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

90

In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow: 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 100
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,

110

watamien Shap up

GENERAL

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. 120
King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:

Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
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.

130

[Flourish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.
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! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah 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, 140
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
125. “Denmark”; i. e. the king.-C. H. H.

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
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears: why she, even she,-
O God! a beast that wants discourse of
150

reason

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, Marcellus, and Bernado.

159. “I must hold my tongue"; "This tædium vitæ is a common oppression on minds cast in the Hamlet mould, and is caused by disproportionate mental exertion, which necessitates exhaustion of bodily feeling. Where there is a just coincidence of external and internal action, pleasure is always the result; but where the former is deficient, and the mind's appetency of the ideal is unchecked, realities will seem cold and unmoving. In such cases, passion combines itself with the indefinite alone. In this mood of his mind, the relation of the appearance of his father's spirit in arms is made all at once to Hamlet:-it is-Horatio's speech, in particular—a perfect model of the true style of dramatic narrative; the purest poetry, and yet in the most natural language, equally remote from the ink-horn and the plough" (Coleridge).-H. N. H.

Hor. Hail to your lordship!
Ham.

I am glad to see you well: 160

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 from Wittenberg, Hor-
atio?
Marcellus?

Mar. My good lord?

Ham. I am very glad to see you. [To Ber.] Good even, sir.

170

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 my 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.

167. The words, "Good even, sir,” are evidently addressed to Bernardo, whom Hamlet has not before known; but as he now meets him in company with old acquaintances, like a true gentleman, as he is, he gives him a salutation of kindness. Some editors have changed even to morning, because Marcellus has said before of Hamlet, "I this morning know where we shall find him." It needs but be remembered that good even was the common salutation after noon.-"What make you?" in the preceding speech, is the old language for, "what do you?"-H. N. H.

Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked

meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father!--methinks I see my father.
Hor. O where, my lord?

Ham.
In my mind's eye,
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?

180

190

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 vast and middle of the night,

187. "He was a man"; some would read this as if it were pointed thus: "He was a man: take him for all in all," &c.; laying marked stress on man, as if it were meant to intimate a correction of Horatio's "goodly king." There is, we suspect, no likelihood that the Poet had any such thought, as there is no reason why he should have had.-H. N. H.

190. "Saw? who?"; the original has no mark after "saw." In colloquial language, it was common, as indeed it still is, thus to use the nominative where strict grammar would require the objective. Modern editions embellish the two words with various pointing; as above: "Saw? who?" or thus: "Saw! who?”—H. N. H.