Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.
Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve: get thee to bed,
Francisco.

Fran. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.

Ber. Have you had quiet guard?

Fran.

Ber. Well, good night.

Not a mouse stirring.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch,' bid them make haste.

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

Fran. I think I hear them. - Stand, ho! Who is

Ber. Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Mar

cellus.

2 Rirals are associates or partners. A brook, rivulet, or river, rivus, being a natural boundary between different proprietors, was owned by them in common; that is, they were partners in the right and use of it. From the strifes thus engendered, the partners came to be contenders: hence the ordinary sense of rival. See Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii. sc. 5, note 1. This salutation is an abbreviated form of,

"

H.

May God give

you a good night;" which has been still further abbreviated in the phrase. "Good night."

H.

1

Hor What has this thing appear'd again to

night?"

Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen of us
Therefore, I have intreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That, if again this apparition come,

He may approve our eyes,' and speak to it.

The folio assigns this speech to Marcellus. The quartos are probably right, as Horatio comes on purpose to try his own eyes on the Ghost. We quote from Coleridge again: "Bernardo's inquiry after Horatio, and the repetition of his name in his own presence indicate respect or an eagerness that implies him as one of the persons who are in the foreground; and the scepticism attributed to him prepares us for Hamlet's after eulogy on him as one whose blood and judgment were happily commingled. Now, observe the admirable indefiniteness of the first opening out of the occasion of all this anxiety. The preparative information of the audience is just as much as was precisely necessary, and no more; -it begins with the uncertainty appertaining to a question: What! has this thing appear'd again to-night?' Even the word again has its credibilizing effect. Then Horatio, the representative of the ignorance of the audience, not himself, but by Marcellus to Bernardo, anticipates the common solution, 'Tis but our fantasy; upon which Marcellus rises into,- -This dreaded sight twice seen of us;' which immediately afterwards becomes ⚫ this apparition,' and that, too, an intelligent spirit that is to be spoken to!"

H.

5 That is, make good our vision, or prove our eyes to be true. Approve was often thus used in the sense of confirm. —Coleridge continues his comments on the scene thus: "Then comes the confirmation of Horatio's disbelief,-Tush, tush! 'twill not appear;' - and the silence with which the scene opened is again restored in the shivering feeling of Horatio sitting down, at such a time, and with the two eye-witnesses, to hear a story of a ghost, and that, too, of a ghost which had appeared twice before at the very same hour. In the deep feeling which Bernardo has of the solemn nature of what he is about to relate, he makes an effort to master his own imaginative terrors by an elevation of style. — itself a continuation of the effort, and by turning off from the apparition as from something which would force him too deeply into himself

Hor Tush, tush! 'twill not appear.
Ber.

Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

Hor.

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Ber. Last night of all,

When yond' same star, that's westward from the

pole,

Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

The bell then beating one," —

Mar. Peace! break thee off: look, where it comes again!

Enter the Ghost.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead. Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.'

to the outward objects, the realities of nature, which had accompanied it."

H.

This passage seems to contradict the critical law, that what is told makes a faint impression compared with what is beholden; for it does indeed convey to the mind more than the eye can see; whilst the interruption of the narrative at the very moment when we are most intensely listening for the sequel, and have our thoughts diverted from the dreaded sight in expectation of the desired, yet almost dreaded, tale, this gives all the suddenness and surprise of the original appearance: "Peace! break thee off: look, where it comes again! Note the judgment displayed in having the two persons present, who, as having seen the Ghost before, are naturally eager in confirming their former opinions; whilst the sceptic is silent, and, after having been twice addressed by his friends, answers with two hasty syllables,-"Most like," and a coufession of horror: "It harrows me with fear and wonder."- COLERIDGE.

H.

7 It was believed that a supernatural being could only be spoken to with effect by persons of learning; exorcisms being usually prac tised by the clergy in Latin. So in The Night Walker of Beau mont and Fletcher :

Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. Hor. Most like:-it harrows me with fear and

wonder.

Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar.

8

Question it, Horatio.

Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of

night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by Heaven I charge thee,

speak!

Mar. It is offended.

Ber.

See! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

Mar. "Tis gone, and will not answer.

[Exit Ghost.

Ber. How now, Horatio! you tremble and look

pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you on't?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar.

Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyself.

Such was the very armour he had on,

When he th' ambitious Norway combated:

So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,

And that will daunt the devil."

The first quarto reads, "it horrors me." To harrow is to distress, to vex, to disturb. To harry and to harass have the same origin. Milton has the word in Comus: "Amaz'd I stood, harrow'd with grief and fear."—" Question it," in the next line. is the reading of the folio; other old copies have " Speak to it."

H.

He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice."

'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump 10 at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he goue by our watch.
Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know
not;

But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Mar. Good now; sit down, and tell me, he that knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land?
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war?
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week?
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?
Who is't, that can inform me?

Hor.

That can I;
Our last king,

At least, the whisper goes so.
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Polacks was used for Polanders in Shakespeare's time. Sledded is sledged; on a sled or sleigh. — Parle, in the preceding line, is the same as parley.

H.

10 So all the quartos. The folio reads just. Jump and just were synonymous in the time of Shakespeare. So in Chapman's May Day, 161 "Your appointment was jumpe at three with me."