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This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not firange
That even our loves thould with our fortunes change..
For 'tis a queftion left us yet to prove,

Whether love leads fortune, or elie fortune love?
The great man down, you mark, his fav'rite flies;
The poor advanced, makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth Love on Fortune tend,
For who not needs, shall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly feafons him his enemy.

But orderly to end where I begun,

Our wills and fates do fo contrary run,
That our devices ftill are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
Think still thou wilt no fecond hufband wed;
But die thy thoughts when thy firft Lord is dead.
Duch. Nor earth to give me food, nor heaven
light!

Sport and repofe lock from me day and night!
To defperation turn my truft and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prifon be my scope!
Each oppofite, that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy !
Both here, and hence, purfue me lafting ftrife!
If once a widow, ever I be a wife.

Ham. If the fhould break it now

Duke. Tis deeply fworn; fweet, leave me here
a while;

My fpirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with fleep.

Duch. Sleep rock thy brain,

[Sleeps.

And never come mifchance between us twain !

[Exit.

Ham. Madam, how like you this play?
Queen. The lady protefts too much, methinks.

Ham. Oh, but she'll keep her word.

King. Have you heard the argument? is there ne offence in't?

Ham. No, no, they do but jeft, poison in jeft, nooffence i'the world.

King. What do you call the play? Ham. The Moufe-Trap; Marry, how? tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna; Gonzago is the Duke's name. his wife's Baptifta; you fhall fee anon, 'tis a knavish piece of work; but what o' that? your Majefty, and we that have free fouls, it touches us not; let the galled jade winch, our withers are unrung.

Enter LUCIANUS.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the Duke. Oph. You are as good as a Chorus, my Lord. Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could fee the puppets dallying. Oph. You are keen, my Lord, you are keen. Ham. It would coft you a groaning to take off my edge.

Oph. Still better and worse. (40)

(40) Still worfe and worse.

Ham. So you must take your husbands.] Surely, this is the moft uncomfortable leffon that ever was preached to the poor ladies; and I can't help wifhing, for our own fakes too, it mayn't be true. 'Tis too foul a blot upon our reputations, that every husband that a woman takes must be worse than her former. The Poet, I am pretty certain, intended no fuch fcandal upon the fex. But what a precious collator of copies is Mr Pope! All the old Quartos and Folios read; Ophel. Still better and worse.

Ham. So you mistake husbands.

Hamlet is talking to her in fuch grofs double entenders that fhe is forced to parry them by indirect anfwers; and remarks, that though his wit be fmarter, yet his meaning is more blunt. This I think is the fenfe of her

-Still bet

Ham. So you mistake your husbands. Begin, murderer.--Leave thy damnable faces, and begin.

Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge. Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing:

Confederate feason, and no creature seeing:
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blafted, thrice infected, (41)
Thy natural magic, and dire property,

On wholfome life ufurp immediately.

[Pours the poifon into his ears. Ham. He poifons him i' th' garden for's eftate; his name's Gonzago; the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian. You fhall fee anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

ter and worse. This puts Hamlet in mind of the words in the church fervice of matrimony, and he replies, fo you mistake husbands, i. e. fo you take husbands and find yourfelves mistaken in them.

(41) With Hecate's bane thrice blusted,] Here again Mr Pope appoves himself a worthy collator; for the old Quartos and Folios concur in reading, as I have reformed the text; With Hecate's bann thrice blasted.

i.e. With her curfe, execration.

So, in Timon;

Take thou that too, with multiplying banns. 2 Henry VI.

Ay, every joint fliould feem to curfe and bann. And again;

You bade me bann, and will you bid me leave? Ibid. &c. &c. &c.

Befides, words of execreation have been always practised in magical operations. So Horace, to give a single instance;

Canidia, parce vocibus tandem facris.

Upon which words Parphyrion has given us this short comment. Dialogus nunc de facris, quia facrum religiofum et execrabile fignificat Hermannus Figulus thus explains it; Vocibus facris.] Malis cantibus, et verbis magicis. And Badius Afcentius fill nearer to our purpofe; facris] id eft, diris et imprecationilusin me abftine.

Oph. The King rifes.

Ham. What, frighted with falfe fire!
Queen. How fares my Lord?

Pol. Give o'er the play..

King. Give me fome light. Away!

All. Lights, lights, lights!

Manent HAMLET and HORATIO.

[Exeunt.

Ham. Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;

For fome must watch, whilft fome must fleep;

So runs the world away.

Would not this, Sir, and a forest of feathers, (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me) (42)

(42) With two provincial rofes on my rayed shoes,

Get me a fellowship in a city of players, Sir?] I once fufpected that we ought to read raifed fhoes. By a foreli of feathers, he certainly alludes to the plumes worn by the stage heroes; as, by rafed fhoes he would to their buskins; the cothuri, as they were called by the Romans, which were as much higher in the heel than other common fhoes, as the choppines worn by the Venetians are. It was the known cuffom of the tragedians of old, that they might the nearer, refemble the heroes they perfonated, to make themselves as tall in ftature, and by an artificial help to found, to fpeak as big as they poflibly could. To both thefe Horace has alluded;

-magnumque loquio nitique cothurne. And Lucian, defcribing a tragedian, calls him are faros ἐμβάταις ὑψηλοῖς ἐποχέμενος, a fellow carried upon high fhoes; and these were raised to fuch a degree, that the fame author calls one, who had pulled them off, καλαβὰς ἀπὸ τῶν ἐμβάδων, defcending from this buskins. But, perhaps, rayed fhocs may have been our Author's expreffion, i. c. ftriped, fpangled, enriched with fome fhining ornaments; bra&eaticales, fhoes variegated with rayes of gold. Bradea, a ray of goid, or any other metal. Littleton. A ray of gold, fueille d'or. Cotgrave. In a city of players.] Thus Mr Pope, with fome of the worfer editions; but we must read, cry with the better copies, i. e. in the vote and fuffrage of a company of players.

with two provincial rofes on my rayed fhoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, Sir?

Hor. Half a share.

Ham. A whole one, I.

"For thou doft know, oh Damon dear,
"This realm dismantled was
"Of Jove himself, and now reigns here
“A very, very,---(43) paddock.”

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For all the country in a general voice
Cried hate upon him.

Ibid.

(43) A very very peacock.] The old copies have it paicek, paiacke, and pajocke. I fubftituted paddock, as nearest to the traces of the corrupted reading. I have, as Mr Pope fays, been willing to fubftitute any thing in the place of his pracock. He thinks a fable alluded to of the birds chufing a king; inficad of the eagle a peacock. I fuppofe, he must mean the fable of Barlandus, in which it is faid the birds, being weary of their state of anarchy, moved for the setting up of a king; and the peacock was elected on account of his gay feathers. But, with fubmiflion, in this paffage of Shakefpeare, there is not the least mention made of the eagle in antithefis to the peacock; and it must be by a very uncommon figure that Jove himself ftands in the place of his bird. I think Hamlet is fetting his father's and uncle's characters in contraft to each other, and means to fay, that by his father's death the state was stripped of a godlike monarch, and that now in his ftead reigned the most despicable poisonous animal that could be: a mere paadock or toaa. Pad, bufɔ, rubeta major, a toad. Bel is, padde. Vid. Semnerum, Minshew, &c. Our Author was very well acquainted with the word, and has used it more than once.

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