Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, continued.
Marcellus invokes the ghost almost in the words of Charon, who, too charitable to suffer a man to go to the devil in his own way, thus addressed the son of Anchises:
Quisquis es armatus qui nostra ad flumina tendis,
Fare age venias: jam isthinc et comprime gressum.
The sybil in Virgil gives a civil answer to a civil question, and narrates the birth, parentage, and education of her protegé. Not so "the buried majesty of Denmark." Disdaining to be tried by any but his peers, he withholds all parlance till he commences with his son, and having entered O. P. (signifying "O Patience," to the inquisitive spectator) makes his exit P. S. (signifying poor spirit). Marcellus, hereupon, moralizes after the following fashion:
Mar. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
Why this dead hour? hours never die. In Ovid they are employed as grooms in harnessing Apollo's steeds, and if there be any faith in tempus fugit, how can the dead fly? to be sure, Marcellus was a sentinel, whose duty it is to kill time: but I prefer dread hour! Now for jump—Mr. Malone says, that in Shakspeare's time, jump and just were synonimous terms. So they are in our time. Two men of sympathetic sentiments are said to jump in a judgment. We have also a sect of just men in Wales called jumpers. Strange that the same motion that carries a man to heaven should carry a Kangaroo to Botany Bay!
——multi
Committunt eadem diverso crimina fato
Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hic diadema.—Juv.
I do not think that the modern actors who personate the ghost, pay a proper attention to the text. It is evident from the above passage, that the ghost in crossing between the speakers and the audience, should give a jump, taking special care to avoid both traps and lamps, otherwise he may "fast in fires," a little too fast. "Gone by our watch," should be divided thus, "Gone—by our watch;" meaning at this hour, as we compute the time. Marcellus should here pull out his watch. A man will never make an actor unless he is particular in these little matters. Horatio continues thus:
Hor. But in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Johnson will have it that "gross and scope," mean general thoughts and tendency at large. Alas! that all the scope of his gross frame should contain so small a meaning! I prefer guess and skip of my opinion; that is a random notion hastily entertained.