ROMEO AND JULIET.
Act I.
Sc. 1.
"Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the same."
This is the reading of all the old editions; but the correction of Theobald, sun for 'same,' is so obvious and so natural that I had made it long before I was aware I had been anticipated.
"Why, gentle cousin, such is love's transgression."
I make this insertion with confidence; for this is the only speech in this play beginning with a short line not complementary to the end of a preceding speech. In our poet's plays of this period speeches never began with a short line, unless when complementary, and at no time was the second line of a couplet short. (Introd. p. [82].) Lower down (i. 5) we have "Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone," where the 4to, 1597, omits all but "let him alone."
"Being vexed, a sea nourish'd with lover's tears."
As Johnson also saw, a line is lost here.
"Tell me, in sadness, who she is you love."
This is the reading of 4to 1597, which, however, has 'whom' (see Introd. p. [59]). The other 4tos and the folios read "who is that you love."
"But sadly tell me who she is you love."
These words seem evidently to have been lost; and the repetition is very agreeable. Moreover in this play speeches do not thus end with a short line.
"From Love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd."
A correction of Rowe's for uncharm'd of the originals.
"Only poor,
That when she dies with beauty dies her store."
The plain meaning of this is, that beauty was 'her store,' she had nothing but it, poor praise indeed from a lover! I would read, with Theobald,
"That when she dies with her dies beauty store."
The meaning would then be that, as the whole store of beauty lay, as it were, in her, by not marrying and transmitting it to her children, she would cause it to die with her, and would thus be poor as leaving nothing after her. The same idea is expressed in the poet's first and following sonnets: in Venus and Adonis we have—
"For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,"
and other passages of a similar nature. See also Twelfth Night, i. 5.
"'Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more."
This is not very intelligible. We might read 'her exquisite,' or rather 'to question.' To "call in question," in Shakespeare always means, to express a doubt of. 'Question' is examine, a word just used.
Sc. 2.
"Earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth."
Here a rime is lost, in consequence of the 'earth' of the first line being in the printer's mind. There can be little question, I should think, that the original word was not 'earth,' but fee, feud, fief, landed property, as in knight's fee, in fee, etc., with which alone 'lady' accords. 'The earth' has long been the reading the first line.
"Which on more view of many—mine being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none" ...
This is the reading of both 4tos and folio, except 4to of 1597, which reads "Such amongst." I should feel inclined to read "Such as on view." By 'more' must be meant more extensive. The aposiopesis, so suited to the hasty, impetuous character of the speaker, makes all clear.
"But in that crystal scales, let there be weighed
Your lady's love against some other maid."
This is very oddly expressed; for it was the lady herself, not her love, that was to be weighed. Theobald proposed lady-love; but I doubt if that phrase was then in use. I read 'lady and love,' the & of the MS. having been made s by the printer, as it became t in 'meant' for 'mean and' in All's Well, iv. 3.
Sc. 4.
"Oh! then, I see, Queen Mab has been with you.
Ben. Queen Mab! What's she?
Mer. She is the fairies' midwife, etc."
I think it best to read thus with 4to, 1597, adding Mer. before 'She is.' Benvolio's question is evidently wanted.
"Of healths five fathom deep."
It seems almost incredible that such a glaring absurdity as this should have escaped a long succession of critics; and yet I am not aware that any have noticed it. What is a health? a wish, a moral idea, and how could that be 'five fathom deep'? or be an object of terror to a soldier? It may be said that it is the cup that is meant, but of this we have no instance; and even if we had, Master Silence, who was a man of peace, sings—
"Fill the cup and let it come;
I'll pledge you a mile to the bottóm."
So, as we may see, he was not, and why should a soldier be, afraid of it? Malone quotes from Westward Hoe, 1607, a passage in which we have drinking fathom deep, and it is apparently drinking healths; but there is nothing about terror in it, and it seems, no unusual circumstance, to have arisen from the present line. In fine, something must have been named that was a real object of terror to a soldier; and I know no word so likely to have been used as trenches, which might easily have been mistaken for 'healths.' In that case the metric accent falling on 'five' would augment the terror.
"This is she that."
Sc. 5.
"His son was but a ward two years ago.—
Good youths, i' faith!—Oh! youth's a jolly thing."
