The better to beguile. This is for all, I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, [Exeunt. sanctified and pious vows [or bonds] made to heaven. And why should not this pass without suspicion? Warburton. Theobald for bonds substitutes bawds. Johnson. Notwithstanding Warburton's elaborate explanation of this passage, I have not the least doubt but Theobald is right, and that we ought to read bawds instead of bonds. Indeed the present reading is little better than nonsense. Polonius had called Hamlet's vows, brokers, but two lines before, a synonymous word to bawds, and the very title that Shakspeare gives to Pandarus, in his Troilus and Cressida. The words implorators of unholy suits, are an exact description of a bawd; and all such of them as are crafty in their trade, put on the appearance of sanctity, and are "not of that die which their investments show." M. Mason. The old reading is undoubtedly the true one. Do not, says Polonius, believe his vows, for they are merely uttered for the purpose of persuading you to yield to a criminal passion, though they appear only the genuine effusions of a pure and lawful affection, and assume the semblance of those sacred engagements entered into at the altar of wedlock. The bonds here in our poet's thoughts were bonds of love. So, in his 142d Sonnet: those lips of thine, "That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments, "And seal'd false bonds of love, as oft as mine." Again, in The Merchant of Venice: "O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly, "To seal love's bonds new made, than they are wont "Sanctified and pious bonds," are the true bonds of love, or, as our poet has elsewhere expressed it: "A contract and eternal bond of love." Dr. Warburton certainly misunderstood this passage; and when he triumphantly asks " may not this pass without suspicion?" if he means his own comment, the answer is, because it is not perfectly accurate. Malone. 5 I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, Have you so slander any moment's leisure,] Polonius says, in plain terms, that is, not in language less elevated or embellished than before, but in terms that cannot be misunderstood: I would not have you so disgrace your most idle moments, as not to find better employment for them than lord Hamlet's conversation. Johnson. SCENE IV. The Platform. Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS. Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. Ham. What hour now? Hor. Mar. No, it is struck. I think, it lacks of twelve. Hor. Indeed? I heard it not; it then draws near the season, Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk. [A Flourish of Trumpets, and Ordnance shot off, within. What does this mean, my lord? Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,7 Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up-spring reels; an eager air,] That is, a sharp air, aigre, Fr. So, in a subsequent scene: "And curd, like eager droppings into milk." Malone. 7 takes his rouse,] A rouse is a large dose of liquor, a debauch. So, in Othello: "they have given me a rouse already." It should seem from the following passage in Decker's Gul's Hornbook, 1609, that the word rouse was of Danish extraction: "Teach me, thou soveraigne skinker, how to take the German's upsy freeze, the Danish rousa, the Switzer's stoop of rhenish," &c. Steevens. 8 Keeps wassel,] See Vol, VII. p. 74, n. 8. Again, in The Hog hath lost his Pearl, 1614: 'By Croesus name and by his castle, "Where winter nights he keepeth wassel." i. e. devotes his nights to jollity. Steevens. 9 the swaggering up-spring-] The blustering upstart. Johnson. It appears from the following passage, in Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany, by Chapman, that the up-spring was a German dance: "We Germans have no changes in our dances; "An almain and an up-spring, that is all." Spring was anciently the name of a tune: so in Beaumont and Fletcher's Prophetess: 66 we will meet him, "And strike him such new springs · This word is used by G. Douglas in his translation of Virgil, and, I think, by Chaucer. Again, in an old Scots proverb: “ Another would play a spring, ere you tune your pipes." Steevens. And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, Hor. Ham. Ay, marry, is 't: Is it a custom? But to my mind,—though I am native here, And to the manner born,-it is a custom More honour'd in the breach, than the observance. From our achievements, though perform'd at height, 1 thus bray out —] So, in Chapman's version of the 5th Iliad: he laid out such a throat "As if nine or ten thousand men had brayd out all their breaths This heavy-headed revel, east and west,] This heavy-headed revel makes us traduced east and west, and taxed of other na tions. Johnson. By east and west, as Mr. Edwards has observed, is meant, throughout the world; from one end of it to the other. This and the following twenty-one lines have been restored from the quarto. Malone. They clepe us, drunkards,] And well