Chapter CXXXVI: Act III: SCENE 1. Page 158

HAM. ... To die,--to sleep,--
No more;----

There is a good deal on this subject in Cardanus's _Comforte_, 1576, 4to, a book which Shakspeare had certainly read. In fo. 30, it is said, "In the holy scripture, death is not accompted other than sleape, and to dye is sayde to sleape."

SCENE 1. Page 162.

HAM. The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.

The resemblance of this passage to the lines cited by Mr. Steevens from Catullus is very remarkable, yet no translation of that author into English is known to have been made. It is true, they might have occurred to our poet in his native language through the medium of some quotation; yet it is equally possible that both the writers have casually adopted the same sentiment. This is a circumstance that more frequently happens than they are aware of who hunt after imitations even in writers of the most original genius. Many of Shakspeare's commentators might seem to be implicated in this charge, if it were not that they have rather designed to mark coincidence than imitation. On the present occasion our author alludes to a country altogether unknown to mortals. That of the Pagan poet is happily illustrated by Seneca, who cites the lines from Catullus, when he causes Mercury to drag the emperor Claudius into the _infernal regions_. "Nec mora, Cyllenius illum collo obtorto trahit _ad inferos_."--_Lud. de morte Claudii._

Dekker, in his _Seven deadlie sinns of London_, 1606, 4to, apostrophizing that city, exclaims, "Art thou now not cruell against thyselfe, in not providing (before the land-waters of affliction come downe againe upon thee) more and more convenient cabins to lay those in, _that are to goe into such farre countries, who never looke to come back againe_? If thou should'st deny it, the graves when they open, will be witnesses against thee."

In the _History of Valentine and Orson_, p. 63, edit. 1694, 4to, is this passage: "I shall send some of you here present _into such a country, that you shall scarcely ever return again_ to bring tydings of your valour." As Watson, the translator of this romance, translated also _The ship of fools_ into prose, which was printed by Wynkyn de Worde, it is probable that there was an edition of _Valentine and Orson_ in Shakspeare's time, though none such is supposed now to remain. Perhaps the oldest we know of is that of 1649, printed by Robert Ibbitson. In 1586, _The old book of Valentine and Orson_ was licensed to T. Purfoot.

SCENE 1. Page 166.

HAM. I have heard of your _paintings_ too, well enough; God hath
given you one _face_, and you make yourselves another; you jig, you
amble, and you lisp and nickname God's creatures, and make your
wantonness your ignorance.

The folio reads _prattlings_, and _pace_; the quarto as in the text, which Dr. Johnson thinks best, though he admits that Shakspeare might have written both. Other very good reasons have been given for preferring the present reading; yet whoever will reflect on the typographical errors for which the quarto plays of Shakspeare are remarkable, may be disposed to think that the folio editors had good reason for their variation. Our author's bible might here, as in many other instances, have furnished his materials. "Moreover thus saith the Lorde: seyng the daughters of Sion are become so proude and come in with stretched oute neckes, and with vayne wanton eyes; seynge they come in trippynge so nicely with their fete; therefore, &c."--Isaiah, ch. iii. ver. 16. It has not been observed that _lisp_ seems to refer to _prattling_, as _jig_ and _amble_ do to _pace_.

SCENE 2. Page 173.

HAM. ... it out-herods Herod.

The violence of Herod in the old mysteries has been already exemplified by some extracts from the Chester and Coventry plays. One of the latter, of which some account has been given in the preceding pages, may truly be said on the present occasion to completely _out-herod_ the others. It exhibits the fury of the monarch to so much advantage, that every zealous amateur of theatrical manners must be gratified with the following extracts.

His majesty's entrance is announced by a herald in the vilest French jargon that can be conceived. He commences by enjoining silence on the part of the spectators, and ends with sending them all to the devil. "La gran deaboly vos umport." He then makes a speech, which begins in bad Latin, and thus proceeds:

