Must I remember? why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,-
Let me not think on't;-Frailty, thy name is wo-
man !-

A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,—
O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason 27,
Would have mourn'd longer,-married with my
uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules: Within a month;

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married:-O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good;
But break, my heart: : for I must hold my tongue!

Enter HORATIO, Bernardo, and MARCELLUS.
Hor. Hail to your lordship!

27 Oh heaven! a beast that wants discourse of reason.' Mr. Gifford, in a note on Massinger, vol. i. p. 149, is of opinion that we should read, 'discourse and reason.' It has, however, been shown by several quotations that discourse of reason' was the phraseology of Shakspeare's time; and, indeed, the poet again uses the same language in Troilus and Cressida, Act ii. Sc. 2:is your blood

So madly hot, that no discourse of reason—

can qualify the same.'

In the language of the schools, Discourse is that rational act of the mind by which we deduce or infer one thing from another.' Discourse of reason therefore may mean ratiocination. Brutes have not this reasoning faculty, though they have what has been called instinct and memory. Hamlet opposes the discursive power of the intellect of men to the instinct of brutes in Act iv. Sc. 4, which may tend to elucidate his present meaning, if the reader has any doubts. The first quarto reads, a beast devoid of reason.' We have discourse of thought, for the discursive range of thought, in Othello, Act iv. Sc. 2.

Ham.

I am glad to see you well;

Horatio, or I do forget myself.

Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant

ever.

Ham. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you.

And what make you 28 from Wittenberg, Horatio?— Marcellus?

Mar. My good lord,————

Ham. I am very glad to see you; good even, sir.— But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord. Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so: Nor shall you do mine ear that violence, To make it truster of your own report Against yourself: I know you are no truant. But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral. Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student; I think, it was to see my mother's wedding.

Hor. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon. Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd meats 29

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
'Would, I had met my dearest 30 foe in heaven
Or 31 ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father, Methinks, I see my father.

28 i. e. what do you. Vide note on Love's Labour's Lost, Act iv. Sc. 3.

29 It was anciently the custom to give an entertainment at a funeral. The usage was derived from the Roman cæna funeralis; and is not yet disused in the North, where it is called an arvel supper.

30 See note on Twelfth Night, Act v. Sc. 1, p. 335.

31 This is the reading of the quarto of 1604. The first quarto and the folio read, Ere I had ever.'

Hor.

My lord?

Where,

Ham. In my mind's eye 32, Horatio.
Hor. I saw him once, he was a goodly king.
Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
Ham. Saw! who?

Hor. My lord, the king your father.

Ham.

The king my

father?

Hor. Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear; till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

Ham.

For God's love let me hear.

Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waste and middle of the night 33,

Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind.'

Rape of Lucrece.
Chaucer has the expression in his Man of Lawe's Tale:—
'But it were with thilke eyen of his mind,
Which men mowen see whan they ben blinde.'

And Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Love's Triumphs :-
As only by the mind's eye may be seen.'

And Richard Rolle, in his Speculum Vitæ, MS. speaking of Jacob's Dream :

That Jacob sawe with gostly eye.'

i. e. the eye of the mind or spirit.

33 The first quarto, 1603, has:

·

'In the dead vast and middle of the night.'

I suffer the following note to stand as I had written it previous to the discovery of that copy.

We have that vast of night' in The Tempest, Act i. Sc. 2. Shakspeare has been unjustly accused of intending a quibble here between waist and waste. There appears to me nothing incongruous in the expression; on the contrary, by the dead waste and middle of the night,' I think, we have a forcible image of the void stillness of midnight.

Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father, Armed to point, exactly, cap-à-pé,

Appears before them, and, with solemn march, Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd, By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,

Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distill'd 34
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,

Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;

And I with them, the third night kept the watch;
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes; I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.

Ham.

But where was this?.

Hor. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd. Ham. Did you not speak to it?

Hor. My lord, I did: But answer made it none: yet once, methought, It lifted up its head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak;

But, even then, the morning cock crew loud 35;
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,

And vanish'd from our sight.

Ham.

'Tis very strange. Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;

34 The folio reads, bestill'd.

35 It is a most inimitable circumstance in Shakspeare so to have managed this popular idea, as to make the Ghost, which has been so long obstinately silent, and of course must be dismissed by the morning, begin or rather prepare to speak, and to be interrupted at the very critical time of the crowing of a cock. Another poet, according to custom, would have suffered his ghost tamely to vanish, without contriving this start, which is like a start of guilt: to say nothing of the aggravation of the future suspense occasioned by this preparation to speak, and to impart some mysterious secret. Less would have been expected if nothing had been promised.'-T. Warton.

And we did think it writ down in our duty,

To let you know of it.

Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. Hold you the watch to-night?

36

Hor. O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up. Ham. What, look'd he frowningly?

Hor. Most constantly.

Ham.

I would, I had been there.

Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.

Ham.

Very like: Stay'd it long?

Very like,

Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell

a hundred.

Mar. Ber. Longer, longer.

Hor. Not when I saw it.

Ham.

His beard was grizzl'd? no?

Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life, A sable silver'd 37.

36 That part of the helmet which may be lifted up. Mr. Douce has given representations of the beaver, and other parts of a helmet, and fully explained them in his Illustrations, vol. i. p. 443.

37

'And sable curls all silvered o'er with white.'

Shakspeare's Twelfth Sonnet.