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Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech. [To Laer.
We'll put the matter to the present push.
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your fon.
This grave shall have a living monument:
An hour of quiet thereby shall we fee;
'Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

SCENE III.

A Hall, in the Palace.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio.

[Exeunt.

Ham. So much for this, fir. "Now shall you fee the other. You do remember all the circumftance ?

Hor, Remember it, my lord?

Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,

W

That would not let me fleep; " methought, I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. - Rafhly,

This direction by R.

$ So the 2d and 3d qu's and C. Thereby seems to refer to the living monument, i. e. Hamlet who is to be murdered. The Ist q. reads thirty; all the rest sportly. This description R.'s.

u The fo's and R. read, Now let me See the other, &c.

w The ist q. reads my thought.

* The French word for mutineers. R. P. and H. read, mutineers.

y P. and H. omit the.

z P. alters this as follows-Rasiness (and prais'd be rashness for it) lets us know, &c. and is followed by all but J. This new reading of P.'s gives an occa

:

fion to W. of altering Our to Or in the next line. He says the sense of this reading (as it stands in P.) is, Our rafhness lers us know that our indifcretion ferves us well, when, &c. But this, he fays, could never be Shakespeare's fenfe; and that we should read and point thus, Rafhness, (and prais'd be rafhness for it) lets us know; or indifcretion, &c. See Heath in loc.

But there is no difficulty in the pafsage if we take it as we find it in all the editions before P. Hamlet is proceeding in his story, but interrupts himself with a reflection, Let us know, &c, to the end of the speech.

And

1

And prais'd be rashness for it,- (Let us know,

Our indifcretion fometimes ferves us well,

When our deep plots do fail; and that should learn us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.)

Hor. That is moft certain.

Ham. Up from my cabin,

My fea-gown scarft about me, in the dark
Grop'd I to find out them; had my defire,
Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again; making fo bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to f unfold
Their grand commiffion; where I found, Horatio,
A royal knavery; an exact command,

h

i

Larded with many feveral forts of 1 reasons,
Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,
With, ho! fuch buggs and goblins in my life;
That on the supervise, no leisure bated,

No, not to stay the grinding of the ax,

My head fhould be ftruck off.

Hor. Is't poffible?

Ham. Here's the commiffion, read it at more leifure; But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed?

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The 1ft q. 4th f. and R. read pall; the 2d and 3d q. fall; the 1ft, 2d and 3d fo's, paule.

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d So the qu's; the word learn is fometimes taken in this fenfe by Shakespeare and other writers. All the reft read teach.

h The 2d f. reads forts.

i The fo's and R. read reafon.

k The 2d, 3d and 4th fo's and R. omit now: The 1ft f, reads, bear me bow I did, &c.

Hor.

Hor. I beseech you.

Ham. Being thus benetted round with villains ",

• Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play: I sat me down,
Devis'd a new commiffion, wrote it fair;
I once did hold it, as our Statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning; but, fir, now
It did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know
Th' effect of what I wrote ?

Hor. Ay, good my lord.

1

Ham. An earnest conjuration from the king,

As England was his faithful tributary,

As love between them, ' like the palm " might flourish,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear,
And stand a comma 'tween their amities

And many fuch like as's of great charge;
That on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,

1 C. reads, Ay, beseech you. m 7. reads villany.

After villains H. reads and. • The qu's and C. read Or for Ere. PW. reads mark.

W. and T. read bane; objecting against brains as nonfenfe; but brains may be here read a metonymy of cause for effect, and made use of for the effect of Hamlet's brain, the counterplot. Vide Heath in loc.

* H. reads, They having begun, &c. • The fo's and R. read effetts.

The fo's and R. read as for like.

u The fo's and R. read should for might.

wH. reads cement: W. and C. commere, a go-between, a procuress. See Heath in loc.

* The qu's read, as fir; fo's, affis. I shall here, for the great curiofity of it, transcribe an explanatory note of Dr. J.'s on this passage:

- As's of great charge;] Affes heavily loaded.

y The fo's and R. read kποτο. z P. omits of; followed by the rest, except C. and J.

He

3

He fhould thofe bearers put to fudden death

Not thriving time allow'd.

Hor, How was this feal'd?

Ham. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant; I had my father's fignet in my purse,

Which was the model of that Danish feal;

Folded the writ up in the form of th' other,

f

Subfcrib'd it, gave 't th' impreffion, plac'd it safely,
The changeling never known; now, the next day
Was our fea-fight, and what to this was ↳ fequent
Thou know'ft already.

Hor. So, Guildenflern and Rofencraus go to't.

Ham. IVhy, man, they did make love to this employment. They are not near my confcience; their defeat

Doth by their own infinuation grow:

k

'Tis dangerous when the bafer nature comes Between the pafs, and fell incensed points

Of mighty appofites.

Hor. Why, what a king is this!

a So the qu's; the fo's and all the he has blotted out a beautiful metaphor, reft read the.

No.

and given us tame profe in the room of

b The 4th f. R. P. and H. read fpirited poetry. But is it not strange that in this he should be followed by

The fo's, R. and P.'s q. read or- H.? dinate.

d Before folded R. and all after him

read I.

e The fo's, R. and all after, omit the.

f The 2d, 3d and 4th fo's, R. and all after, except C. read gave, omitting the contracted it.

g P. alters this as follows, The change was never known, &c. By which means

h The fo's read fement for fequent. iThis line in italic is omitted in the qu's, P. and H.

k The fo's and R. read debate for defeat.

1 Qu's, does.

m The 2d, 3d and 4th fo's, R. P. and H. omit the. H. reads, ruben bafer natures come.

Ham.

Ham. Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon ? He that hath kill'd my king, and whor'd my mother, Popt in between th' election and my hopes, Thrown out his angle for my proper life, And with fuch cozenage; is't not perfect confcience • To quit him with this arm? P and is't not to be damn'd, To let this canker of our nature come

In further evil?

Hor. It must be shortly known to him from England, What is the issue of the business there.

Ham. It will be short. The interim is mine;

And a man's life's no more than to fay, one.
But I am very forry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For by the image of my cause I fee

The portraiture of his; I'll a count his ' favours;
But, fure, the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a tow'ring passion.

Hor. Peace, who comes here?

Think thee, i. e. bethink thyself, imp. mood: But the fo's read think ft thee, making it an interrogation; which R. to make it better grammar, alters to think'ft thou; followed by the after-editors, except C.

• These lines in italic are not in the จูน'ร.

PH. omits and.

9 The fo's read count, i. e. make account of, or value. R. alters this to court, followed by all the reft. Court is not so proper a word for Hamlet, when applied to his inferior Laertes.

vour.

T. and all after, except C. read fa

SCENE

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