ACT II.
Scene 2. Page 115.
Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it.
This is precisely Horace's,
"Insanire paret certo ratione modoque."
Scene 2. Page 121.
Ham. The clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere.
Sere is dry. Thus in Macbeth,
"He is deformed, crooked, old and sere."
Among the Saxons June was called the sere month. In the present instance sere appears to be used as a substantive. The same expression occurs in Howard's Defensative against the poyson of supposed prophecies, 1620, folio: "Discovering the moods and humors of the vulgar sort to be so loose and tickle of the seare," &c., fo. 31. Every one has felt that dry tickling in the throat and lungs which excites coughing. Hamlet's meaning may therefore be, the clown by his merriment shall convert even their coughing into laughter.