But even his mother shall uncharge the practice LAER. KING. It falls right. You have been talk'd of since your travel much, Of the unworthiest siege. LAER. I've seen myself, and served against, the French, Come short of what he did. LAER. KING. A Norman. A Norman was 't! The very same. LAER. Upon my life, Lamond. KING. LAER. I know him well: he is the brooch indeed And gem of all the nation. KING. He made confession of you, And gave you such a masterly report For art and exercise in your defence, And for your rapier most especially, That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed, 77 Of the unworthiest siege: of the least worthy seat or level. 82 Health and graveness. Warburton proposes the emenda tion 'wealth,' which gives better sense. 90 In forgery of shapes: in imagining all his feats. If one could match you: the scrimers of their nation, LAER. What out of this, my lord? KING. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart? LAER. Why ask you this? KING. Not that I think you did not love your father; But that I know love is begun by time; And that I see, in passages of proof, Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still; For goodness, growing to a plurisy, Dies in his own too much that we would do, We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; That hurts by easing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer :- IOI Scrimers: escrimeurs, fencers. 121 112 Love is begun by time. As love begins at some given point of time, so I see by passages of experience that time also abates it. 118 A plurisy. The Cambridge editors shew that other writers besides Shakspere imagine that 'pleurisy' is connected with 'plus;' using such expressions as 'a plurisy of people.' The true connexion is of course with πλɛʊpά, a side. 119 His own too much. Like 'a great amiss,' 'the why and wherefore,' and the like. English had at this time something like the flexibility of Greek; and had no difficulty in throwing out phrases like τὸ ἄγαν and τὸ πρίν. 120 This would' changes. Our will to the enterprise is apt to abate of itself from a hundred causes. Then there remains the 'should,' the duty, neglected and undone; and he who vainly acknowledges that he 'should' have done a thing is like a spendthrift sighing for his squandered estate. To show yourself your father's son in deed LAER. To cut his throat i' the church. The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together LAER. KING. Let's further think of this; 130 140 150 130 Will you do this. If you are determined to do this. 136 Generous and free from all contriving. Oliver, in As You Like It, while plotting his brother's death, cannot help saying, "Yet he's gentle; never schooled and yet learned; full of noble device," &c. He has not got so far in his wickedness as the king here, who only thinks of Hamlet's generosity as an implement for his overthrow. But Laertes shews by his horrid suggestion of the poison how little need there was for the king to prepare the temptation as carefully as he had done. We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings: When in your motion you are hot and dry— Enter QUEEN. How now, sweet queen! QUEEN. There is a willow grows aslant a brook, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them : Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; LAER. Alas, then, she is drown'd? QUEEN. Drown'd, drown'd.' LAER. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, 162 Stuck: stoccata, thrust. 160 170 180 170 Purples. Supposed to be the purple-flowered 'Orchis mascula.' 174 Clambering to hang. See Desdemona's song in Othello, which gives the key to poor Ophelia's action iv. 32 "The fresh stream ran by her and murmured her moans, Sing willow, willow, willow." I Let shame say what it will: when these are gone, KING. Therefore let's follow. 190 [Exit. [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I-A churchyard. Enter two Clowns, with spades, &c. FIRST CLO. Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation? SEC. CLO. I tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial. FIRST CLO. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence? SEC. CLO. Why, 'tis found so. FIRST CLO. It must be 'se offendendo;' it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches; it is, 189 When these are gone. When once my tears are shed I shall have got the woman out of me. 4 Make her grave straight. Not the mere holé in which a person should be buried on whom a 'felo de se' verdict has been found. See the note on line 200 below. 6 9 Se offendendo. He means se defendendo.' II It argues an act. This seems to be a reference to the celebrated case of Sir E. Hales in 1553. Having narrowly escaped death for the Lady Jane Grey plot, this eminent lawyer had drowned himself, while apparently in a state of insanity from terror. A verdict of 'felo de se' was found upon him, involving forfeiture of goods and attainder. As there was some property in which his widow had a right immediately upon his death, the legal question arose whether it did not become hers before the 'verdict of attainder and forfeiture. She lost her cause on the ground that an act has three branches, imagination, resolution, and execution,' and that consequently her husband's attainder |