SCENE III.

A Room in Polonius' House.

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA.

LAER. My necessaries are embark'd; farewell:

And, fifter, as the winds give benefit,

And convoy is assistant, do not fleер,

But let me hear from you.

OPH.

Do you doubt that?

LAER. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,

Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lafting,
The perfume and fuppliance of a minute ; +

LAER.

Think it no more:

For nature, crefcent, does not grow alone

+ The perfume and fuppliance of a minute ;) Thus the quarto: the folio has it :

sweet, not lafting,

The fuppliance of a minute.

It is plain that perfume is necessary to exemplify the idea of sweet, not lafting. With the word fuppliance I am not fatisfied, and yet dare hardly offer what I imagine to be right. I suspect that foffance, or fome such word, formed from the Italian, was then used for the act of fumigating with sweet scents. JOHNSON.

The perfume and fuppliance of a minute; i. e. what is supplied to us for a minute; or, as Mr. M. Mason supposes, "an amusement to fill up a vacant moment, and render it agreeable." STEEVENS. The words perfume and, which are found in the quarto, 1604, were omitted in the folio. MALONE.

:

In thews, and bulk; but, as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and foul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps, he loves you now;
And now no foil, nor cautel, doth besmirch
The virtue of his will: but, you must fear,
His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth: 7
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The safety and the health of the whole state;*

5 In thews,] i. e. in finews, mufcular strength. So, in King Henry IV. Part II: "Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature," &c. See Vol. IX. p. 137, n. 7. STEEVENS.

6 And now no foil, nor cautel, doth befmirch

The virtue of his will:] From cautela, which signifies only a prudent forefight or caution; but, paffing through French hands, it loft its innocence, and now fignifies fraud, deceit. And fo he uses the adjective in Julius Cæfar:

"Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous."

WARBURTON.

So, in the second part of Greene's Art of Coneycatching, 1592: and their fubtill cautels to amend the statute." To amend

the ftatute, was the cant phrafe for evading the law. STEEVENS. Cautel is fubtlety or deceit. Minsheu in his Dictionary, 1617, defines it, "A crafty way to deceive." The word is again used by Shakspeare in A Lover's Complaint:

" In him a plenitude of fubtle matter,

Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives."

MALONE.

Virtue feems here to comprise both excellence and power, and may be explained the pure effect. JOHNSON.

The virtue of his will means, his virtuous intentions. Cautel means craft. So, Coriolanus says:

- be caught by cautelous baits and practice."

M. MASON.

MALONE.

1 For he himself &c.] This line is not in the quarto. 8 The safety and the health of the whole ftate;] Thus the quarto, 1604, except that it has this whole ftate, and the second the is inadvertently omitted. The folio reads:

The fanctity and health of the whole ftate.

This is another proof of arbitrary alterations being fometimes

And therefore must his choice be circumfcrib'd
Unto the voice and yielding of that body,
Whereof he is the head: Then if he says, he loves

you,

It fits your wisdom fo far to believe it,
As he in his particular act and place

May give his saying deed; which is no further,
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what lofs your honour may fustain,
If with too credent ear you lift his fongs;

Or lofe your heart; or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd importunity.

2

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of defire.
The chariest maid + is prodigal enough,
If the unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.

made in the folio. The editor, finding the metre defective, in consequence of the article being omitted before health, instead of fupplying it, for safety substituted a word of three syllables.

MALONE.

9 May give his saying deed;] So, in Timon of Athens: " -the deed of faying is quite out of use." Again, in Troilus and Creffida:

2

3

Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue."

-unmaster'd] i. e. licentious. JOHNSON.

MALONE.

- keep you in the rear &c.] That is, do not advance fo far as your affection would lead you. JOHNSON.

The charieft maid-] Chary is cautious. So, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "Love requires not chaûity, but that her foldiers be chary." Again, "She liveth chaftly enough, that liveth charily." STEEVENS.

VOL. XV.

E

!

Be wary then: best safety lies in fear;
Youth to itself rebels, though none elfe near.

OPH. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart: But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilft, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.+

LAER.

O, fear me not.

I stay too long;-But here my father comes.

Enter POLONIUS.

A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

POL. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for

shame;

The wind fits in the shoulder of your fail,

4

5

- recks not his own read.) That is, heeds not his own lessons. POPE.

So, in the old Morality of Hycke Scorner:
“I reck not a feder."

Again, ibidem:

"And of thy living, I reed amend thee."

Ben Jonfon uses the word reed in his Cataline :

"So that thou could'st not move

Against a publick reed."

Dif

Again, in Sir Tho. North's tranflation of Plutarch:
patch, I read you, for your enterprize is betray'd." Again, the

old proverb, in the Towo angry Women of Abington, 1599:

"Take heed, is a good reed."

i. e. good counsel, good advice. STEEVENS.

So, Sternhold, Pfalmi:

- that hath not lent

"To wicked rede his ear." BLACKSTONE.

the shoulder of your fail,] This is a common fea phrafe.

STEEVENS.

And you are staid for: There,-my blessing with
you; [Laying his hand on LAERTES' head.
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy foul with hooks of steel;1
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware

6 And these few precepts in thy memory

8

Look thou character.] i. e. write; strongly infix. The fame

phrafe is again used by our author in his 122d Sonnet :

-thy tables are within my brain

" Full character'd with lasting memory."

Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

I do conjure thee,

"Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

"Are visibly character'd and engrav'd." MALONE.

1 Grapple them to thy foul with hooks of fleel ;) The old copies read-with hoops of steel. I have no doubt that this was a corruption in the original quarto of 1604, arifing, like many others, from fimilitude of sounds. The emendation, which was made by Mr. Pope, and adopted by three subsequent editors, is strongly fupported by the word grapple. See Minsheu's Dictionary, 1617: "To book or grapple, viz. to grapple and to board a ship."

A grapple is an inftrument with several hooks to lay hold of a ship, in order to board it.

This correction is also justified by our poet's 137th Sonnet:

Why of eyes' falfhood haft thou forged books,

"Whereto the judgement of my heart is ty'd?"

It may be alfo obferved, that books are fometimes made of steel, but hoops never. MALONE.

We have, however, in King Henry IV. P. II:

"A hop of gold to bind thy brothers in."

The former part of the phrafe occurs alfo in Macbeth:

"Grapples you to the heart and love of us." STEEVENS.

* But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.) The literal sense is,