This word has never (mirabile dictu) excited a single comment; but in my opinion it implies that Bernardo enters with his arms folded. The judicious player will remember this, and when thus accosted will immediately throw back his arms, and discover his under vestments, like the “Am I a beef-eater now?” in the critic.
Bernardo. Long live the king.
Francisco. Bernardo?
Bernardo. He.
Mr. Malone merely observes that this sentence appears to have been the watchword. So it was; but, in my mind, the watchword of rebellion. The times, as Hamlet afterwards observes, were out of joint, and the ambitious Bernardo, as it appears to me, was desirous of mounting the throne, having doubtless as good a right to do so, as the murderer Claudius. The answer of Francisco favours my construction. If the loyal exclamation had been pointed at king Claudius, Francisco would have said Amen; instead of which he says, “Bernardo,” signifying, What! you king? and Bernardo cooly answers, “He,” signifying “Yes, I.” Francisco contents himself with replying, “You come most carefully upon your hour,” and the rejoinder of the future monarch puts my reading out of all doubt.
Bernardo. ’Tis now struck twelve, get thee to bed Francisco.
This so exactly resembles the charge of the usurper, Macbeth, to his torch-bearing domestic,
Go bid thy mistress when my drink is ready
She strike upon the bell—get thee to bed.
Thus the guilt of Bernardo is proved by all laws of analogy. Here then we have two beef-eaters in disguise. Ay, beef-eaters! and I’ll prove it by the next sentence.