1 How the knave insists on precision !'

2 chart: Skeat's Etym. Dict.

3 Can this indicate any point in the history of English society? 4 so fastidious; so given to picking and choosing; so choice

The word is to be found in any dictionary, but is not generally understood. Lord Byron, a very inaccurate writer, takes it to mean heel : Devices quaint, and frolics ever new,

It means a chilblain.

Tread on each others' kibes.

Childe Harold, Canto 1. St. 67.

6 Then Fortinbras could have been but a few months younger than Hamlet, and may have been older. Hamlet then, in the Quarto passage, could not by tender mean young.

7'In what way strangely?'-in what strange way? Or the How may be how much, in retort to the very; but the intent would be the same-a request for further information.

8 Hamlet has asked on what ground or provocation, that is, from what cause, Hamlet lost his wits; the sexton chooses to take the word ground materially.

9 The Poet makes him say how long he had been sexton-but how naturally and informally-by a stupid joke!—in order a second time, and more certainly, to tell us Hamlet's age: he must have held it a point necessary to the understanding of Hamlet.

Note Hamlet's question immediately following. It looks as if he had first said to himself: 'Yes-I have been thirty years above ground!' and then said to the sexton, How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he rot?' We might enquire even too curiously as to the connecting links.

Ham. Why he, more then another?

Clo. Why sir, his hide is so tan'd with his Trade,

that he will keepe out water a great while. And a will

your water, is a sore Decayer of your horson dead

body. Heres a Scull now: this Scul, has laine in now hath lyen

the earth three and twenty years.

Ham. Whose was it?

Clo. A whoreson mad Fellowes it was;

Whose doe you thinke it was?

Ham. Nay, I know not.

Clo. A pestlence on him for a mad Rogue, a pou'rd a Flaggon of Renish on my head once.

you i'th earth

23. yeeres.

This same Scull Sir, this same Scull sir, was Yoricks once; this

Scull, the Kings Iester.

Ham. This ?

same skull sir, was sir Yoricks

Clo. E'ene that.

Ham. Let me see.

Alas poore Yorick, I knew Ham. Alas

him Horatio, a fellow of infinite Iest; of most ex

poore

cellent fancy, he hath borne me on his backe a bore thousand times: And how abhorred my Imagina- and now how |

1

in my

tion is, my gorge rises at it. Heere hung those it is:
lipps, that I haue kist I know not how oft. VVhere
be your libes now? Your Gambals? Your Songs?
Your flashes of Merriment that were wont to set

the Table on a Rore? No one 2 now to mock your not one
own leering? Quite chopfalne3? Now get you to owne grinning,
my Ladies Chamber, and tell her, let her paint an Ladies table,
inch thicke, to this fauour she must come. Make

her laugh at that: prythee Horatio tell me one thing.

Ham. Dost thou thinke Alexander lookt o'this a this fashion i'th' earth?

Hor. E'ene so.

Ham. And smelt so? Puh.

If this be the true reading, abhorred must mean horrified; but I incline to the Quarto.

2 'Not one jibe, not one flash of merriment now?'

3 -chop indeed quite fallen off!

4 to this look-that of the skull

Hor. E'ene so, my Lord.

Ham. To what base vses we may returne Horatio. Why may not Imagination trace the Noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a a find bunghole.

Hor. 'Twere to consider: to curiously to con- consider too sider so.

curiously

lead it. Alex

ander

Ham. No faith, not a iot. But to follow him thether with modestie 2 enough, and likeliehood to lead it; as thus. Alexander died: Alexander was buried Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is to earth; of earth we make Lome, and why of that Lome (whereto he was conuerted) might they not stopp a Beere-barrell ? 3

3

Imperiall Cæsar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keepe the winde away.
Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a Wall, t'expell the winters flaw.a
But soft, but soft, aside; heere comes the King.

Enter King, Queene, Laertes, and a Coffin,
with Lords attendant.

The Queene, the Courtiers. Who is that they this they

follow,

And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken,

The Coarse they follow, did with disperate hand,

twas of some

Fore do it owne life; 'twas some Estate."

Couch 6 we a while, and mark.

Laer. What Cerimony else?

Ham. That is Laertes, a very Noble youth :7 Marke.

Laer. What Cerimony else?

Priest. Her Obsequies haue bin as farre inlarg'd, Doct.
As we haue warrantis, her death was doubtfull,10
And but that great Command, o're-swaies the order,11

warrantie,

5

1 Imagination personified

2 moderation

3

'Loam, Lome-grafting clay. Mortar made of Clay and Straw; also a sort of Plaister used by Chymists to stop up their Vessels.'—Bailey's Dict.

4 a sudden puff or blast of wind

Hamlet here makes a solemn epigram. For the right understanding of the whole scene, the student must remember that Hamlet is philosophizing-following things out, curiously or otherwise-on the brink of a grave, concerning the tenant for which he has enquired—'what woman then?'but received no answer.

5 'the corpse was of some position.'

'let us lie down '-behind a grave or stone

Hamlet was quite in the dark as to Laertes' character; he had seen

next to nothing of him.

8 The priest making no answer, Laertes repeats the question.

9 warrantise

10 This casts discredit on the queen's story, 222. The priest believes she died by suicide, only calls her death doubtful to excuse their granting her so many of the rites of burial.

11 'settled mode of proceeding.'-Schmidt's Sh. Lex.-But is it not rather the order of the church?