HAM. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!5 That worth (which was supplied first by Mr. Theobald) was the word omitted originally in the hurry of transcription, may be fairly collected from a passage in Cymbeline, which fully justifies the correction made: "From whose so many weights of baseness cannot "A dram of worth be drawn." This passage also adds support to the correction of the word eale in the first of these lines, which was likewise made by Mr. Theobald.-Base is used substantively for baseness: a practice not uncommon in Shakspeare. So, in Measure for Measure: "Say what thou canst, my false outweighs your true.” Shakspeare, however, might have written the dram of ill. This is nearer the corrupted word eale, but the passage in Cymbeline is in favour of the other emendation. The meaning of the passage thus corrected is, The smallest particle of vice so blemishes the whole mass of virtue, as to erase from the minds of mankind the recollection of the numerous good qualities possessed by him who is thus blemished by a single stain, and taints his general character. To his own scandal, means, so as to reduce the whole mass of worth to its own vicious and unsightly appearance; to translate his virtue to the likeness of vice. His for its, is so common in Shakspeare, that every play furnishes us with examples. So, in a subsequent scene in this play:-" than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness." Again, in Timon of Athens: "When every feather sticks in his own wing, Again, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream : "Whose liquor hath this virtuous property, Again, in King Richard II: "That it may show me what a face I have, So, in Grim, the Collier of Croydon : "Contented life, that gives the heart his ease, We meet with a sentiment somewhat similar to that before us, in King Henry IV. P. I. 66 oftentimes it doth present harsh rage, "Defect of manners, want of government, 6 Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked, or charitable, "The least of which, haunting a nobleman, Beguiling them of commendation." MALONE. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! &c.] Hamlet's speech to the apparition of his father seems to consist of three parts. When first he sees the spectre, he fortifies himself with an invocation: Angels and ministers of grace defend us! As the spectre approaches, he deliberates with himself, and determines, that whatever it be he will venture to address it. Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee, &c. This he says while his father is advancing; he then, as he had determined, speaks to him, and calls him-Hamlet, King, Father, Royal Dane: 0! answer me. JOHNSON. Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, &c.] So, in Acolastus his After-wit, 1600: "Art thou a god, a man, or else a ghost? "Com'st thou from heaven, where bliss and solace dwell? "Or from the airie cold-engendering coast? "Or from the darksome dungeon-hold of hell?" The first known edition of this play is in 1604. The same question occurs also in the MS. known by the title of William and the Werwolf, in the Library of King's College, Cambridge: "Whether thou be a gode gost in goddis name that speakest, "Or any foul fiend fourmed in this wise, "And if we schul of the hent harme or gode." p. 36. Again, in Barnaby Googe's Fourth Eglog: "What soever thou art yt thus dost com, "Thy name and case to tell." STEEVENS. Thou com'st in such a questionable shape," '-questionable shape,] By questionable is meant provoking question. HANMER. So, in Macbeth: "Live you, or are you aught "That man may question?" JOHNSON. Questionable, I believe, means only propitious to conversation, easy and willing to be conversed with. So, in As you like it: "An unquestionable spirit, which you have not." Unquestionable in this last instance certainly signifies unwilling to be talked with. STEEVENS. Questionable perhaps only means capable of being conversed with. To question, certainly in our author's time signified to converse. So, in his Rape of Lucrece, 1594: "For after supper long he questioned "With modest Lucrece-." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra : "Out of our question wipe him." See also King Lear, Act V. sc. iii. MALONE. tell, Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their cerements!] Hamlet, amazed at an apparition, which, though in all ages credited, has in all ages been considered as the most wonderful and most dreadful operation of supernatural agency, enquires of the spectre, in the most emphatick terms, why he breaks the order of nature, by returning from the dead; this he asks in a very confused circumlocution, confounding in his fright the soul and body. Why, says he, have thy bones, which with due ceremonies have been entombed in death, in the common state of departed mortals, burst the folds in which they were embalmed? Why has the tomb, in which we saw thee quietly laid, opened his mouth, that mouth which, by its weight and stability, seemed closed for ever? The whole sentence is this: Why dost thou appear, whom we know to be dead? JOHNSON. Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,' By the expression hearsed in death is meant, shut up and secured with all those precautions which are usually practised in preparing dead bodies for sepulture, such as the winding-sheet, shrowd, coffin, &c. perhaps embalming into the bargain. So that death is here used, by a metonymy of the antecedent for the consequents, for the rites of death, such as are generally esteemed due, and practised with regard to dead bodies. Consequently, I understand by cerements, the waxed winding-sheet or winding-sheets, in which the corpse was enclosed and sown up, in order to preserve it the longer from external impressions from the humidity of the sepulchre, as embalming was intended to preserve it from internal corruption. HEATH. By hearsed in death, the poet seems to mean, reposited and confined in the place of the dead. In his Rape of Lucrece he has again used this uncommon participle in nearly the same sense: "Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hearsed, "And not the puddle in thy sea dispersed." MALOne. 9- quietly in-urn'd,] The quartos read-interr'd. STEEVENS. 1 That thou, dead corse, again, in cómplete steel,] Thus also is the adjective complete accented by Chapman in his version of the fifth Iliad: "And made his complete armour cast a far more cómplete light." Again, in the nineteenth Iliad: "Grave silence strook the complete court." It is probable, that Shakspeare introduced his Ghost in armour, that it might appear more solemn by such a discrimination from the other characters; though it was really the custom of the Danish kings to be buried in that manner. Vide Olaus Wormius, cap. vii: "Struem regi nec vestibus, nec odoribus cumulant, sua cuique arma, quorundam igni et equus adjicitur." sed postquam magnanimus ille Danorum rex collem sibi magnitudinis conspicuæ extruxisset, (cui post obitum regio diademate exornatum, armis indutum, inferendum esset cadaver," &c. STEEVENS. Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,2 With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? To you alone. MAR. Look, with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ground:+ HOR. No, by no means. HAM. It will not speak; then I will follow it. HOR. Do not, my lord. HAM. Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin's fee ;5 It waves me forth again;-I'll follow it. . — we fools of nature,] The expression is fine, as intimating we were only kept (as formerly, fools in a great family,) to make sport for nature, who lay hid only to mock and laugh at us, for our vain searches into her mysteries. WARBURTON. we fools of nature,] i. e. making us, who are the sport of nature, whose mysterious operations are beyond the reaches of our souls, &c. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "O, I am fortune's fool." MALone. fools of nature,] This phrase is used by Davenant, in the Cruel Brother, 1630, Act V. sc. i. REED. '— to shake our disposition,] Disposition for frame. summer WARBURTON. a more removed ground:] i. e. remote. So, in A Mid-Night's Dream: "From Athens is her house remov'd seven leagues." The first folio reads-remote. STEEVENS. '-pin's fee;] The value of a pin. JOHNSON. |