SCENE V. Elsinore. A Room in the Castle.

Enter Queen and HORATIO.

Queen. -I will not speak with her.

Hor. She is importunate; indeed, distract; Her mood will needs be pitied.

Queen.

What would she have?

Hor. She speaks much of her father; says she

hears

There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her

heart;

Spurns enviously1 at straws; speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it doth move

2

The hearers to collection; they aim3 at it,

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; Which, as her winks and nods, and gestures yield them, Indeed, would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.5

Queen. 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Let her come in."

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

[Exit HORATIO.

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss;
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

7

1 « Enviously, and spitefully," are treated as synonymous by our old writers.

2 To collection, that is, to gather or deduce consequences from such premises.

3 The quartos read yawn. To aim is to guess.

4 Folio

would.

5 Unhappily, that is, mischievously.

6 The three first lines of this speech are given to Horatio in the quarto.

7 Shakspeare is not singular in his use of amiss as a substantive. Several instances are adduced by Steevens, and more by Mr. Nares, in his Glossary. "Each toy" is each trifle.

Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHElia.

Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark? Queen. How now, Ophelia ?

Oph. How should I your true love know,

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon.1

[Singing.

Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? Oph. Say you? nay; 'pray you, mark.

Queen. Alas, look here, my lord.

Oph. Larded all with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave3 did go,
With true love showers.

King. How do you, pretty lady?

Oph. Well, God 'ield you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter! 5 Lord, we know what we

1 These were the badges of pilgrims. The cockle-shell was an emblem of their intention to go beyond sea.

2 Garnished.

4 See Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 6.

3 Quarto-ground.

5 This (says Mr. Douce) is a common tradition in Gloucestershire, and is thus related:-"Our Savior went into a baker's shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat. The mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough in the oven to bake for him, but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to a very small size. The dough, however, immediately began to swell, and presently became of a most enormous size. Whereupon the baker's daughter cried out, Heugh, heugh, heugh, which

are, but know not what we may be. God be at your

table!

King. Conceit upon her father.

Oph. 'Pray, let us have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:

Good morrow, 'tis Saint Valentine's day,1
All in the morning betime,

And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose, and donned his clothes,

And dupped the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia !

Oph. Indeed, without an oath, I'll make an end on't.

3.

By Gis, and by Saint Charity,3·

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do't if they come to it;

By cock, they are to blame.

ow-like noise probably induced our Savior to transform her into that bird for her wickedness." The story is related to deter children from illiberal behavior to the poor.

1 The old copies read:

"To-morrow 'tis Saint Valentine's day."

The emendation was made by Dr. Farmer. The origin of the choosing of Valentines has not been clearly developed. Mr. Douce traces it to a pagan custom of the same kind during the Lupercalia feasts in honor of Pan and Juno, celebrated in the month of February by the Romans. The anniversary of the good bishop, or Saint Valentine, happening in this month, the pious early promoters of Christianity placed this popular custom under the patronage of the saint, in order to eradicate the notion of its pagan origin. In France the Valantin was a movable feast, celebrated on the first Sunday in Lent, which was called the jour des brandons, because the boys carried about lighted torches on that day. It is very probable that the saint has nothing to do with the custom; his legend gives no clew to any such supposition. The popular notion that the birds choose their mates about this period, has its rise in the poetical world of fiction.

2 "To dup is to do up, as to don is to do on, to doff to do off" &c.

3 Saint Charity is found in the Martyrology on the first of August. "Romæ passio sanctarum virginum Fidei, Spei, et Charitatis, quæ sub Hadriano principe martyriæ coronam adeptæ sunt." Spenser mentions her in Eclog. v. 225. By gis and by cock are only corruptions, or rather substitutions, for different forms of imprecation by the sacred name.

Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed;

[He answers.]

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

King. How long hath she been thus?

Oph. I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night.

pray you.

[Exit. King. Follow her close! give her good watch, I [Exit HORATIO. O! this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father's death. And now behold, O Gertrude, Gertrude,1

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions! First, her father slain ;

Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove. The people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death; and we have done but
greenly,2

In hugger-mugger 3 to inter him. Poor Ophelia
Divided from herself, and her fair judgment;
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts.
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,

1 In the quarto 1603, the king says:

"Ah, pretty wretch! this is a change indeed:
O time, how swiftly runs our joys away!
Content on earth was never certain bred,
To-day we laugh and live, to-morrow dead."

2 Greenly is unskilfully, with inexperience.

3 i. e. secretly. "Clandestinare, to hide or conceal by stealth, or in hugger-mugger."-Florio.

4 The quarto reads-" Keeps on his wonder;" the folio-" Feeds on this wonder.".

And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggared,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece,' in many places
Gives me superfluous death!
Queen.

[A noise within. Alack! what noise is this? 2

Enter a Gentleman.

King. Attend.

Where are my Switzers ?3 Let them guard the door.

What is the matter?

Gent.

Save yourself, my lord;

The ocean, overpeering of his list,

Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste,

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,

O'erbears your officers! The rabble call him lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,

Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry, Choose we; Laertes shall be king!^

Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,
Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!

Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O this is counter,5 you false Danish dogs.
King. The doors are broke.

[Noise within.

1 A murdering-piece, or murderer, was a small piece of artillery; in French meurtrière. It took its name from the loop-holes and embrasures in towers and fortifications, which were so called. Case-shot, filled with small bullets, nails, old iron, &c., was often used in these murderers. 2 The speech of the queen is omitted in the quartos.

3 Switzers, for royal guards. The Swiss were then, as since, mercenary soldiers of any nation that could afford to pay them.

4 The meaning of this contested passage appears to me this:-“The rabble call him lord; and (as if the world were now but to begin, as if antiquity and custom, which are the ratifiers and props of every word, were forgotten) this rabble cry, Choose we," &c.

5 Hounds are said to run counter when they are upon a false scent, or hunt it by the heel, running backward and mistaking the course of the game.