The last line is only found in 4to 1597. It is so natural and so pleasing, that I could not refrain from adopting it.
"It seems she hangs upon the cheek of Night,
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear."
This is the reading of both 4tos and folio; yet editors have adopted the far inferior reading of the 2nd folio 'Her beauty hangs!' We have the same idea in
"Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new."
Son. xxvii.
"So shews a snowy dove, trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows."
The 4to 1597 reads in the first line shines; and the first 'shews' has every appearance of having been, as usual, suggested by the second.
"This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this."
So Warburton, for sin of 4tos and folio.
Act II.
Sc. 1.
"Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim."
Mr. Dyce reads auburn, and he gives undoubted instances of Abraham or Abram being used for this word. Still I incline to the general reading, first given by Upton, of Adam, with an allusion to Adam Bell, the great archer; and I think there may be another to Adam, the first man; for Shakespeare may have known that in classic mythology Love was the first of beings. There would be humour, then, in 'young Adam' denoting the union of youth and age.
Sc. 2.
"Her vestal-livery is but pale and green."
The reading of 4to 1597; the others and the folio have 'sick and green.'
"As glorious to this night being o'er my head."
Theobald most tastelessly read the sight.
"When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds."
The reading of 4to 1597; the others and the folio read 'puffing,' caused, as has been observed, by passing spelt with long ss in the MS.
"To cease thy strife, and leave me to my grief."
The undated 4to reads suit for 'strife,' which has been generally, and rightly, adopted. In the poem of Romeus and Juliet, the latter uses the very expression cease your suit on the same occasion.
"Romeo!—My dear!—At what o'clock to-morrow?"
For 'My dear,' the reading of the undated 4to, that of 1597 has Madam; the others and the folio My niece; the 2nd folio My sweet, the usual reading.
Sc. 4.
"She will indite him to some supper."
The 4to 1597 has invite; but Benvolio was probably anticipating the nurse's language.
"Bid her devise some means to come to shrift
This afternoon." * * * *
There is something lost here; perhaps to the Franciscan convent.
"R is for the ... no; I know it begins" etc.
Editors in general read, after Tyrwhitt, 'R is for the dog.' Mr. Collier has 'R is for thee? no.'
Sc. 5.
"My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me. * * * *
But old folks many faine as they were dead,
Unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead."
In the second line we might add would bandy her again. 'Many faine' in the next is nonsense; for 'many,' marry has been proposed, and I adopt it, reading fare (to go, to move along, a Spenserian term) for 'fame.' In Cor. ii. 2 we have again ain for ar. For 'pale' we should probably read dull.
"And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
Is fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy."
Timon, ii. 1.
We have elsewhere (Mer. of Ven. ii. 7) "dull lead." Moreover lead is not pale, and the Nurse would seem to have been rather a jolly, rubicund sort of woman; if fare be the right reading, it would almost require dull. On the other hand, we have in Chaucer (Tr. and Cr. ii), "With asshen pale as lede," and (Dream) "That pale he wax as any lede."
"They'll be in scarlet straight at any news."
I had been anticipated by Hanmer in reading 'straightway' and 'my'. Sidney Walker, too, I find, read 'at my next news.' In the errata of a work printed in 1754 I have met "for my r. any." I, however, read in preference,
"They will be straight in scarlet at my news."
Act III.
Sc. 1.
"Or reason calmly of your grievances."
'Or' for and, as Capell also saw.
"Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears?"
Singer reads pitcher. I think the right word is pilche, a leathern coat. In v. 1 the sheath of a dagger is termed its house.
"This day's black fate on more days doth depend."
We should perhaps transpose, and read "On this day's," etc.
"O prince! O [cousin] husband! O, the blood is spilled."
So Mr. Dyce also reads.
Sc. 2.
"Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night!
That runaway's eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."
