With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,—
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along: for all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking, by our late dear brother's death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
To our most valiant brother.-So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,-
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose,-to suppress
His farther gait herein, in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject: and we here despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greetings to old Norway;
Giving to you no farther personal power

To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.

Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.

Cor. Vol. In that, and all things, will we show our

duty.

King. We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.

[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.

And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?

Thus much the business is :] All the preceding part of this speech is not found in the quarto, 1603.

For BEARERS of this greeting-] The folio, 1623, less correctly, "For bearing," &c. The later folios, as usual, copy the first.

You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes ?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,

And lose your voice: what would'st thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What would'st thou have, Laertes?

Laer.

My dread lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation,

Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,

My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
King. Have you your father's leave? What says
Polonius?

Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave',

By laboursome petition; and, at last,

Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy best graces: spend it at thy will.But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind3. [Aside. King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

My DREAD lord,] So every quarto but the first, which reads, "My gracious lord:" the folio, 1623, "Dread my lord," which was not by any means an unusual form of expression.

7 wrung from me my slow leave,] This and the two following lines are in the quarto, 1604, and in every subsequent edition in that form, but not in the folios the quarto, 1603, reads,

"He hath, my lord, wrung from me a forc'd grant,

And, I beseech you, grant your highness' leave."

8 A little more than kin, and less than kind.] This expression seems to have been proverbial. In Rowley's "Search for Money," 1609, (reprinted for the Percy Society) we meet with the following:-" I would he were not so near to us in kindred, then sure he would be nearer in kindness."-Sign. B.

Ham. Not so, my lord; I am too much i'the sun.
Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off3,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids'
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know'st, 'tis common; all that live must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.

Queen.

If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems.

Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother?,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within, which passeth show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
King. "Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,
Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound

9 cast thy NIGHTED colour off,] The quarto, 1603, has no corresponding passage, and all the other quartos have "nighted," which the folio, 1623, injuriously alters to nightly.

-thy VAILED lids] To "vail" was to lower. See Vol. vi. p. 201, and various previous instances there referred to.

2 — good mother,] So the folio, 1623, and no doubt rightly. Boswell informs us that "the quarto" reads “cool mother:” no quarto that I have seen so reads; but the quarto, 1604, has "coold mother," which the quarto, 1611, changes to could smother, in which it is followed by the subsequent quarto impression. In the quarto, 1603, the whole speech is addressed to the king: "My lord, 'tis not the sable suit I wear," &c. The quarto, 1604, lower down, reads, "chapes of grief," subsequently altered to "shapes of grief," excepting in the folio, 1623, which has "shows." In the next line, the quarto, 1604, having the letter », in "denote," turned, led some of the printers of the later quartos to suppose that the word devout was intended.

In filial obligation, for some term,

To do obsequious sorrow3: but to persevere
In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what, we know, must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
"This must be so." We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us.

As of a father; for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And, with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your
intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg
It is most retrograde to our desire;

And, we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet: I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg. Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam. King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply: Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come; This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof, No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,

3 To do OBSEQUIOUS sorrow :] i. e. sorrow as at obsequies. See Vol. v. pp. 270 and 352.

But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,

And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Flourish. Exeunt King, Queen, Lords, &c. POLONIUS, and LAERTES.

Ham. O! that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew";

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter". O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead!-nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
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 woman!—
A little month; or ere those shoes were old,

* And the king's ROUSE—] i. e. carouse: the word “ rouse was often used: and Brand, in his "Popular Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 228, (as Todd remarks) tells us that as late as the reign of Charles II. "the Danish rowsa" was notorious in this country. This may be the same as the German rausch, drunkenness, and hence "rouse" and carouse.

5 RESOLVE itself into a dew ;] "Resolve" is dissolve. See Vol. iv. p. 92. His canon 'gainst SELF-slaughter!] The quartos 1604, &c., read “sealeslaughter." The same remark will apply to "weary," in the next line, which is misprinted wary. The folio is right in both places.

7 Fie on't! O fie !] The folio, 1623, to the injury of the metre, and in opposition to the quartos, reads, " Fie on't! O fie fie!"

* That he might not BETEEM the winds of heaven] To "beteem " here is to permit or suffer: the word has occurred in a different sense in "MidsummerNight's Dream," Vol. ii. p. 395, being there to be taken as the provincial word teem, which is still used for pour out in the North of England. It stands beteen in the three earliest folios, and between in the fourth, which Southern in his copy altered to permit, as indeed Rowe printed it. The quartos (excepting that of 1603, where the line is wanting) have "beteem."