After the thing it loves]
These lines are not in the quarto, and might hare been omitted in the folio without great loss, for they are obscure and affected; but, I think, they require no emendation. Love (says Laertes) is the passion by which nature is most exalted and refined; and as substances refined and subtilised, easily obey any impulse, or follow any attraction, some part of nature, so purified and refined, flies off after the attracting object, after the thing it loves.
As into air the purer spirits f1ow,
And separate from their kindred dregs below,
So flew her soul.—
IV.v.171 (297,1) O how the wheel becomes it!] [W: weal] I do not see why weal is better than wheel. The story alluded to I do not know; but perhaps the lady stolen by the steward was reduced to spin.
IV.v.175 (297,2) There's rosemary, that'll far rememberance. Pray you, love, remember. And there's pansies, that's for thoughts] There is probably some mythology in the choice of these herbs, but I cannot explain it. Pansies is for thoughts, because of its name, Pensées; but rosemary indicates remembrance, except that it is an ever-green, and carried at funerals, I have not discovered.
IV.v.214 (300,7) No trophy, sword, nor batchment] It was the custom, in the times of our author, to hang a sword over the grave of a knight.
IV.v.218 (300,8) And where the offence is, let the great axe fall] [W: tax] Fall corresponds better to axe.
IV.vi.26 (301,9) for the bore of the matter] The bore is the calibier of a gun, or the capacity of the barrel. The matter (says Hamlet) would carry the heavier words.