Of 'runaway,' which cannot possibly be right, the Cambridge edition enumerates no less than twenty-nine various corrections! Warburton understood by it the sun; Steevens, the night; Douce, Juliet; and a Mr. Halpen, Cupid. Jackson, followed by Collier, read unawares. Mr. Dyce conjectured roving, soon day's, and rude day's, which last he has placed in the text, but which seems to me to be too young-ladyish for the ardent and naïve Juliet; and moreover she had already called for the winking of day's eye, i.e. for sunset. Some sense might also be made of runagates, as persons wandering about by night, and still better of runabouts, a word used by Marston (What you Will, iii. 1), and which I have placed in the text, as making tolerable sense and bearing resemblance to 'runaways.' Mr. Singer read rumourers, against which little objection can be made. My own opinion—to which I was led by Singer's reading, and in which I find I had been anticipated by Heath and Mr. Grant White—is, that the poet's word may have been Rumour's. In the poem on which this play is founded, Juliet, when pondering, before her marriage, on what might be the consequence of admitting Romeo to a lover's privilege, says:—
"So, I defil'd, Report shall take her trump of black defame,
Whence she, with puffed cheek, shall blow a blast so shrill
Of my dispraise, that with the noise Verona she shall fill."
Now Shakespeare may have wished to preserve this imagery, and have substituted Rumour for Report for euphony's sake and other causes. Rumour in effect seems to have been the same as the classic Fame. In Sir Clyomen and Sir Clamydes, a piece with which he was probably well acquainted, we meet "Enter Rumour running," and this may have been in his mind when he was writing the Induction to 2 Hen. IV. In his other plays also he personifies both rumour and report, as in
"That pitiful Rumour may report my flight,
To consolate thine ear. Come night, end day;
For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away."
All's Well, iii. 2.
He may also have had these lines of Phaer's Virgil in his mind:—
"At night she [Fame] walks, nor slumber sweet doth take nor never sleeps,
By day on houses' tops she sits, and gates or towers she keeps,
On watching-towers she climbs, and cities great she makes aghast,
Both truth and falsehood forth she tells, and lies abroad doth cast."
We may, then, fancy Juliet to suppose that Rumour was on the watch to detect and expose her, and she wishes that the gloom may be so intense that her eyes must wink perforce, and so Romeo may leap to her arms unseen, and their union remain undivulged. There may also have been intended a play on the names Rumour and Romeo, like "My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love" (iii. 3). As Shakespeare undoubtedly knew French, he may have had these lines of Marot in his mind:—
"Car noire Nuict, qui des amants prend cure,
Les couvrira de sa grand robbe obscure;
Et si rendra cependant endormis
Ceux qui d'Amour sont mortelz ennemis."
Eleg. xi.
"Till strange Love grow bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty."
Rowe, who has been followed by all, reads 'grown,' and he probably was right. Still, when we consider the joyous perturbation of Juliet's mind, there may be an asyndeton, and she may be speaking allo staccato. I have therefore, in my Edition, left the text unaltered.
Sc. 3.
"A gentler judgement vanish'd from his lips."
I have never met with any sense of 'vanish' but its ordinary one, which certainly will not suit here. We should therefore, I think, read issued, or some word of similar meaning. It is curious that Massinger seems to have taken 'vanish'd' on Shakespeare's authority. "Upon those lips from which those sweet words vanish'd" (Reneg. v. 5). We have, however, in Lucrece:—
"To make more vent for passage of her breath,
Which thronging through her lips, so vanisheth
As smoke from Ætna, that in air consumes."
But the breath is material.
"Taking thy part he rush'd aside the law."
Would not push'd be better? as in
"But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of further question."
Hen. V. i. 1.
"But Romeo may not: he is banished.
This may flies do, while I from this must fly;
And sayest thou yet that exile is not death?"
The folio, which gives the best text here, erroneously puts the first of these lines after the third. The 4tos of 1599 and 1609 add most unnecessarily:—
"Flies may do this, but I from this must fly;
They are free men, but I am banished,"
which seems to have been an earlier form of the two preceding lines. See on L. L. L. iv. 3.
Sc. 5.
"Art thou gone so? my lord, my love, my friend."
So the first 4to, which, with Mr. Dyce, I follow. The other editions read:—
"Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay husband, friend."
"Which you do weep for.—Feeling so the loss."
"Villain and he be many miles asunder!
God pardon him! I do with all my heart."
