Must give us pause. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,* That patient merit of the unworthy takes, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, that under garbuglio, which has the same meaning in Italian as our coil, Florio has "a pecke of troubles;" of which Shakespeare's "sea of troubles" is only an aggrandized idea. 7 That is, the consideration. This is Shakespeare's most usual sense of the word. Time, for the time, is a very usual expression with our old writers. In Cardanus Comfort, by Thomas Bedingfield, 1599, is a description of the miseries of life strongly resembling that in the text: "Hunger, thirste, sleape, not plentiful or quiet as deade men hay heate in somer, colde in winter, disorder of tyme, terroure of warres, controlment of parents, cares of wedlocke, studye for children, slouthe of servaunts, contention of sutes, and that which is most of all, the cindycyon of tyme wherein honestye is disdayned as folye, and crafte is honoured as wisdome." Thus the folio; the quartos have despis'd instead of dispriz'd H. 10 The allusion is to the term quietus est, used in settling accounts at exchequer audits. Thus in Sir Thomas Overbury's character of a Franklin: "Lastly, to end him, he cares not when his end comes; he needs not feare his audit, for his quietus is iu heaven." Bodkin was the ancient term for a small dagger. 11 And enterprises of great pith and moment," Soft you, now The fair Ophelia. - Nymph, in thy orisons Good my lord, ! Oph. How does your honour for this many a day? Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well." Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longed long to re-deliver; I pray you, now receive them. Ham. I never gave you aught. No, not I; Oph. My honour'd lord, I know right well you did;" And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest? Oph. My lord! Ham. Are you fair? 15 11 The quartos have pitch instead of pith. The folio misprints away for awry, in the next line. In the third line before, the words, "of us all," are from the folio. H. 12 This is a touch of nature. Hamlet, at the sight of Ophelia, does not immediately recollect that he is to personate madness, but makes an address grave and solemn, such as the foregoing meditation excited in his thoughts.. JOHNSON. The repe 13 Thus the folio; the quartos have well but once. tition seems very apt and forcible, as suggesting the opposite of what the word means. H. 14 The quartos have "you know" instead of "I know." We scarce know which to prefer; but, on the whole, the folio reading seems to have more of delicacy, and at least equal feeling. H. 16 Here it is evident that the penetrating Hamlet perceives, from Oph. What means your lordship? Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your hon esty should admit no discourse to your beauty.16 Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Ham. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it. I loved you not. Oph. I was the more deceived." Ham. Get thee to a nunnery: why would'st the strange and forced manner of Ophelia, that the sweet girl was not acting a part of her own, but was a decoy; and his after speeches are not so much directed to her as to the listeners and spies. Such a discovery in a mood so anxious and irritable accounts for a certain harshness in him; and yet a wild up-working of love, sporting with opposites in a wilful self-tormenting strain of irony, is perceptible throughout. "I did love you once," "I loved you not:"- and particularly in his enumeration of the faults of the sex from which Ophelia is so free, that the mere freedom therefrom constitutes her character. Note Shakespeare's charm of composing the female character by absence of charac ters, that is, marks and out-juttings.-COLERIDGE. H. 16 That is, your honesty should not admit your beauty to any discourse with it." The quartos have merely you instead of your honesty. In the next speech, the folio substitutes your for with. -It should be noted, that in these speeches Hamlet refers, not to Ophelia personally, but to the sex in general. So, especially, when he says, "I have heard of your paintings too," he does not mean that Ophelia paints, but that the use of paintings is common with her sex. H. 17 Mrs. Jameson, speaking of this and the preceding speech of Ophelia, says. “ Those who have ever heard Mrs. Siddons read the play of Hamlet cannot forget the world of meaning, of love of sorrow, of despair, conveyed in these two simple phrases." H. I am myself indif thou be a breeder of sinners? ferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? Oph. At home, my lord. Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell. Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens! Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery; farewell: Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell. Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him! Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face,18 and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance.' Go to; I'll no more on't it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married 19 18 The folio, for paintings, has pratlings; and for face has pace. Too is from the folio. 10 You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to mistake by ignorance." already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. 20 [Exit Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion, and the mould of form," Th' observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down' And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck'd the honey of his music vows, Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth. Blasted with ecstacy.22 O, woe is me! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see ! Re-enter the King and POLONIUS. King. Love! his affections do not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's something in his soul, O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; Will be some danger: which for to prevent, I have, in quick determination, Thus set it down: He shall with speed to England, For the demand of our neglected tribute: 20 Observe this dallying with the inward purpose, characteristic of one who had not brought his mind to the steady acting-point. He would fain sting the uncle's mind ;- but to stab his body! — The soliloquy of Ophelia, which follows, is the perfection of love, so exquisitely unselfish! - COLERIDGE. 21 The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves. The quartos have expectation instead of expectancy. 22 Ecstacy was often used for insanity or any alienation of mind. See The Tempest, Act iii. sc. 3, note 12. The quartos have stature instead of feature, and "what noble" for 66 that Doble " H. |