ACT III.
Scene 1. Page 158.
Ham. ... To die,—to sleep,—
No more;——
There is a good deal on this subject in Cardanus's Comforte, 1576, 4to, a book which Shakspeare had certainly read. In fo. 30, it is said, "In the holy scripture, death is not accompted other than sleape, and to dye is sayde to sleape."
Scene 1. Page 162.
Ham. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.
The resemblance of this passage to the lines cited by Mr. Steevens from Catullus is very remarkable, yet no translation of that author into English is known to have been made. It is true, they might have occurred to our poet in his native language through the medium of some quotation; yet it is equally possible that both the writers have casually adopted the same sentiment. This is a circumstance that more frequently happens than they are aware of who hunt after imitations even in writers of the most original genius. Many of Shakspeare's commentators might seem to be implicated in this charge, if it were not that they have rather designed to mark coincidence than imitation. On the present occasion our author alludes to a country altogether unknown to mortals. That of the Pagan poet is happily illustrated by Seneca, who cites the lines from Catullus, when he causes Mercury to drag the emperor Claudius into the infernal regions. "Nec mora, Cyllenius illum collo obtorto trahit ad inferos."—Lud. de morte Claudii.
Dekker, in his Seven deadlie sinns of London, 1606, 4to, apostrophizing that city, exclaims, "Art thou now not cruell against thyselfe, in not providing (before the land-waters of affliction come downe againe upon thee) more and more convenient cabins to lay those in, that are to goe into such farre countries, who never looke to come back againe? If thou should'st deny it, the graves when they open, will be witnesses against thee."
In the History of Valentine and Orson, p. 63, edit. 1694, 4to, is this passage: "I shall send some of you here present into such a country, that you shall scarcely ever return again to bring tydings of your valour." As Watson, the translator of this romance, translated also The ship of fools into prose, which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, it is probable that there was an edition of Valentine and Orson in Shakspeare's time, though none such is supposed now to remain. Perhaps the oldest we know of is that of 1649, printed by Robert Ibbitson. In 1586, The old book of Valentine and Orson was licensed to T. Purfoot.
Scene 1. Page 166.
Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another; you jig, you amble, and you lisp and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance.
The folio reads prattlings, and pace; the quarto as in the text, which Dr. Johnson thinks best, though he admits that Shakspeare might have written both. Other very good reasons have been given for preferring the present reading; yet whoever will reflect on the typographical errors for which the quarto plays of Shakspeare are remarkable, may be disposed to think that the folio editors had good reason for their variation. Our author's bible might here, as in many other instances, have furnished his materials. "Moreover thus saith the Lorde: seyng the daughters of Sion are become so proude and come in with stretched oute neckes, and with vayne wanton eyes; seynge they come in trippynge so nicely with their fete; therefore, &c."—Isaiah, ch. iii. ver. 16. It has not been observed that lisp seems to refer to prattling, as jig and amble do to pace.
Scene 2. Page 173.
Ham. ... it out-herods Herod.
The violence of Herod in the old mysteries has been already exemplified by some extracts from the Chester and Coventry plays. One of the latter, of which some account has been given in the preceding pages, may truly be said on the present occasion to completely out-herod the others. It exhibits the fury of the monarch to so much advantage, that every zealous amateur of theatrical manners must be gratified with the following extracts.
His majesty's entrance is announced by a herald in the vilest French jargon that can be conceived. He commences by enjoining silence on the part of the spectators, and ends with sending them all to the devil. "La gran deaboly vos umport." He then makes a speech, which begins in bad Latin, and thus proceeds:
"[I am] the myghtyst conquerowre that ever walkid on grownd,
For I am evyn he that made bothe hevin and hell,
And of my myghte power holdith up the world rownd;
Magog and Madroke bothe thes did I confownde,
And in this bryght bronde[27] there bonis I brak on sunder,
That all the wyde worlde on those rappis[28] did wonder.
I am the cawse of this grett lyght and thunder;
Yt ys throgh my fure[29] that the[30] soche noyse doth make;
My feyrefull contenance the cloudis so doth incumber,
That oftymes for drede therof the verre[31] yerth doth quake.
Loke when I with males[32] this bryght brond doth shake,
All the whole world from the north to the sowthe,
I ma them dystroie with won worde of my mouthe.