I have placed a (!) at the end of the first line; for Juliet is evidently speaking here in the ambiguous manner of her subsequent speeches. She means an indicative, but wishes her mother to understand her in the optative mood. The editors of the last century, not understanding this, have without any authority changed 'be' to are. In the next line him was added in the 2nd folio. I should be inclined to make an Aside of 'I do with all my heart,' as she pretends to plan his death. In the Globe Shakespeare the first line is made an Aside.
"My poor heart is so for a kinsman vex'd."
Both 4tos and folio—followed by all the editors—read 'Is my poor heart,' connecting it with the preceding 'dead.' It is manifest they did not understand the ambiguous language of Juliet.
"To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt."
The necessary addition was made in the 2nd folio.
"When the sun sets the earth doth drizzle dew."
The undated 4to reads air, and to talk of the earth drizzling dew appears no doubt to be absurd; but expressions as incongruous occur in these plays, and we have in Lucrece "But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set."
"But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next."
I cannot conceive why the editors all read settle; for 'fettle,' i.e. prepare, make ready, is the reading of the 4tos and folio.
"But sells his team, and fettleth to the war."
Hall, Sat. iv. 6.
"They to their long hard journey fettling them."
Silvester, Maiden's Blush.
"God's bread! it makes me mad; day, night, hour, tide [time],
Work, play, alone, in company, still my care
Hath been to have her match'd, and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage."
So I arrange this passage, in accordance with the old editions, except the first 4to, the reading of which is different, and is not verse at all. I omit 'time' as injurious to the symmetry of the language; for the words in the first two lines run, as will be seen, pairwise. It may have been a marginal note explanatory of 'tide.' As to the last line but one being of six feet, three such have already occurred in this scene.
"Oh! he's a lovely gentleman, in sooth."
"Or else beshrew them both.—Amen!—What to?"
Act IV.
Sc. 1.
"And I am nothing slow to slack his haste."
Collier's folio, mistaking the sense, reads 'something.' 'To' is, so as to, that I should. Editors have not understood it.
"Be borne to burial in thy kindred's grave."
This line, which is superfluous, is in all the old editions. See on iii. 3.
Sc. 3.
"Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee."
This is the reading of the 4to 1597; the other editions read,
"Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here's drink. I drink to thee."
Sc. 4.
"Nurse. Go, go, you cotquean, go."
Singer was most certainly right in giving this speech to Lady Cap.; for the Nurse was hardly present.
Sc. 5.
"Dead art thou, dead—alack! my child is dead."
In this I find I had been as usual preceded by Theobald.
"Peace, ho, for shame! confusion's cure lives not."
All the old editions read care. Theobald made the correction.
"For though some nature bids us all lament."
For 'some' the 2nd folio reads fond.
"Faith, we may put our pipes up and be gone."
The originals read 'put up.'
Act V.
Sc. 1.
"If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep."
The 4to 1527 reads thus; the others and the folio 'truth of sleep,' in which I can see no sense, while the former seems to be justified by
"Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye."
Son. xxxiii.
In both places flatter seems to mean cheer, enliven. 'Eye' is, as in "eye of green" (Temp. ii. 1), look, glance; "Yon grey is not the Morning's eye" (iii. 5).
"Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes."
Pope read stareth, after Otway; rightly, I think.
Sc. 3.
"Under yond' yew-trees lay thee all along."
The 4to 1597 reads 'Under this yew-tree'; the others 'Under yond' young trees. Further on they all read 'As I did sleep under this young tree here.' There can be little doubt that yew was the poet's word; it is not so easy to decide between tree and trees; but I prefer the former.
"And in despite I'll cram thee with more food."
Perhaps the poet's word was requite.
"Why art thou yet so fair? I will believe,
Shall I believe that unsubstantial Death is amorous?"
We have here plainly two various readings got in by mistake. (See above, iii. 3.) I agree with those who reject the first.
"This is thy sheath; there rest and let me die."
The reading 'rest,' for rust of the editions, is deduced from 4to 1597.
"What fear is this which startles in our ears."
So I read with Johnson for your.
"Look and thou shalt see."
'Look here' would have more melody.
"Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while."
The reading of Collier's folio, outcry, seems preferable. It occurs a little before in this scene.
HAMLET.
Act I.
Sc. 1.
"With what we two nights have seen."
"Of unimproved mettle hot and full."
