistency, however, may be reconciled. Though the interlude is the image of the murder of a duke of Vienna, or in other words founded upon that story, the poet might make the principal person of his fable a king. MALONE. - Baptista:] Baptista is, I think, in Italian, the name always of a man. JOHNSON. I believe Battista is never used singly by the Italians, being uniformly compounded with Giam (for Giovanni,) and meaning of course, John the Baptist. Nothing more was therefore necessary to detect the forgery of Shebbeare's Letters on the English Nation, than his ascribing them to Battista Angeloni. RITSON. • Let the galled jade wince,] This is a proverbial saying. So, in Damon and Pythias, 1582: "I know the gall'd horse will soonest wince." STEEvens. 7- nephew to the KING.] i. e. the king in the play then represented. The modern editors, following Mr. Theobald, read -nephew to the duke,-though they have not followed that editor OPH. You are as good as a chorus, my lord ®. HAM. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying". OPH. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. HAM. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge. OPH. Still better, and worse 1. HAM. So you mistake your husbands 2.-Begin, * First folio, you are a good chorus. in substituting duke and duchess for king and queen, in the dumb show and subsequent entrance. There is no need of departing from the old copies. See n. 4, in the preceding page. MALONE. 8 You are as good as a CHORUS, &c.] The use to which Shakspeare converted the chorus, may be seen in King Henry V. HENLEY. 9 Ham. I could interpret, &c.] This refers to the interpreter, who formerly sat on the stage at all motions or puppet-shows, and interpreted to the audience. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: "O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet! Again, in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, 1621 : " It was I that penned the moral of Man's wit, the dialogue of Dives, and for seven years' space was absolute interpreter of the puppets." STEEVENS. Still better, and worse.] i. e. better in regard to the wit of your double entendre, but worse in respect to the grossness of your meaning. STEEVENS. 2 So you MISTAKE your husbands.] Read- “So you must take your husbands;" that is, for better, for worse. JOHNSON. Mr. Theobald proposed the same reading in his Shakspeare Restored, however he lost it afterwards. STEEVENS. So you mistake your husbands." I believe this to be right: the word is sometimes used in this ludicrous manner: "Your true trick, rascal, (says Ursula, in Bartholomew Fair,) must be to be ever busie, and mistake away the bottles and cans, before they be half drunk off." FARMER. Again, in Ben Jonson's Masque of Augurs: six torches from the chandry, and give them one." Again, in The Elder Brother of Fletcher : "I fear he will persuade me to mistake him." To mistake Again, in Chrestoleros; Seven Bookes of Epigrams written by T. B. [Thomas Bastard] 1598, lib. vii. epig. xviii. : "Caius hath brought from forraine landes "A sootie wench, with many handes, murderer ;-leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come ; --The croaking raven Doth bellow for revenge. Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing; Confederate season, else no creature seeing; 3 Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds col lected, With Hecat's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magick and dire property, * On wholesome life usurp immediately. [Pours the Poison into the Sleeper's Ears. HAM. He poisons him i'the garden for his estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and written in very choice† Italian: You shall see anon, how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife. OPH. The king rises. HAM. What! frighted with false fire! POL. Give o'er the play. KING. Give me some light:-away! * Quarto, usurps. + First folio, writ in choice. "Which doe in goolden letters say "She is his wife, not stolne away. "He mought have sav'de, with small discretion, "For none that see'th her face and making, "Will judge her stolne, but by mistaking." Again, in Questions of Profitable and Pleasant Concernings, &c. 1594: "Better I were now and then to suffer his remisse mother to mistake a quarter or two of corne, to buy the knave a coat with," &c. STEEVENS. I believe the meaning is-you do amiss for yourselves to take husbands for the worse. You should take them only for the better. Tollet. 3 — MIDNIGHT Weeds-] The force of the epithet-midnight, will be best displayed by a corresponding passage in Macbeth: "Root of hemlock, digg'd i'the dark." STEEVENS. ♦ What! frighted with false fire!] This speech is omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS. |