128, 158 And breath of life: I haue no life to breath * Ham. I must to England, you know that? 2 Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonjuş. 7 Enter King. King. There's matters in these sighes, These profound heaues You must translate; Tis fit we vnderstand them. Where is your Sonne? 8 night indeed, this a most foolish Exit. Enter King, and Queene, with Rosen craus and Guyldensterne. Qu ** Ah my good Lord, what haue I seene to Ger. | Ah mine night? King. What Gertrude? How do's Hamlet? owne Lord, Qu. Mad as the Seas, and winde, when both Ger. sea and contend Which is the Mightier, in his lawlesse fit" Here in the Quarto: 1 Ther's letters seald, and my two Schoolefellowes, They beare the mandat, they must sweep my way For tis the sport to haue the enginer Hoist 3 with his owne petar, an't shall goe hard And blowe them at the Moone: ô tis most sweete **Here in the Quarto : Bestow this place on vs a little while." 1st Q. O mother, if euer you did my deare father loue, And win your selfe by little as you may, In time it may be you wil lothe him quite : Queene Hamlet, I vow by that maiesty, That knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts, I will conceale, consent, and doe my best, What stratagem soe're thou shalt deuise. 2 The king had spoken of it both before and after the play: Horatio might have heard of it and told Hamlet. 36 My banishment will be laid to this deed of mine.' 5 4 to rid his mother of it It may cross him, as he says this, dragging the body out by one end of it, and toward the end of its history, that he is himself drawing toward an end along with Polonius. 6 —and weeping. 182. See note 5, 183. 7 Here, according to the editors, comes Act IV. For this there is no authority, and the point of division seems to me very objectionable. The scene remains the same, as noted from Capell in Cam. Sh., and the entrance of the king follows immediately on the exit of Hamlet. He finds his wife greatly perturbed: she has not had time to compose herself. From the beginning of Act II., on to where I would place the end of Act III., there is continuity. 8 I would have this speech uttered with pauses and growing urgency, mingled at length with displeasure. 9 She is faithful to her son, declaring him mad, and attributing the death of the unseen' Polonius to his madness. It represents 'This passage, like the rest, I hold to be omitted by Shakspere himself. Hamlet as divining the plot with whose execution his false friends were entrusted. The Poet had at first intended Hamlet to go on board the vessel with a design formed upon this for the outwitting of his companions, and to work out that design. Afterwards, however, he alters his plan, and represents his escape as more plainly providential: probably he did not see how to manage it by any scheme of Hamlet so well as by the attack of a pirate; possibly he wished to write the passage (246) in which Hamlet, so consistently with his character, attributes his return to the divine shaping of the end rough-hewn by himself. He had designs-' dear plots'-but they were other than fell out-a rough-hewing that was shaped to a different end. The discomfiture of his enemies was not such as he had designed: it was brought about by no previous plot, but through a discovery. At the same time his deliverance was not effected by the fingering of the packet, but by the attack of the pirate: even the re-writing of the commission did nothing towards his deliverance, resulted only in the punishment of his traitorous companions. In revising the Quarto, the Poet sees that the passage before us, in which is expressed the strongest suspicion of his companions, with a determination to outwit and punish them, is inconsistent with the representation Hamlet gives afterwards of a restlessness and suspicion newly come upon him, which he attributes to the Divinity. Neither was it likely he would say so much to his mother while so little sure of her as to warn her, on the ground of danger to herself, against revealing his sanity to the king. As to this, however, the portion omitted might, I grant, be regarded as an aside. a kind of explosive shell, which was fixed to the object meant to be destroyed. Note once more Hamlet's delight in action. Behinde the Arras, hearing something stirre, He whips his Rapier out, and cries a Rat, a Rat, The vnseene good old man. King. Oh heauy deed: 1 It had bin so with vs had we beene there : His Liberty is full of threats to all,2 To you your selfe, to vs, to euery one. Alas, how shall this bloody deede be answered? Should haue kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt, Euen on the pith of life. Where is he gone? Qu. To draw apart the body he hath kild, Whyps out his Rapier, cryes a in this let it Ger. 181 Shewes it selfe pure. He weepes for what is done." pure, a weepes King. Oh Gertrude, come away : The Sun no sooner shall the Mountaines touch. But we will ship him hence, and this vilde deed, 200 Both countenance, and excuse. Enter Ros. & Guild Friends both go ioyne you with some further ayde: Hamlet in madnesse hath Polonius slaine, And from his Mother Clossets hath he drag'd him. closet | dreg'd Into the Chappell. I pray you hast in this. Exit Gent.8 Come Gertrude, wee'l call vp our wisest friends, And let 1 —the royal plural 2 He knows the thrust was meant for him, but he would not have it so understood; he too lays it to his madness, though he too knows better. 3 'he, although mad'; 'his nature, in spite of his madness' 4 sion.' -by his weeping, in the midst of much to give a different impres 5 We have no reason to think the queen inventing here: what could she gain by it? the point indeed was rather against Hamlet, as showing it was not Polonius he had thought to kill. He was more than ever annoyed with the contemptible old man, who had by his meddlesomeness brought his death to his door; but he was very sorry nevertheless over Ophelia's father: those rough words in his last speech are spoken with the tears running down his face. We have seen the strange, almost discordant mingling in him of horror and humour, after the first appearance of the Ghost, 58, 60: something of the same may be supposed when he finds he has killed Polonius: in the highstrung nervous condition that must have followed such a talk with his mother, it would be nowise strange that he should weep heartily even in the midst of contemptuous anger. Or perhaps a sudden breakdown from attempted show of indifference, would not be amiss in the representation. skill.' 'both countenance with all our majesty, and excuse with all our In the Quarto a line back. 8 Not in Q. 156 1 And what's vntimely done. * Oh come away, My soule is full of discord and dismay. Enter Hamlet. Ham. Safely stowed." Exeunt. Gentlemen within. Hamlet, Lord Hamlet" Oh heere they come. Enter Ros. and Guildensterne.A Ro. What haue you done my Lord with the doone, Hamlet, Rosencraus, and oth is. stowed, but soft, what noyse, Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis Compound it Kinne.5 Rosin. Tell vs where 'tis, that we may take it thence, And beare it to the Chappell. Ham. Do not beleeue it." Rosin. Beleeue what? Ham. That I can keepe your counsell, and not mine owne. Besides, to be demanded of a Spundge, what replication should be made by the Sonne of a King. Rosin. Take you me for a Spundge, my Lord? Ham. I sir, that sokes vp the Kings Countenance, his Rewards, his Authorities (but such Officers do the King best seruice in the end. He keepes them like an Ape in the corner of his iaw, first like an apple mouth'd to be last swallowed, when he needes what you haue glean'd, it is but squeezing you, and Spundge you shall be dry againe. Rosin. I vnderstand you not my Lord. Here in the Quarto : Whose whisper ore the worlds dyameter,' 206 As leuell as the Cannon to his blanck,2 3 Transports his poysned shot. may miffe our Name, in |