Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that live must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.'
Queen.

10

Why seems it so particular with thee?

If it be,

Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not

seems.

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within, which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your na-
ture, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term,
To do obsequious sorrow.11

But to persever

10 Here observe Hamlet's delicacy to his mother, and how the suppression prepares him for the overflow in the next speech, in which his character is more developed by bringing forward his aversion to externals, and which betrays his habit of brooding over the world within him, coupled with a prodigality of beautiful words, which are the half-embodyings of thought, and are more than thought, and have an outness, a reality sui generis, and yet retain their correspondence and shadowy affinity to the images and movements within. Note, also, Hamlet's silence to the long speech of the King, which follows, and his respectful, but general, answer to his mother.-COLERIDGE.

H.

11 The Poet sometimes uses obsequious as having the sense of obsequies. So in his 31st Sonnet:

In obstinate condolement, is a course

12

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief:
It shows a will most incorrect to Heaven;
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what, we know, must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to Heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
"This must be so." We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe,13 and think of us

13

As of a father; for, let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And, with no less nobility of love

14

Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart1 toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire;
And, we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers,
Hamlet:

I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

"How many a holy and obsequious tear

Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,

As interest of the dead!"

H.

12 Incorrect is here used, apparently, in the sense of incorrigi ble.

H.

13 Unprevailing was used in the sense of unavailing as late as Dryden's time.

14 That is, dispense, bestow.

J

Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in Denmark. - Madam, come;
This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the king's rouse 15 the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Flourish. Exeunt all but HAMLET. Ham. O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!"

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

16

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed;
Possess it merely."
But two months dead!

things rank and gross in nature
That it should come to this!

-nay, not so much, not two:

So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr: 18 so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,

H.

15 A rouse was a deep draught to one's health, wherein it was the custom to empty the cup or goblet. Its meaning, and probably its origin, was the same as carouse, still in use. 16 To resolve had anciently the same meaning as to dissolve. "To thaw or resolve that which is frozen; regelo. — The snow is resolved and melted. To till the ground, and resolve it into dust." COOPER.

ty.

17 That is, absolutely, solely, wholly. Mere, Lat.

18 Hyperion, or Apollo, always represented as a model of beauBeteem is permit or suffer. The word, being uncommon, was changed to permitted by Rowe, and to let e'en by Theobald. See A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act i. sc. 1, note 5

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: and yet, within a month,-
Let me not think on't;-Frailty, thy name is wo-
man!

A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears; - why she, even she,
O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer, married with mine

uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules: within a month;

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

19

She married. -O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good;
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue! *

20

19 Discourse of reason, in old philosophical language, is rational discourse, or discursive reason; the faculty of pursuing a train of thought, or of passing from thought to thought in the way of inference or conclusion. Readers of Milton will remember the fine lines in Paradise Lost, Book v.:

"Whence the soul
Reason receives, and reason is her being,
Discursive or intuitive: discourse

Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,
Differing but in degree, in kind the same."

H.

20 This tædium vitæ is a common oppression on minds cast in the Hamlet mould, and is caused by disproportionate mental exertion, which necessitates exhaustion of bodily feeling. Where there is a just coincidence of external and internal action, pleasure is always the result; but where the former is deficient, and the mind's appetency of the ideal is unchecked, realities will seem cold and unmoving. In such cases, passion combines itself with the indefinite alone. In this mood of his mind, the relation of the appearance of his father's spirit in arms is made all at once to Hamlet: it is Horatio's speech, in particular — a perfect model of the true style of dramatic narrative; the purest poetry, and yet

(Enter HORATIO, Bernardo, and MARCELLUS. Hor. Hail to your lordship!

Ham.

I am glad to see you well:

Horatio, or I do forget myself.

Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant

ever.

Ham. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you.21

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?

Mar. My good lord,

Ham. I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir. 22

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.

Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself: I know you are no truant,
But what is your affair in Elsinore ?
We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart.
Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.

in the most natural language, equally remote from the ink-horn and the plough. COLERIDGE.

H.

21 As if he had said, No, you are not my poor servant: we are friends; that is the style I will exchange with you. Kemble gave the true sense by laying the emphasis thus: "Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you."

H.

22 The words, Good even, sir, are evidently addressed to Bernardo, whom Hamlet has not before known; but as he now meets him in company with old acquaintances, like a true gentleman, as he is, he gives him a salutation of kindness. Some editors have changed even to morning, because Marcellus has said before of Hamlet, -"I this morning know where we shall find him." It needs but be remembered that good even was the common salutation after noon. "What make you?" in the preceding speech, is the old language for, "What do you?"

H.