I prefer 'inapproved,' of the 4to 1603.
"Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun."
One line at least, as Malone also saw, has been lost after the first. Perhaps for 'disasters' we might read distempers: "distemperature of the sun" (1 Hen. IV. v. 1).
Sc. 2.
"And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?"
I suspect that here and in a following line, and in ii. 2, we should read 'makes,' with an ellipsis of be. The answers seem to indicate it.
"Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,
And thy best graces; spend it at thy will."
I think we should read 'my best' for the sake of sense.
"Mine do I impart toward you. For your intent."
"He was a man, take him for all in all....
I shall not look upon his like again."
There is an evident aposiopesis here.
Sc. 3.
"Forward not permanent, sweet but not lasting."
The metre requires the addition of a syllable. In the next line the folio omits 'perfume and'—a clear proof of the omissions made by printers.
"The friends thou hast and their adoption tried."
The more appropriate term would seem to be adaption.
"Are of a most select and generous chief in that."
This is not sense; so some read
"Are most select and generous, chief in that."
Steevens read choice for 'chief'; and I have adopted his reading. The more appropriate term, however, would have been taste.
"Or—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase
To wrong it thus—you'll tender me a fool."
This—with the omission of To, which had probably been effaced in the MS.—is the reading of the 4tos, and is most probably correct. (Introd. p. [79].) The editors of the folio, not seeing any sense in 'Wrong,' read 'Roaming,' which makes no sense at all; neither indeed does 'To wrong' make a very good one. We might read—supposing the allusion to be to a horse—To run, as in "You run this humour out of breath" (Com. of Err. i. 1). In King John (ii. 1) we have 'roam' for run.
"Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds."
Theobald, who is usually followed, read bawds for 'bonds'; but surely bawds could not with any propriety be called 'sanctified and pious.' The truth is, the poet's word was 'bonds,' but the editors have not understood it, Singer, for example, calling it nonsense. The whole passage is merely a poetic periphrasis of seduction under promise of marriage; and had the word been Sounding, not 'Breathing,' there would probably have been no mistake.
"Have you so slander any moment leisure."
Collier's folio reads squander, which may be right; but we have "She slanders so her judgement" (Cymb. iii. 5), and "To slander music any more than once" (Much Ado, ii. 3). In 'any moment leisure' the structure is perfectly correct.
Sc. 4.
"The King doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels."
Here 'wake' is like watch (see Macb. ii. 2), sits up late. In the next line I would for 'swaggering' read staggering. 'Upspring' is probably used collectively for the risers from the table, a mode of expression not yet obsolete. "The space was filled by the in-rush before he had time to make his way out."—Mrs. Gaskell, Sylvia's Lovers, ch. xii.
"The dram of eale
Doth all the noble substance, of a doubt
To his own scandal....—Look, my lord! it comes."
This passage is not in the folio. As in 4to 1604, where it occurs, we have in ii. 1 'a deale' for 'a devil,' I here read evil for 'eale'; in both cases vi may have been written like a; and for 'of a doubt,' which is to be found nowhere else, out o' doubt, or perhaps 'out of a doubt:' some read often dout. The sentence, we may see, is not complete, and it should also be recollected that the language of the whole of the speech is involved, as if the speaker was thinking of something else, and merely talking against time.
"Making night hideous and we fools of nature."
Grammar would require us for 'we.'
Sc. 5.
"Hear what?—I am thy father's spirit."
The repetition of Hear from preceding line seems necessary. Omissions of this kind are not unfrequent.
"And for the day confin'd to fast in fires."
Heath proposed lasting for 'fast in,' but, I think, with a loss of vigour, if a gain of correctness. 'Confin'd' may here signify limited, restrained. See on M. for M. iv. 3.
"That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf."
The folio reads rots, which Mr. Dyce adopts.
"Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch'd."
So the originals read, except 4to 1603, which has depriv'd, perhaps a better reading. 'Despatch'd,' which seems to be more forceable, is to be taken in the sense of dépêché, Fr., hurried away, and 'of' in its original sense of from.
"Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin."
Better to read 'blossom' and 'sins.'
"O horrible! O horrible! most horrible."
Beyond question, as Johnson saw, this exclamation belongs to Hamlet. Ham. and Ghost had been effaced.