To recownt unto you myn inewmerabull substance,
Thatt were to moche for any tong to tell;
For all the whole orent[33] ys under myn obbeydeance,
And prince am I of purgatorre and chef capten of hell;
And thase tyranees trayturs be force ma I compell
Myne enemys to vanquese, and evyn to duste them dryve,
And with a twynke of myn iee not won to be left alyve.
Behald my contenance and my colur,
Bryghter than the sun in the meddis of the dey.
Where can you have a more grettur succur
Then to behold my person that ys so gaye?
My fawcun[34] and my fassion with my gorgis[35] araye?
He that had the grace allwey theron to thynke,
Lyve the myght allwey withowt othur meyte or drynke;
And thys my tryomfande fame most hylist doth abownde
Throgh owt this world in all reygeons abrod,
Reysemelyng the favour of that most myght Mahownd.
From Jubytor be desent[36] and cosyn to the grett God,
And namyd the most reydowndid[37] kyng Eyrodde,
Wycche that all pryncis hath undr subjeccion,
And all their whole powar undur my proteccion;
And therefore my hareode[38], here called Calcas,
Warne thow eyvyry porte that noo schyppis aryve;
Nor also aloond[39] stranger throgh my realme pas,
But the for there truage do pay markis fyve.
Now spede the forthe hastele,
For the that wyll the contrare,
Upon a galowse hangid schal be,
And be Mahownde of me they gett noo grace."
When he hears of the flight of the messengers, he exclaims,
"I stampe, I stare, I loke all abowt,
Myght I them take I schuld them bren at a glede[40],
I ren, I rawe[41], and now I am wode[42],
A that these velen trayturs hath mard this my mode
The schal be hangid yf I ma cum them to."
The stage direction is, "Here Erode ragis in the pagond and in the strete also." He consults with his knights on putting the children to death; and on their dissuading him from it as likely to excite an insurrection, he says,
"A rysyng, owt, owt, owt."
There Erode ragis ageyne and then seyth thus:
"Out velen wrychis har apon[43] you I cry,
My wyll utturly loke that yt be wroght,
Or apon a gallowse bothe you schall dye
Be Mahownde most myghtyst that me dere hath boght."
At length the knights consent to slay the children, and Herod says,
"And then wyll I for fayne trypp lyke a doo."
The bodies of the children are brought to him in carts; but he is told that all his deeds are come to nothing, as the child whom he particularly sought after had escaped into Egypt. He once more falls into a violent passion, orders his palfrey to be saddled, and hurries away in pursuit of the infant. Here the piece ends. It was performed by the taylors and shearmen in the year 1534; but the composition is of much greater antiquity.
Scene 2. Page 179.
Ham. ... Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart.
From this speech Anthony Scoloker, in his Daiphantus, or The passions of love, 1604, 4to, has stolen the following line:
"Oh, I would weare her in my heart's-heart-gore."
Scene 2. Page 179.
Ham. It is a damned ghost that we have seen.
i. e. the ghost of a person sentenced for his wickedness to damnation, and which has in this instance deceived us. Thus Spenser,
"What voice of damned ghost from Limbo lake
Or guileful spright wandering in empty ayre,
Sends to my doubtful eares these speeches rare?"
Fairy Queen, book i. canto 2, st. 32.
"He show'd him painted in a table plain
The damned ghosts——"
"Nor damned ghosts cald up with mightie spels."
Epithalamion, st. 19.
Scene 2. Page 182.
Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
[Lying down at Ophelia's feet.]
Mr. Steevens has noticed the practice of lying at the feet of a mistress during dramatic representations; yet we are not to conclude that it prevailed at the public theatres. The instances which have occurred seem to be confined to entertainments at the houses of the nobility and gentry. These were plays, masques, masquerades, balls, concerts, &c. Many old pictures and engravings furnish examples of the above custom, the young men being often seen sitting or lying on the ground in conversation with their mistresses, and sometimes in Hamlet's situation. One of these shall be described more particularly. It is an extremely neat little print, belonging to a set designed to contrast the sufferings of Christ with the vanities of the world. The scene is a ball-room. In the background are the musicians and torch-bearers. In front a lady and gentleman are performing a dance before some standing spectators. In various parts of the room pairs of young gallants and their mistresses are seated on the floor, apparently more attentive to their own concerns than to the dancing; and one youth is sitting on the spread petticoat of his companion. The costume is French, and of the time of Louis the Thirteenth.
