Enter Ghost.
Hor. Looke my Lord, it comes.
[Sidenote: 172] Ham. Angels and Ministers of Grace defend vs:
[Sidenote: 32] Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee ayres from Heauen, or blasts from Hell,[2]
[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—
This heauy headed reueale east and west[3]
Makes vs tradust, and taxed of other nations,
They clip[4] vs drunkards, and with Swinish phrase
Soyle our addition,[5] and indeede it takes
From our atchieuements, though perform'd at height[6]
The pith and marrow of our attribute,
So oft it chaunces in particuler men,[7]
That for some vicious mole[8] of nature in them
As in their birth wherein they are not guilty,[8]
(Since nature cannot choose his origin)
By their ore-grow'th of some complextion[10]
Oft breaking downe the pales and forts of reason
Or by[11] some habit, that too much ore-leauens
The forme of plausiue[12] manners, that[13] these men
Carrying I say the stamp of one defect
Being Natures liuery, or Fortunes starre,[14]
His[15] vertues els[16] be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may vndergoe,[17]
Shall in the generall censure[18] take corruption
From that particuler fault:[19] the dram of eale[20]
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt[21]
To his[22] owne scandle.]
[Footnote 1: Does Hamlet here call his uncle an upspring, an upstart? or is the upspring a dance, the English equivalent of 'the high lavolt' of Troil. and Cress. iv. 4, and governed by reels—'keeps wassels, and reels the swaggering upspring'—a dance that needed all the steadiness as well as agility available, if, as I suspect, it was that in which each gentleman lifted the lady high, and kissed her before setting her down? I cannot answer, I can only put the question. The word swaggering makes me lean to the former interpretation.]
[Footnote 2: Observe again Hamlet's uncertainty. He does not take it for granted that it is his father's spirit, though it is plainly his form.]
[Footnote 3: The Quarto surely came too early for this passage to have been suggested by the shameful habits which invaded the court through the example of Anne of Denmark! Perhaps Shakspere cancelled it both because he would not have it supposed he had meant to reflect on the queen, and because he came to think it too diffuse.]
[Footnote 4: clepe, call.]
[Footnote 5: Same as attribute, two lines lower—the thing imputed to, or added to us—our reputation, our title or epithet.]