"But come; swear here, as before, never, so help you Mercy."
The sense demands swear.
Act II.
Sc. 1.
"That they do know my son, come you more nearer;
Than your particular demand will touch it."
By punctuating thus, and recollecting that 'Than' is then, we remove all difficulty.
"You must not put another scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency."
For 'That' we must read Than. Introd. p. [68].
"To speak of horrors—he comes in before me."
The addition of in, besides improving the metre, adds greatly to the force and vivacity of the passage.
"As he would draw it. Long time stay'd he so."
Sc. 2.
"Pleasant and helpful to him.—Ay, amen."
The folio omits 'Ay'; I read 'Amen, amen,' as the metre requires.
"Both to my God, one to my gracious King."
So the folio reads; the 4tos, more simply, have and for 'one.'
"My news shall be the fruit to that great feast."
So the 4tos properly read; the folio has news for 'fruit.'
"If I had play'd the desk or table-book."
Perhaps ply'd, as pretending to be occupied. In Tit. Andron. v. 2, the 4tos read 'ply,' the folio 'play my theme.'
"And we all wail for.—Do you think 'tis this?"
The originals read 'all we.'
"To mark the encounter. If he love her not."
"Being a good kissing carrion.—Have you a daughter?"
Warburton for 'good' read god, which alone makes sense. We have "common-kissing Titan" (Cymb. iii. 4). Malone also quoted from King Edward III.:—
"The freshest summer's-day doth soonest taint
The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss."
"But not as your daughter may conceive."
The 4tos omit 'not,' which was supplied by the folio, and is indispensable.
"Little eyases that cry out on the top of question."
This is hard to understand; but there is no reason to suspect any corruption of the text. The allusion seems to be to the loud shrill tones of the children in acting.
"Like to some boy, that acts a tragedy,
Speaks burly words and roars out passion."
Marston, Ant. and Mel. II. iv. 5.
"I know a hawk from a handsaw."
The proper word is hernshaw; but the phrase may, as was not unusual, have undergone a change.
"The first row of the Pons Chanson will show you more."
What 'Pons Chanson' is, no one has divined. Editors therefore read 'pious chanson,' meaning the ballad of Jephtha and his daughter.
"May be the devil and the devil has power."
For the first 'the devil,' 4to 1604 reads a deale; so the reading was probably 'a devil,' which is best.
Act III.
Sc. 1.
"Niggard of question; but of our demands
Most free in his reply."
Warburton transposes 'niggard' and 'most free'; and certainly, unless the poet forgot himself, he was by no means 'niggard of question'; and 'niggard' would also accord better than 'free' with 'of demands.' It might be better to read to for 'of,' as these words were often confounded.
"Good gentlemen, give him a further edge."
Here 'edge' seems used in a peculiar sense, as the substantive of egg, to urge, incite.
"Affront Ophelia. Her father and myself [lawful espials]."
As 'lawful espials' is only in the folio, injures the measure, and is not necessary, I would omit it.
"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles."
Though we meet in Shakespeare with incongruities as great as this, I incline to read for 'sea' siege, my own conjecture, as well as Pope's. We have "All sores lay siege" (Tim. iv. 3), "Sickness did lay siege" (M. N. D. i. 1), and several other expressions; and this is almost a solitary instance of the figurative use of 'sea' by our poet. Assay, or assays, for 'a sea,' has also been proposed, "Galling the gleaned land with hot assays" (Hen. V. i. 2); and it may have been the poet's word. If so, I should incline to read the assay.
"With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear."
This is the reading of the folio, which I retain. 'These,' which gives much force to the expression, refers either to the evils he had enumerated, or is, as is so frequently the case, used in a general indefinite sense.
"In the undiscover'd country from whose bourne
No traveller returns."
If any one refuses his assent to this very slight addition to the text, and which for the first time gives it sense, I must leave him to his own devices. Introd. p. [57].
"Ye heavenly powers, restore him!"
Sc. 2.
"And the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
As 'age of time' seems not to be a very correct expression, we might feel inclined to read world for 'time,' but no change is required; time is the age, the world, and so 'age of the time' may signify period of the world, the then state of society. M. Mason read every for 'the very.'
