Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear And tell you what I know. King. Thanks, dear my lord. [Exit POLONIUS. O! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; And what's in prayer, but this two-fold force,- Or pardon'd, being down? Then, I'll look up: Of those effects for which I did the murder, O wretched state! O bosom, black as death! Art more engaged! Help, angels! make assay: All may be well. Enter HAMLET. [Retires and kneels. Ham. Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying'; I, his sole son, do this same villain send Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge. With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May 10, Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent'. Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, 7 PAT, now he is praying ;] The quartos, 1604, &c. read," but now 'a is a praying." The line is not in the quarto, 1603. 8 I, his SOLE Son,] This is the reading of the quartos, 1604, &c. The folio has "foul son," which may be right. 9 Why, this is HIRE and SALARY,] The quartos, 1604, &c. read, “ Why, this is base and silly." The reading of the folio is much to be preferred. 10 66 1 - a more horrid HENT:] We have previously had "hent " used as a verb. See Vol. ii. p. 87, and Vol. iii. p. 492, and there it meant to seize or to take : substantively it is therefore seizure. And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black, The King rises and advances. [Exit. King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go. [Exit. SCENE IV. A Room in the Same. Enter Queen and POLONIUS. Pol. He will come straight. Look, you lay home to him; Tell him, his pranks have been too broad to bear with, Ham. [Within.] Mother, mother, mother3! I'll warrant you1; [POLONIUS hides himself. Fear me not-withdraw, I hear him coming. 2 Enter HAMLET. Ham. Now, mother! what's the matter? Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. Queen. Come, come; you answer with an idle tongue. Ham. Go, go; you question with a wicked tongue'. be round WITH HIM.] i. e. be plain with him. See this Vol. p. 265. 3 Ham. [Within] Mother, mother, mother!] In the folio only. ↑ I'll warrant you ;] In the earlier quartos it stands "I'll wait you." with a WICKED tongue.] So the quartos, 1604, &c., and rightly in the folio the compositor repeated idle, catching it, no doubt, from the previous line. The passage is wanting in the quarto, 1603, where the scene is much mangled. Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet! What's the matter now? No, by the rood, not so: Queen. Have you forgot me? Ham. You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife; And,-would it were not so!-you are my mother. Queen. Nay then, I'll set those to you that can speak. Ham. Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge: You go not, till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you. Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me. Help, help, ho! Pol. [Behind.] What, ho! help! help! help! Is it the king? [Lifts up the Arras, and draws forth POLONIUS. Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this! Ham. A bloody deed; almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother. Queen. As kill a king! Ham. Ay, lady, 'twas my word.— Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell. [TO POLONIUS. I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune: If it be made of penetrable stuff; 6 AND, would it were not so !] The folio, " But-would you were not so." 7 How now! a rat?] In Shirley's "Traitor," 1635, Depazzi says of a secreted listener, "Sirrah, sirrah! I smell a rat behind the hangings." If damned custom have not braz'd it so, That it is proof and bulwark against sense. Queen. What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me? Ham. With tristful visage, as against the doom, Ah me! what act, Queen. Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this; * And SETS a blister there ;] The folio, "And makes," &c. The difference is not material. It previously reads betters for "better;" but in giving "is" for be in "That it is proof," in the second line of this page, it seems right, and we have followed it. 9 - from the body of CONTRACTION-] "Contraction," for marriage contract, says Warburton. 1 Is thought-sick at the act.] We have adopted our text from the folio in this passage, because it seems more intelligible: the quarto, 1604, (followed by the later editions in the same form) gives it thus: 2 "Heavens face does glow O'er this solidity and compound mass, With heated visage," &c. and thunders in the INDEX ?] i. e. in the commencement, where the indexes of books were formerly placed. See Vol. v. p. 397. In the quartos, 1604, &c. this line is assigned to Hamlet. 1 |