Why, I should take it: for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter; or, ere this,
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave;9
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion!1

Fy upon 't! foh! About my brains 12 Humph! I have heard,

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,3

8

kindless - Unnatural. Johnson.

9 Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave;] The folio reads : "O vengeance!

"Who? what an ass am I? Sure this is most brave."

Steevens. 1 A scullion!] Thus the folio. The quartos read,—A stallion. Steevens.

2 About my brains!] Wits, to your work. Brain, go about the present business. Johnson.

This expression (which seems a parody on the naval one,about ship) occurs in the Second Part of the Iron Age, by Heywood, 1632:

"My brain about again! for thou hast found

"New projects now to work on.”

About, my brain! therefore, (as Mr. M. Mason observes) appears to signify, " be my thoughts shifted into a contrary direction." Steevens.

3

I have heard,

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,] A number of these stories are collected together by Thomas Heywood, in his Actor's Vindication. Steevens.

So, in A Warning for faire Women, 1599:

"Ile tell you, sir, one more to quite your tale.
"A woman that had made away her husband,
"And sitting to behold a tragedy

"At Linne a towne in Norfolke,

"Acted by players trauelling that way,

"Wherein a woman that had murtherd hers

"Was euer haunted with her husbands ghost..
"The passion written by a feeling pen,
"And acted by a good tragedian,

Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions:

For murder, though it hath no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father,
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick; if he do blench,5
I know my course. The spirit, that I have seen,
May be a devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps,
Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,
(As he is very potent with such spirits)
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: The play 's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

[Exit.

ACT III.....SCENE I.

A Room in the Castle.

Enter King, Queen, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King. And can you, by no drift of conference," Get from him, why he puts on this confusion; Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

"She was so mooued with the sight thereof,
"As she cryed out, the play was made by her,
"And openly confest her husbands murder."

4 tent him-] Search his wounds. Johnson.

5

Todd.

if he do blench,] If he shrink, or start. The word is used by Fletcher, in The Night-Walker:

"Blench at no danger, though it be a gallows."

Again, in Gower, De Confessione Amantis, Lib. VI, fol. 128 · "Without blenchinge of mine eie."

Chaucer, in his Knightes Tale, v. 1080, seems to use the verb -to blent in a similar sense :

"And therewithal he blent and cried, a!" Steevens.

See Vol. VI, p. 188, n. 1. Malone.

• More relative than this:] Relative, for convictive. Warburton. Convictive is only the consequential sense. Relative is nearly related, closely connected. Johnson.

7 conference] The, folio reads-circumstance. Steevens.

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Ros. He does confess, he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded;
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,

When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

Queen.

Did he receive you well? Ros. Most like a gentleman.

Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition. Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply.

Queen.

To any pastime?

Did you assay him

Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players We o'er-raught on the way:9 of these we told him; And there did seem in him a kind of joy

To hear of it: They are about the court;

Niggard of question; but, of our demands,

Most free in his reply.] This is given as the description of the conversation of a man whom the speaker found not forward to be sounded; and who kept aloof when they would bring him to confession: but such a description can never pass but at cross-purposes. Shakspeare certainly wrote it just the other way:

Most free of question; but, of our demands,
Niggard in his reply.

That this is the true reading, we need but turn back to the preceding scene, for Hamlet's conduct, to be satisfied. Warburton. Warburton forgets that by question, Shakspeare does not usually mean interrogatory, but discourse; yet in which ever sense the word be taken, this account given by Rosencrantz agrees but ill with the scene between him and Hamlet, as actually represented. M. Mason.

Slow to begin conversation, but free enough in his answers to our demands. Guildenstern has just said that Hamlet kept aloof when they wished to bring him to confess the cause of his distraction: Rosencrantz therefore here must mean, that up to that point, till they touch'd on that, he was free enough in his answers.

9

Malone.

o'er-raught on the way:] O'er-raught is over-reached, that is, over-took. Johnson.

So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. VI, c. iii:

"Having by chance a close advantage view'd,

"He over-raught him," &c.

Again, in the 5th Book of Gawin Douglas's translation of the Aneid:

"War not the samyn mysfortoun me over-raucht." Steevens:

And, as I think, they have already order

This night to play before him.

Pol.

'Tis most true:

And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties,

To hear and see the matter.

King. With all my heart; and it doth much content me To hear him so inclin'd.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,

And drive his purpose on to these delights.

Ros. We shall, my lord. [Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.
King.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too:

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither;

That he, as 'twere by accident, may here1
Affront Ophelia :2

Her father, and myself (lawful espials3)

Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behav'd,

If 't be the affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.

Queen.

I shall obey you:

And, for your part, Ophelia, I do wish,

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope, your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

Oph.

Madam, I wish it may. [Exit Queen.

1 may here] The folio, (I suppose by an error of the, press) reads-may there

Steevens.

2 Affront Ophelia:] To affront, is only to meet directly. Johnson. Affrontare, Ital. So, in The Devil's Charter, 1607:

"Affronting that port where proud Charles should enter."

Again, in Sir W. D'Avenant's Cruel Brother, 1630:

"In sufferance affronts the winter's rage?" Steevens.

3 espials] i. e. spies. So, in King Henry VI, P. I:

66

as he march'd along,

"By your espials were discovered

"Two mightier troops."

See also Vol. X, p. 30, n. 9.

The words "lawful espials," are found only in the folio.

Steevens.

And, for your part,] Thus the quarto, 1604, and the folio. The modern editors, following a quarto of no authority, readfor my part. Malone.

Pol. Ophelia, walk you here:-Gracious, so please you, We will bestow ourselves :-Read on this book; [To OPH. That show of such an exercise may colour

Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,

'Tis too much prov'd,-that, with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

King.
O, 'tis too true! how smart
A lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,7
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burden!

[Aside

Pol. I hear him coming; let 's withdraw, my lord. [Exeunt King and PoL.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question

5 Your loneliness.] Thus the folio. The first and second quar tos read-lowliness. Steevens.

6'Tis too much prov'd,] It is found by too frequent experience,

Johnson.

7 more ugly to the thing that helps it,] That is, compared with the thing that helps it. Johnson.

So, Ben Jonson:

"All that they did was piety to this." Steevens.

8 To be, or not to be,] Of this celebrated soliloquy, which bursting from a man distracted with contrariety of desires, and overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes, is connected rather in the speaker's mind, than on his tongue, I shall endeayour to discover the train, and to show how one sentiment produces another.

Hamlet, knowing himself injured in the most enormous and atrocious degree, and seeing no means of redress, but such as must expose him to the extremity of hazard, meditates on his situation in this manner: Before I can form any rational scheme of action under this pressure of distress, it is necessary to decide, whether, after our present state, we are to be, or not to be. That is the question, which, as it shall be answered, will determine, whether 'tis nobler, and more suitable to the dignity of reason, to suffer the outrages of fortune patiently, or to take arms against them, and by opposing end them, though perhaps with the loss of life. If to die, were to sleep, no more, and by a sleep to end the miseries of our na ture, such a sleep were devoutly to be wished; but if to sleep in death, be to dream, to retain our powers of sensibility, we must pause to consider, in that sleep of death what dreams may come. This consideration makes calamity so long endured; for who would