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.

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! 0,
God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on 't! O, fie! 't is 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 O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,-] Mr. Halliwell has proved by numberless examples, culled from our early writers, that where too too occurred, in the generality of cases it formed a compound word, too-too, and when thus connected bore the meaning of exceeding. The present instance, however, must be regarded as an exception to the rule. Here the repetition of too is not only strikingly beautiful, rhetorically, but it admirably expresses that morbid condition of the mind which makes the unhappy prince deem all the uses of the world but "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable."

was

b beteem-] That is, vouchsafe, allow, suffer, and the like. c discourse of reason,-] By "discourse of reason" meant the comprehensive range, or discursiveness of reason, the retrospective and foreseeing faculties; thus in Act IV. Sc. 4, Hamlet remarks,

"Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus'd."

d Had left the flushing-] The quarto, 1603, reads, "their flushing."

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 pr'ythee, do not mock me, fellowstudent;

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 (5)

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest (6) foe in heaven
Ere ever I had † seen that day, Horatio!—
My father, methinks, I see my father.
HOR. O, where, my lord?

g Horatio.

HAM.
In my mind's eye,g
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 attentive" ear; till I may deliver,

e And what make you-] We should now ask,-"What do you?" but the above was a household form of speech in Shakespeare's day; in the same manner, Hamlet subsequently demands of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,-"What make you at Elsinore?' in "Othello," Act I. Sc. 2, Cassio inquires of Iago,ancient, what makes he here?" and in "Love's Labour's Lost," Act IV. Sc. 3, the king questions Costard,

11

"what makes treason here?"

f We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.] The reading of the 1603 quarto and of the folio 1623: the other old copies have,"We'll teach you for to drink ere you depart."

g In my mind's eye, Horatio.] The expression was not unusual: "Ah why were the Eyes of my Mynde so dymned wyth the myste of fonde zeal, that I could not consyder the common Malyce of men now a dayes."-FENTON's Tragicall Discourses, 4to. 1567. Again,-"Let us consider and behold with the eyes of our soul his long suffering will."-1 Epistle of St. Clement, cap. 19.

han attentive ear;] The folio and one of the quartos have, -"an attent ear."

Upon the witness of these gentlemen, This marvel to you.

НАМ.

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,
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Armed at 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, dis-
till'd

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.

b Armed at point, exactly, cap-à-pé,-] So all the quartos but, that of 1603; which has," Armed to poynt," &c.: the folio reads, -"Arm'd at all points."

e-distill'd-] The reading of the quartos. The folio gives -"bestil'd;" and Mr. Collier's annotator substitutes bechill'd. d It lifted up his head,-] From the quarto of 1603. The other quartos and the folio have," - it head."

And keep you in* the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before theirt buttons be disclos'd;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary, then; best safety lies in fear:
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

OPH. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede."

LAER.

I stay too long;-but here

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man ;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous sheaf in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,-to thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!
LAER. Most humbly do I take my leave, my

lord.

my

Enter POLONIUS.

A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

POL. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for

shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, And you are stay'd for. There, my blessing with you!

[Laying his hand on LAERTES' head. And these few precepts in thy memory See thou charácter. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;" But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd,§ unfledg'd comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear't, that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:

"Are of a most select and generous cheff in that." Rowe, the first modern editor, endeavoured to render the sense intelligible by altering the old text to,

Орн. 'Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

[Exit.

LAER. Farewell.
POL. What is 't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
ОPH. So please you, something touching the

lord Hamlet.

POL. Marry, well bethought:

'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late Given private time to you; and you yourself Have of your audience been most free and bounteous:

If it be so, (as so 't is put on me,

And that in way of caution) I must tell you,
You do not understand yourself so clearly,
As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
What is between you? give me up the truth.
OPн. He hath, my lord, of late made many

tenders

Of his affection to me.

POL. Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

"Are most select and generous, chief in that;" and his emendation has been generally adopted: Steevens proposed,"Select and generous, are most choice in that," while Mr. Collier's annotator has,

"Are of a most select and generous choice in that."

The slight change of "sheaf" for chiefe or cheff, a change for which we alone are answerable, seems to impart a better and more poetic meaning to the passage than any variation yet suggested; and it is supported, if not established, by the following extracts from Ben Jonson,

"Ay, and with assurance, That it is found in noblemen and gentlemen Of the best sheaf."

The Magnetic Lady, Act III. Sc. 4.

"I am so haunted at the court and at my lodging with your refined choice spirits, that it makes me clean of another garb, another sheaf."-Every Man out of his Humour, Act II. Sc. 1.