"And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee."
I see not what 'pregnant' can mean here. It might be better to read pliant, or some such word.
"Even with the very comment of thy soul."
So the 4tos properly read; the folio has my for 'thy.'
"So long? Nay, then, let the Devil wear black; for
I'll not have a suit of sables."
When the critics shall have proved—which they have not done yet—that a dress trimmed with sable was called 'a suit of sables,' I will grant that Hamlet did not mean mourning, and that the negative is not needful. The passage, as I now give it, answers to the vulgar phrase, "The Devil may wear black for me."
"Marry, this is miching malicho."
For 'miching malicho,' which is nonsense, I read mucho malhecho Sp., i.e. very ill-done.
"For women fear too much; even as they love."
A line riming with this is lost.
"So you must take your husbands."
So the 4to 1603 reads, with an evident allusion to the Marriage Service. The others and the folio have mistake.
"On my rais'd shoes."
So Steevens read. The folio has rac'd, the 4tos raz'd.
"A very, very paiock."
For 'paiock' Pope read peacock (the usual reading), Theobald paddock, Blakeway puttock. I agree with Theobald, as the King is afterwards called a paddock, and there is probably an allusion to the poisoning. Puttock is favoured by "I chose an eagle and did avoid a puttock" (Cymb. i. 2).
"If my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly."
Tyrwhitt proposed 'be not too bold.' I read, 'If my duty be too bold, my love [is] too unmannerly....'
"Govern these ventages with your fingers and your thumb."
"And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on."
The 4tos, followed by editors in general, join 'bitter' with 'day.' See Introd. p. [61].
Sc. 3.
"Though inclination be as sharp as it will."
Sc. 4.
"I'll silence me e'en here."
The 4to 1603 reads, "I'll shrowd myself behind the arras." Hanmer and Hunter read 'sconce me,' and we have, "I'll ensconce me behind the arras" (Mer. Wives, iii. 3). Still no change is required.
"A slave that's not a twentieth part the tithe."
"Enter Ghost in his night-gown."
I have given this stage-direction from the 4to 1603, as it is quite incongruous to suppose that the Ghost appeared in armour in a room of the palace; and as Hamlet says, "My father in his habit as he lived!" As the Ghost makes but one short speech, I think, if it could be so managed, it would be more psychologic and effective for him to remain invisible, except to Hamlet mentally, and his voice only be heard by the audience.
"Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects."
I read, with Singer, affects. See on Meas. for Meas. iii. 1.
"That monster Custom, who all sense doth eate
Of habits, devil is angel yet in this."
The verb 'eate' here could never have come from the poet's pen; for it makes pure nonsense. I read create with the greatest confidence, of which the two first letters must have been effaced in the MS. We have an exact parallel in smell, 'all' (Tim. i. 2). See also on All's Well, i. 1, ii. 1. 'Sense' seems here, as in M. for M. iv. 4, to signify kind, manner, way.
"And either master the Devil or throw him out."
So 4to 1604, but omitting 'master'; while 4to 1600 and the undated omit 'either.' Malone read curb for 'master'—a most needless alteration.
"One word more, good my lady."
"Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib."
I read gib-cat, as 'gib' never occurs alone. We surely would not say a tom for a tom-cat, a jack for a jackass, a jackdaw, etc. See Introd. p. [58].
Act IV.
Sc. 1.
"So haply Slander,
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter," etc.
The happy suppliance of Theobald, universally adopted with the change of his for to so.
Sc. 3.
"Pays homage to us—thou mayest not coldly set by."
Sc. 4.
"I'll be with you straight. Go on a little before."
"But greatly to find quarrel in a straw."
'But' here is somewhat ambiguous. We may take it as yet, nevertheless, or in its original sense of save, except; in which last case 'to find' would be finding.
Sc. 5.
"Which bewept to the grave did not go."
Pope, who has been generally followed, struck out 'not'; but though the printers often omitted the negative (as once already in this play) they rarely added it. We have, however, an instance in Much Ado, iii. 2, and it might be better to suppose the same to be the case here. We might also read 'unwept,' which occurs in Rich. III. ii. 2, or, as I have done, 'unbewept,' as the initial un is at times omitted. See on Cymb. i. 7.