"[I am] the myghtyst conquerowre that ever walkid on grownd,
For I am evyn he that made bothe hevin and hell,
And of my myghte power holdith up the world rownd;
_Magog_ and _Madroke_ bothe thes did I confownde,
And in this bryght bronde[27] there bonis I brak on sunder,
That all the wyde worlde on those rappis[28] did wonder.
I am the cawse of this grett lyght and thunder;
Yt ys throgh my fure[29] that the[30] soche noyse doth make;
My feyrefull contenance the cloudis so doth incumber,
That oftymes for drede therof the verre[31] yerth doth quake.
Loke when I with males[32] this bryght brond doth shake,
All the whole world from the north to the sowthe,
I ma them dystroie with won worde of my mouthe.
To recownt unto you myn inewmerabull substance,
Thatt were to moche for any tong to tell;
For all the whole orent[33] ys under myn obbeydeance,
And prince am I of purgatorre and chef capten of hell;
And thase tyranees trayturs be force ma I compell
Myne enemys to vanquese, and evyn to duste them dryve,
And with a twynke of myn iee not won to be left alyve.
Behald my contenance and my colur,
Bryghter than the sun in the meddis of the dey.
Where can you have a more grettur succur
Then to behold my person that ys so gaye?
My fawcun[34] and my fassion with my gorgis[35] araye?
He that had the grace allwey theron to thynke,
Lyve the myght allwey withowt othur meyte or drynke;
And thys my tryomfande fame most hylist doth abownde
Throgh owt this world in all reygeons abrod,
Reysemelyng the favour of that most myght _Mahownd_.
From _Jubytor_ be desent[36] and cosyn to the grett God,
And namyd the most reydowndid[37] kyng _Eyrodde_,
Wycche that all pryncis hath undr subjeccion,
And all their whole powar undur my proteccion;
And therefore my hareode[38], here called _Calcas_,
Warne thow eyvyry porte that noo schyppis aryve;
Nor also aloond[39] stranger throgh my realme pas,
But the for there truage do pay markis fyve.
Now spede the forthe hastele,
For the that wyll the contrare,
Upon a galowse hangid schal be,
And be _Mahownde_ of me they gett noo grace."

When he hears of the flight of the messengers, he exclaims,

"I stampe, I stare, I loke all abowt,
Myght I them take I schuld them bren at a glede[40],
I ren, I rawe[41], and now I am wode[42],
A that these velen trayturs hath mard this my mode
The schal be hangid yf I ma cum them to."

The stage direction is, "Here _Erode_ ragis in the pagond and in the strete also." He consults with his knights on putting the children to death; and on their dissuading him from it as likely to excite an insurrection, he says,

"A rysyng, owt, owt, owt."

There _Erode_ ragis ageyne and then seyth thus:

"Out velen wrychis har apon[43] you I cry,
My wyll utturly loke that yt be wroght,
Or apon a gallowse bothe you schall dye
Be _Mahownde_ most myghtyst that me dere hath boght."

At length the knights consent to slay the children, and _Herod_ says,

"And then wyll I for fayne trypp lyke a doo."

The bodies of the children are brought to him in carts; but he is told that all his deeds are come to nothing, as the child whom he particularly sought after had escaped into Egypt. He once more falls into a violent passion, orders his palfrey to be saddled, and hurries away in pursuit of the infant. Here the piece ends. It was performed by the taylors and shearmen in the year 1534; but the composition is of much greater antiquity.

SCENE 2. Page 179.

HAM. ... Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay in my heart of heart.

From this speech Anthony Scoloker, in his _Daiphantus, or The passions of love_, 1604, 4to, has stolen the following line:

"Oh, I would weare her in my heart's-heart-gore."

SCENE 2. Page 179.

HAM. It is a _damned ghost_ that we have seen.

i. e. the ghost of a person sentenced for his wickedness to damnation, and which has in this instance deceived us. Thus Spenser,

"What voice of _damned ghost_ from Limbo lake
Or _guileful spright_ wandering in empty ayre,
Sends to my _doubtful eares_ these speeches rare?"

_Fairy Queen_, book i. canto 2, st. 32.

"He show'd him painted in a table plain
The _damned ghosts_----"
"Nor _damned ghosts_ cald up with mightie spels."

_Epithalamion_, st. 19.

SCENE 2. Page 182.

HAM. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

[_Lying down at_ OPHELIA'S _feet_.]

Mr. Steevens has noticed the practice of lying at the feet of a mistress during dramatic representations; yet we are not to conclude that it prevailed at the public theatres. The instances which have occurred seem to be confined to entertainments at the houses of the nobility and gentry. These were plays, masques, masquerades, balls, concerts, &c. Many old pictures and engravings furnish examples of the above custom, the young men being often seen sitting or lying on the ground in conversation with their mistresses, and sometimes in Hamlet's situation. One of these shall be described more particularly. It is an extremely neat little print, belonging to a set designed to contrast the sufferings of Christ with the vanities of the world. The scene is a ball-room. In the background are the musicians and torch-bearers. In front a lady and gentleman are performing a dance before some standing spectators. In various parts of the room pairs of young gallants and their mistresses are seated on the floor, apparently more attentive to their own concerns than to the dancing; and one youth is sitting on the spread petticoat of his companion. The costume is French, and of the time of Louis the Thirteenth.