our Englishmen might; for in Queen Elizabeth's time there was a Dane in London, of whom the following mention is made in a collection of characters entitled, Looke to it, for Ile stab ye, no date: "You that will drinke Keynaldo unto deth, "The Dane that would carowse out of his boote." Mr. M. Mason adds, that " it appears from one of Howell's letters, dated at Hamburgh in the year 1632, that the then King of Denmark had not degenerated from his jovial predecessor.In his account of an entertainment given by his majesty to the Earl of Leicester, he tells us, that the king, after beginning thirty-five toasts, was carried away in his chair, and that all the officers of the court were drunk." Steevens. See also the Nuge Antique, Vol. II, p. 133, for the scene of drunkenness introduced into the court of James I, by the King' of Denmark, in 1606. Roger Ascham in one of his Letters, mentions being present at an entertainment where the Emperor of Germany seemed in drinking to rival the King of Denmark: "The Emperor, (says he) drank the best that ever I saw; he had his head in the glass five times as long as any of us, and never drank less than a good quart at once of Rhenish wine." Reed. The pith and marrow of our attribute. That, for some vicious mole of nature in them, By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason; Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, 4 The pith and marrow of our attribute.] The best and most valuable part of the praise that would be otherwise attributed to us. Johnson. That, for some vicious mole of nature in them, As, in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose his origin,)] We have the same sentiment in The Rape of Lucrece: "For marks descried in man's nativity "Are nature's fault, not their own infamy." Mr. Theobald, without necessity, altered mole to mould. The reading of the old copies is fully supported by a passage in King John: "Patch'd with foul moles, and eye-offending marks.” Malone. 6 complexion,] i. e. humour; as sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatick, &c. Warburton. The quarto, 1604, for the has their; as a few lines lower it has his virtues, instead of their virtues. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. Malone. The form of plausive manners;] That intermingles too much with their manners; infects and corrupts them. See Cymbeline, Act III, sc. iv. Plausive in our poet's age signified gracious, pleasing, popular. So, in All's Well that Ends Well: his plausive words "He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them, Plausible, in which sense plausive is here used, is defined by Cawdey, in his Alphabetical Table, &c. 1604: "Pleasing, or received joyfully and willingly." Malone. 8 -fortune's star,] The word star in the text signifies a scar of that appearance. It is a term of farriery: the white star or mark so common on the forehead of a dark coloured horse, is usually produced by making a scar on the place. Ritson. -fortune's star,] Some accidental blemish, the consequence of the overgrowth of some complexion or humour allotted to us by Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,' Shall in the general censure take corruption fortune at our birth, or some vicious habit accidentally quirë d afterwards. Theobald, plausibly enough, would read-fortune's scar. The emendation may be supported by a passage in Antony and Cleopatra: "The scars upon your honour therefore he "Not as deserv'd." Malone. 9 As infinite as man may undergo,)] As large as can be accumulated upon man. Johnson. So, in Measure for Measure: 1. "To undergo such ample grace and honour,-" Steevens. The dram of base Doth all the noble substance often dout, To his own scandal.] I once proposed to read-Doth all the noble substance (i. e. the sum of good qualities) oft do out. We should now say,-To its own scandal; but his and its are perpctually confounded in the old copies. As I understand the passage, there is little difficulty in it. This is one of the phrases which at present are neither employed in writing, nor perhaps are reconcileable to propriety of language. To do a thing out, is to extinguish it, or to efface or obliterate any thing painted or written. In the first of these significations it is used by Drayton, in the 5th Canto of his Barons' Wars: "Was ta'en in battle, and his eyes out-done." My conjecture-do out, instead of dout, might have received support from the pronunciation of this verb in Warwickshire, where they always say-" dout the candle,"-" dout the fire;" i. e. put out or extinguish them. The forfex by which a candle is extinguished is also there called-a douter. Dout, however, is a word formed by the coalescence of two others,-(do and out) like don for do on, doff for do off, both of which are used by Shakspeare. The word in question (and with the same blunder in spelling) "That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, i. e. put or do them out. I therefore now think we should read: for surely it is needless to say |