Scene 2. Page 198.
Ham. With two provencial roses on my razed shoes.
The old copies read provincial, which led Mr. Warton to ask, why provincial roses? and to conclude that roses of Provence were meant, on which conclusion the text has been most unnecessarily changed; because the old reading was certainly correct. There is no evidence to show that Provence was ever remarkable for its roses; but it is well known that Provins, in La Basse Brie, about forty miles from Paris, was formerly very celebrated for the growth of this flower, of which the best cataplasms are said to have been made. It was, according to tradition, imported into that country from Syria, by a count De Brie. See Guillemeau Histoire naturelle de la rose. It is probable that this kind of rose, which in our old herbals is called the Great Holland or Province rose, was imported into this country both from Holland and France, from which latter country the Dutch might have first procured it. There is an elegant cut of the Provins rose, with a good account of it, in the first edition of Pomet Hist. des drogues, 1694, folio, p. 174.
Scene 2. Page 200.
Ham. A very, very,—peacock.
The word that was in the original of Hamlet's quotation would have been too coarse to be applied to royalty; and therefore he substitutes another, which there is good reason to suppose was peacock. Dr. Farmer has given proof that this term was proverbial for a fool. Reginald Scot, speaking of Pope Julius the Third, says that he blasphemed Christ, and cursed his mother for a peacock. Disc. of witchcraft, b. 2, ch. viii. The bird in question is at once proud and silly.
Scene 2. Page 205.
Enter the players with recorders.
"i. e." says Mr. Steevens, "a kind of large flute." Yet the former note, to which he refers, vol. v. p. 149, describes this instrument as a small flute. Sir J. Hawkins, in vol. iv. p. 479, of his valuable History of music, has offered very good proofs that the recorder was a flagelet, and he maintains that the flute was improperly termed a recorder, and that the expressions have been confounded: yet his opinion that the books of instructions entitled 'for the recorder' belong in reality to the flute, seems rather doubtful. The confusion is in having blended the genus with the species. In the Promptuarium parvulorum, 1516, 4to, a recorder is defined to be a "lytell pype." In Udall's flowres for Latine spekyng selected oute of Terence, 1532, 12mo, the line from Virgil's Bucolics,
"Nec te pæniteat calamo trivisse labellum,"
is rendered, "and thynke it not a smalle thynge to have lerned to playe on the pype or the recorder:" and it is not a little curious that in modern cant language the recorders of corporations are termed flutes. The following story in Wits fits and fancies, 1595, 4to, shows that the pipe and recorder were different; such is the uncertainty of definition among old writers: "A merrie recorder of London mistaking the name of one Pepper, call'd him Piper: whereunto the partie excepting, and saying: Sir, you mistake, my name is Pepper, not Piper: hee answered: Why, what difference is there (I pray thee) between Piper in Latin, and Pepper in English; is it not all one? No, sir (reply'd the other) there is even as much difference betweene them, as is between a Pipe and a Recorder."
Scene 2. Page 207.
Ham. Do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
A fret is the stop or key of a musical instrument, and consequently here is a play on words, and a double meaning. Hamlet says, though you can vex me, you cannot impose on me; though you can stop the instrument, you cannot play on it.
Scene 3. Page 216.
Ham. ... that his soul may be as damn'd and black
As hell, whereto it goes.
To the stories collected in the notes that illustrate Hamlet's shocking design of killing the king at his prayers, may be added one in Howel's Parley of the beasts, p. 91, and another related in Chetwind's Historical collections, p. 77.
Scene 4. Page 231.
Ham. ... a vice of kings.
"A low mimick of kings. The vice is the fool of a farce, from whence the modern punch is descended." Thus far Dr. Johnson. The first position in his note is questionable, the others erroneous. The vice belonged to the old moralities; and the modern Punch is most certainly not descended from him, but legitimately from a character well known in the theatres of ancient Rome. We have borrowed him from the Italian Polichinello. With respect to the former part of the note, Hamlet's expression may be quite literal. Thus in King Henry the Fifth, we have "this grace of kings." Afterwards indeed, Shakspeare, in his usual manner, recollecting the ambiguity of the term, takes up another simile, and makes Hamlet call his uncle a king of shreds and patches. See a former note in p. [287].