I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy th' election lights

On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;

So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, Which have solicited ". The rest is silence. [Dies.

44

Hor. Now cracks a noble heart!

sweet prince;

Good night,

[March within.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

Why does the drum come hither.

Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and

Others.

Fort. Where is this sight?

Hor.

What is it ye would see?

If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

45

Fort. This quarry cries on havoc ! " — O, proud

death!

What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,

That thou so many princes, at a shot,

So bloodily hast struck?

1 Amb.

The sight is dismal,

And our affairs from England come too late:

The ears are senseless that should give us hearing
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd;

That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?

laboured with tooth and naile to overcrow, and consequently to overthrow one another."- Holinshed's History of Ireland.

44 Occurrents was much used in the Poet's time for events or occurrences. Solicited is prompted or excited; as "this supernatural soliciting "in Macbeth. 14 More and less" is greater and smaller; a common usage with the old writers. The folio adds, after silence, "O, o, o, o."

H.

45 To cry on was to exclaim against. I suppose, when unfair sportsmen destroyed more game than was reasonable, the censure was to call it havoc. JouNSON.- Quarry was the term used for a heap of slaughtered game. See Macbeth, Act i. sc. 2, Do e 3

Hor.

Not from his mouth,

Had it th' ability of life to thank you:

He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,"
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to th' yet unknowing world,
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;

Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

Fort.

Let us haste to hear it,

And call the noblest to the audience.

47

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,**
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak, And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more: But let this same be presently perform'd,

Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance,

On plots and errors, happen.

Fort.

Let four captains

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;

46 It has been already observed that jump and just, or exactly, are synonymous. See Act i. sc. 1, note 10.

47 The quartos have "and for no cause." The phrase put on here means instigated or set on foot. Cunning refers, apparently, to Hamlet's action touching "the packet," and forc'd cause, to the "compelling occasion," which moved him to that piece of practice.

H.

49 That is, some rights which are remembered in this kingdom.

For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov'd most royally: and, for his
The soldier's music, and the rights of war,
Speak loudly for him.-

Take up the bodies.

Such a sight as this

passage,

Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[A dead March

[Exeunt, marching; after which, a Peal of

Ordnance is shot off.

THE LIFE

OF

SHAKESPEARE.

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH

OF

THE ENGLISH DRAMA BEFORE

SHAKESPEARE.