SCENE V. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rofincrantz, Guildenstern, and other Lords attendant, with a guard carrying torches. Danish March. Sound a flourish. Ham. They're coming to the Play; I must be idle. Get you a place. King. How fares our coufin Hamlet? Ham. Excellent, i' faith, of the camelion's difh. I eat the air, promife-cramm'd. You cannot feed capons fo. King. I have nothing with this anfwer, Hamlet; these words are not mine. 7 Ham. No, nor mine now. -My Lord; you play'd once i' th' university, you say? [To Polonius. Pol. That I did, my Lord, and was accounted a good actor. Ham. And what did you enact ? Pol. I did enact Julius Cæfar, I was killed i' th' Capitol. Brutus kill'd me. Ham. It was a brute part of him, to kill so capital a calf there. Be the players ready? 8 Rof. Ay, my Lord, they stay upon your patience, Pol. Oh ho, do you mark that? 7 nor mine now.] A man's words, fays the proverb, are his own no longer than he keep them unfpoken. they fay upon your patience.] May it not be read more intelli Noble Macbeth, we flay upon Ham. Ham. Lady, fhall I lie in your lap? Opb. No, my Lord. [Lying down at Ophelia's feet. Ham. I mean, my Head upon your Lap? Oph. Ay, my Lord, Ham. Do you think, I meant country matters ? Opb. I think nothing, my Lord. Ham. That's a fair thought, to lie between a maid's legs. Oph. What is, my Lord! Ham. Nothing, Opb. You are merry, my Lord. Oph. Ay, my Lord." Ham. Oh! your only jig-mafter; what should a man do, but be merry? For, look you, how chearfully my mother looks, and my father dy'd within thefe two hours. Opb. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my Lord. Ham. So long? nay, then let the Devil wear black, That the Devil and he would both go into mourning, tho' his mother did not. The true reading is this, Nay, then let the Devil wear black, 'FORE I'll have a fuit of fable. 'Fore, i. e. before. As much as to fay, Let the Devil wear black for me, I'll have none. The Oxford Editor defpifes an emendation fo eafy, and reads it thus, Nav, then let the Devil wear black, for I'll have a fuit of ERMINE. And you could expect no lefs, when fuch a critic had the dreffing of him. But the blunder was a pleasant one. The fenfelefs editors had wrote Jables, the fur fo called, for fable, black. black, for I'll have a fuit of fables. Oh heav'ns! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet! then there's hope, a Great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: but, by'r-lady, he muft build churches then; or elfe fhall he fuffer not thinking on, with the hobby horfe; whofe epitaph is, For ob, for ob, the hobby-horfe is forgot. black. And the critick only changed this fur for that; by a like figure, the common people fay, You rejoice the cockles of my heart, for the muscles of my heart; an unlucky mistake of one fhellfish for another. WARB. I know not why our editors fhould, with fuch implacable anger, perfecute our predeceffors. Oi vexpor fin davon, the dead it is true can make no refiftance, they may be attacked with great fecurity; but fince they can neither feel nor mend, the fafety of mauling them feems greater than the pleasure; nor perhaps would it much misbeseem us to remember, amidst our triumphs over the nonfenfical and the fenfelefs, that we likewife are men; that debemur mirti, and as Swift obferved to Burnet, fhall foon be among the dead ourselves. I cannot find how the common reading is nonfenfe, nor why Hamlet, when he laid afide his drefs of mourning, in a country where it was bitter cold, and the air was nipping and eager, fhould not have a fuit of fables. I fuppofe it is well enough known, that the fur of fables is not black. 2 Suffer not thinking on, with the bobby-borfe;] Amongst the country may-games, there was an hobby-horfe, which, when the puritanical humour of those times oppofed and difcredited thefe games, was brought by the poets and balladmakers as an inftance of the ridiculous zeal of the fectaries: from thefe ballads Hamlet quotes a line or two. WARBURTON. This may be true, but seems to be faid at hazard. SCENE SCENE. VI. Hautboys play. The dumb fhew enters. Enter a Duke and Dutchess, with regal Coronets, very lovingly, the Dutchess embracing him, and be ber. She kneels; and he takes her up, and declines his bead upon her neck, he lays him down upon a bank of flowers; fhe feeing him afleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow takes off his Crown, kiffes it, and pours poifon in the Duke's ears, and Exit. The Dutchefs returns, finds the Duke dead, and makes paffionate action. The poifoner, with fome two or three mutes, comes in again, feeming to lament with ber. The dead body is carried away. The poisoner wooes the Dutchefs with gifts; fhe feems loth and unwilling a while, but in the end accepts his love, [Exeunt. Oph. What mean this, my Lord ? Ham. Marry, this is miching Malicho, it means mifchief. 3 Enter a King and Queen very lovingly.] Thus have the blundering and inadvertent editors all along given us this ftage direction, tho we are exprefly told by Hamlet anon, that the ftory of this introduced interlude is the murder of Gonzago Duke of Vienna. The fource of this miftake is cafily to be accounted for, from the ftage's dreffing the characters. Regal coronets being at first order'd by the poet for the Duke and Dutchefs, the fucceeding players, who did not ftrictly obferve the quality of the perfons Opb. or circumftances of the ftory, miflook 'em for a King and Queen; and fo the error was deduced down from thence to the prefent times. THEOBALD. I have left this as I found it, because the question is of no importance. But both my copies have, Enter a King and Queen very lovingly, without any mention of regal coronets. 4 Marry, this is miching MALICHO; it means mischief.] The Oxford Editor, imagining that the fpeaker had here englished his own cant phrafe of miching malicka, Oph. Belike, this show imports the Argument of the Play? Enter Prologue. Ham. We fhall know by this fellow; the Players cannot keep counfel; they'll tell all. Opb. Will he tell us, what this fhow meant? Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll fhew him. Be not you ashamed to fhew, he'll not shame to tell you what it means. Oph. You are naught, you are naught. I'll mark the Play. Prol. For us, and for our tragedy, Here ftooping to your clemency, We beg your bearing patiently. Ham. Is this a prologue, or the poesy of a ring? when fpeaking of Prince Henry amongit a gang of robbers. Shall the bleed Sun of Heaven prove a gland prove a thief? And in this fenfe it is used by Chaucer, in his tranflation of Le Roman de la rofe, where he turns the word lierre, (which is larron, voleur,) by micher. malicko, tells us (by his gloffary) that it fignifies mifchief lying hid, and that Malicho is the Spanish Malbeco; whereas it fignifies, Ly-micher? Shall the Son of Enging in wait for the poifoner. Which, the speaker tells us, was the very purpose of this reprefentation. It should therefore be read MALHECHOR Spanish, the pifoner. So Mich fignified, originally, to keep hid and out of fight; and, as fuch men generally did it for the purposes of lying in wait, it then fignified to rob. And in this fenfe Shakefpear ufes the noun, a miaher, WARBURTON I think Hanmer's expofition most likely to be right. Dr. Warburton, to justify his interpretation, muft write, riching for malechor, and even then it will be harsh. Enter |