SCENE 2. Page 198.

HAM. With two _provencial roses_ on my razed shoes.

The old copies read _provincial_, which led Mr. Warton to ask, why provincial roses? and to conclude that roses of _Provence_ were meant, on which conclusion the text has been _most unnecessarily_ changed; because the old reading was certainly correct. There is no evidence to show that _Provence_ was ever remarkable for its roses; but it is well known that _Provins_, in _La Basse Brie_, about forty miles from Paris, was formerly very celebrated for the growth of this flower, of which the best cataplasms are said to have been made. It was, according to tradition, imported into that country from Syria, by a count De Brie. See Guillemeau _Histoire naturelle de la rose_. It is probable that this kind of rose, which in our old herbals is called the Great Holland or _Province_ rose, was imported into this country both from Holland and France, from which latter country the Dutch might have first procured it. There is an elegant cut of the Provins rose, with a good account of it, in the first edition of Pomet _Hist. des drogues_, 1694, folio, p. 174.

SCENE 2. Page 200.

HAM. A very, very,--_peacock_.

The word that was in the original of Hamlet's quotation would have been too coarse to be applied to royalty; and therefore he substitutes another, which there is good reason to suppose was _peacock_. Dr. Farmer has given proof that this term was proverbial for a fool. Reginald Scot, speaking of Pope Julius the Third, says that he blasphemed Christ, and cursed his mother for a _peacock_. _Disc. of witchcraft_, b. 2, ch. viii. The bird in question is at once _proud_ and _silly_.

SCENE 2. Page 205.

Enter the players with _recorders_.

"i. e." says Mr. Steevens, "a kind of _large_ flute." Yet the former note, to which he refers, vol. v. p. 149, describes this instrument as a _small_ flute. Sir J. Hawkins, in vol. iv. p. 479, of his valuable History of music, has offered very good proofs that the recorder was a _flagelet_, and he maintains that the flute was improperly termed a recorder, and that the expressions have been confounded: yet his opinion that the books of instructions entitled 'for the recorder' belong in reality to the flute, seems rather doubtful. The confusion is in having blended the genus with the species. In the _Promptuarium parvulorum_, 1516, 4to, a recorder is defined to be a "lytell pype." In _Udall's flowres for Latine spekyng selected oute of Terence_, 1532, 12mo, the line from Virgil's Bucolics,

"Nec te pæniteat _calamo_ trivisse labellum,"

is rendered, "and thynke it not a smalle thynge to have lerned to playe on the _pype_ or the _recorder_:" and it is not a little curious that in modern cant language the recorders of corporations are termed _flutes_. The following story in _Wits fits and fancies_, 1595, 4to, shows that the pipe and recorder were different; such is the uncertainty of definition among old writers: "A merrie recorder of London mistaking the name of one _Pepper_, call'd him _Piper_: whereunto the partie excepting, and saying: Sir, you mistake, my name is _Pepper_, not _Piper_: hee answered: Why, what difference is there (I pray thee) between _Piper_ in Latin, and _Pepper_ in English; is it not all one? No, sir (reply'd the other) there is even as much difference betweene them, as is between a _Pipe_ and a _Recorder_."

SCENE 2. Page 207.

HAM. Do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a pipe? Call me
what instrument you will, though you can _fret_ me, you cannot play
upon me.

A _fret_ is the stop or key of a musical instrument, and consequently here is a play on words, and a double meaning. Hamlet says, _though you can vex me, you cannot impose on me; though you can stop the instrument, you cannot play on it_.

SCENE 3. Page 216.

HAM. ... that his soul may be as damn'd and black
As hell, whereto it goes.

To the stories collected in the notes that illustrate Hamlet's shocking design of killing the king at his prayers, may be added one in Howel's _Parley of the beasts_, p. 91, and another related in Chetwind's _Historical collections_, p. 77.

SCENE 4. Page 231.

HAM. ... a _vice_ of kings.

"A low mimick of kings. The vice is the fool of a _farce_, from whence the modern _punch_ is descended." Thus far Dr. Johnson. The first position in his note is questionable, the others erroneous. The _vice_ belonged to the old moralities; and the modern _Punch_ is most certainly not descended from him, but legitimately from a character well known in the theatres of ancient Rome. _We_ have borrowed him from the Italian _Polichinello_. With respect to the former part of the note, Hamlet's expression may be quite literal. Thus in _King Henry the Fifth_, we have "this _grace_ of kings." Afterwards indeed, Shakspeare, in his usual manner, recollecting the ambiguity of the term, takes up another simile, and makes Hamlet call his uncle _a king of shreds and patches_. See a former note in p. 287.