"All from her father's death. And now, behold....
O Gertrude, Gertrude!"
'And now behold' is added from the 4tos. Punctuated as here it seems effective.
Sc. 7.
"And not gone where I had aim'd them."
"As how should it but be so? how otherwise?
Will you be ruled by me?—Ay, my lord."
It is manifest that but or not had been omitted. For 'Ay' we should read I will. See Introd. p. [68].
"But that I know love is begun by time."
I cannot make any good sense of this, and I suspect that 'time' may be owing to the same word lower down. The love spoken of seems to be that of children for parents, and possibly the word was childhood, birth.
"And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh
That hurts by easing."
All the original 4tos read 'spendthrifts' (the passage is not in the folio); but this reading must be wrong, for the allusion is evidently to the popular belief, not yet extinct, that every sigh consumes a drop of the blood, and so is injurious to life; 'spendthrift' is therefore to be taken in the sense of wasting. "With sighs of love that cost the fresh blood dear" (M. N. D. iii. 2), "Look pale as primrose, with blood-drinking sighs" (2 Hen. VI. iii. 2), "And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs" (3 Hen. VI. iv. 4).
"As make your bouts more violent to that end."
It might be better to read And for 'As.'
"How now, sweet queen!"
This, the reading of 2nd folio, makes the line more euphonious.
"There with fantastic garlands she did come."
The 4tos, followed by the editors, read:
"Therewith fantastic garlands she did make."
"Or like a creature native and indued."
Perhaps it should be inured, as 'indued' takes with, not unto.
Act V.
Sc. 1.
"Woo't drink up Esil? eat a crocodile?"
Those who maintain that 'Esil' is the acid of that name have not observed that 'drink up' means drink the whole of, and so could hardly be used of any liquid in the abstract. It is also to be observed that, at that time, eysel was used as a medicine:—
"Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysel 'gainst my strong infection."
Son. cxi.
and further that, by association of ideas, 'crocodile' presupposes the mention of a river. The Yssel, a river of the Low Countries, runs by Deventer and Zutphen, near which last place Sir Philip Sidney received his death-wound, and so the name Yssel may have been familiar to the English mind. I therefore have placed it in the text.
"In an hour of quiet thereby shall we see."
Sc. 2.
"I folded up the writ in form of the other."
"For by the image of my cause I see
The portraiture of his. I'll count his favours."
It is best to read, with Rowe, 'I'll court his favour.'
"You will do it, sir, really."
I incline to read readily.
"And yet but yaw neither."
So 4to 1604. The others have raw.
"The most fond and winnowed opinions."
I quite agree with those who read fann'd.
"As that I have shot an arrow o'er the house."
"Stick fiery off indeed."
In my Edition I most rashly read Strike for 'Stick.' In the language of the time stick off meant set off, show off, display:—
"Nor virtue shines more in a lovely face,
Than true desert is stuck off with disgrace."
Chapman, Dedic. of Batrach., etc.
"His lute still touch'd to stick more off his tongue."
Id. Hymn to Hermes, 766.
Yet Chapman, in whom alone I have found it, may have adopted it from one of the 4tos of this play. See on Rom. and Jul. iii. 3.
"I do not fear it; I have seen you both.—
But since he's better'd, we have therefore odds."
If he (i.e. Laertes) was bettered, in the ordinary sense of the word, how could the odds lie against him? You're would give better sense than 'he's'; but it does not satisfy me. A line has evidently been lost, and the latter part may be addressed to the Queen. The lost line may have been something like this: "'Tis true he did neglect his exercises." Hamlet had said (ii. 2) he had "foregone all custom of exercises." In my Edition I have made an Aside here to the Queen, who may have made a sign of dissent; but a speech of the Queen's to the same effect may have been what is lost.
"Come.—Another hit.—What say you?
[A touch a touch] I do confess."
With the 4tos I omit the bracketed words, as needless to the sense and injurious to the measure.
"Good madam ...—Gertrude, Gertrude, do not drink."
This repetition of the name, which is required by the metre, adds, I think, much energy. The name is repeated in the same manner in iv. 5.
"As thou'rt a man!...
Give me the cup; let go; by Heaven I'll have it."
This appears to me to be the true punctuation.