If thou canst mutiny in a matron's bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, Proclaim no fhame, When the compulfive ardour gives the charge; 6 And Reafon panders Will. Queen. O Hamlet, fpeak no more, Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul, And there I fee fuch black and As will not leave their tinct. Ham. Nay, but to live 8 grained fpots, In the rank fweat of an incestuous bed, Stew'd in corruption, honying and making love Queen. Oh, fpeak no more; These words like daggers enter in mine ears. Ham. A murderer, and a villain! A flave, that is not twentieth part the tythe 2 Enter Ghoft. Ham. A King of fhreds and patches- [Starting up. You heav'nly guards! What would your gracious figure? Queen. Alas, he's mad Ham. Do you not come your tardy fon to chide, That's, laps'd in time and paffion, lets go by Th' important acting of your dread command? O fay! Ghost. Do not forget. This vifitation Is but to whet thy almoft blunted purpose. Ham. How is it with you, Lady? That thus you bend your eye on vacancy, 2 A King of fored and patches.] This is faid, purfuing the idea of the Vice of Kings. The Vice was dreffed as a fool, in a coat of party-coloured patches. 3 laps'd in time and paf fion,-] That having fuf R look? Ham. On him! on him!-Look he glares! His form and caufe conjoin'd, preaching to ftones, Would make them capable. Do not look on me, Left with this piteous action you convert My ftern effects; then what I have to do, Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood. Queen. To whom do you fpeak this? Ham. Do you fee nothing there? [Pointing to the Gheft. Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I fee. Ham. Nor did you nothing hear? Queen. No, nothing but ourselves. Ham. Why, look you there! Look, how it steals away! My father in his habit as he liv'd! Look, where he goes ev'n now, out at the portal. [Exit Ghoft. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain, This bodilefs creation Ecftafy Is very cunning in. Ham. What Ecstasy? My pulfe, as yours, doth temp'rately keep time, And I the matter will re-word; which madnefs 5-do not Spread the compoft, &c.] Do not, by any new in dulgence, heighten your former offences. For, in the fatness of these purfy times, Yea, curb and wooe, for leave to do it good. Queen. Oh Hamlet! thou haft cleft my heart in twain. Ham. O, throw away the worfer part of it, 7 That monster custom, who all fense doth eat And that shall lend a kind of eafinefs 8 [Pointing to Polonius. I do repent: but heav'ns have pleas'd it fo, * To punish this with me, and me with this That I must be their scourge and minister. 6-carb-] That is, bend and truckle. 7 That monster cuft:m, who all Jenfe doth eat Of Habit's Devil, is angel yet in this:] This pafiage is left out in the two elder folio's: It is certainly corrupt, and the play. ers did the discreet part to ftifle what they did not underftand. Habit's Devil certainly arofe from fome conceited tamperer with the text, who thought it was neceffary, in contraft to Angel. The emendation of the text I owe to the fagacity of Dr. Thirly. That morfter cuft. m, ulo al fenfe doth eat, Of habits evil, is angel, &c. THEOBALD. I think Thilby's conjecture wrong, though the fucceeding editors have followed it; Argel and Devil are evidently oppoted, 8 To punish this with me, &c.] This is Hanmer's reading; the other editions have it, R 3 To punish me with this, and this with me. I will I will bestow him, and will answer well The death I gave him. So, again, good night! Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind. Ham. Not this by no means, that I bid you do. That I effentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. "Twere good, you let him know, And break your own neck down. Queen. Be thou affur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou haft faid to me. Ham. I must to England, you know that? 1 Queen. Alack, I had forgot; 'tis fo concluded on. Ham. There's Letters fealed, and my two school, fellows, 2. Whom I will truft, as I will adders fang'd; 9 Let the fond King-] The old quarto reads, Let the bleat Kingi.e bloed, which is better, as more expreffive of the fpeaker's 2 —adders fang'd;] That is, Adiers with their fans, or po Jonous teeth, undrawn. It has been the practice of mountebanks to boast the efficacy of their an tidotes by playing with viThere's Letter feal'd, &c.] p.r, but they firft difabled their The ten following verfes are fargs. contempt. WARBURTON. added out of the old edition. |