Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing

22

Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine : 23 and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.24
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ; 25
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, 26 nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

22 So the quartos; the folio has day instead of morn. Drayton gives the cock the same office:

"And now the cocke, the morning's trumpeter,
Play'd hunts-up for the day-star to appear."

H.

23 Extravagant is extra-vagans, wandering about, going beyond bounds. Erring is erraticus, straying or roving up and down. Mr. Douce has justly observed that "the epithets extravagant and erring are highly poetical and appropriate, and seem to prove that Shakespeare was not altogether ignorant of the Latin language."

24 This is a very ancient superstition. Philostratus, giving an account of the apparition of Achilles' shade to Apollonius of Tyanna, says, "it vanished with a little gleam as soon as the cock crowed." There is a Hymn of Prudentius, and another of St. Ambrose, in which it is mentioned; and there are some lines in the latter very much resembling Horatio's speech.

25 So read all the quartos but the first; the folio has, "no spirit can walk abroad." It is difficult which to prefer, both readings being so good.

H.

26 That is, no fairy blasts, or infects. See The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iv. sc. 4, note 2. Gracious is sometimes used

Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe it. But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yond' high eastern hill. Break we our watch up; and, by my advice, Let us impart what we have seen to-night Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life, This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, As needful in our loves, fitting our duty ? 27

Mar. Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know Where we shall find him most convenient. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

The Same. A Room of State.

Enter the King, the Queen, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants.

King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's

death

The memory be green; and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore, our sometime sister, now our queen,

by Shakespeare for graced, favoured. See As You Like It, Act i. sc. 2, note 11. - The quartos have "that time," and further on, eastward for eastern.

27 Note the inobtrusive and yet fully adequate mode of introducing the main character, "young Hamlet," upon whom is transferred all the interest excited for the acts and concerns of the king his father. - COLERIDGE.

H.

Th' imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy, -
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye;1
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along: For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking, by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. - So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: We have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras, -
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose, - to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject. And we here despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope

1 The same thought occurs in The Winter's Tale: "She had one eye declin'd for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfill'd." There is an old proverbial phrase, "To laugh with one eye, and cry with the other."

2 Gait here signifies course, progress. Gait for road, way, path, is still in use. - Subject, next line but one, is used for subjects, or those subject to him.

H.

Of these dilated articles allow.3
Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.
Cor. Vol. In that, and all things, will we show
our duty.
King. We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell. -
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.

And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit: what is't, Laertes ?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,

And lose your voice: What would'st thou beg,

Laertes,

That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.4

What would'st thou have, Laertes ?

Laer.

My dread lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation;
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

King. Have you your father's leave? What says
Polonius?

3 That is, the scope of these articles when dilated or explained in full. Such elliptical expressions are common with the Poet, from his having more thought than space. The rules of modern grammar would require allows instead of allow; but in old writers, when the noun and the verb have a genitive intervening, nothing is more common than for the verb to take the number of the genitive. - "In the king's speech," says Coleridge, "observe the set and pedantically antithetic form of the sentences when touching that which galled the heels of conscience, the strain of undignified rhetoric; and yet in what follows concerning the public weal, a certain appropriate majesty."

H.

4 The various parts of the body enumerated are not more allied, more necessary to each other, than the king of Denmark is bound to your father to do him service.

Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow

leave,

5

By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will.
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,

6

Ham. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than kind."

King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Ham. Not so, my lord; I am too much i'the sun.s Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids

5 The first three lines of this speech, all but "He hath, my lord," are wanting in the folio.

H.

6 The king's speech may be thus explained: "Take an auspicious hour, Laertes; be your time your own, and thy best virtues guide thee in spending of it at thy will." Johnson thought that we should read, "And my best graces." The editors had rendered this passage obscure by placing a colon at graces.

A little more than kin has been rightly said to allude to the double relationship of the king to Hamlet, as uncle and step-father, his kindred by blood and kindred by marriage. By less than kind Hamlet means degenerate and base. "Going out of kinde," says Baret, "which goeth out of kinde, which dothe or worketh dishonour to his kinred. Degener; forlignant." "Forligner," says Cotgrave, "to degenerate, to grow out of kind, to differ in conditions with his ancestors." That less than kind and out of kind have the same meaning who can doubt?

8 This is commonly thought to be a sarcastic play upon the words sun and son; as the being called son by his uncle naturally reminds Hamlet of his mother's incest. Perhaps, however, the true meaning is best explained by the following, from Grindal's Profitable Discourse, 1555: "In very deed they were brought from the good to the bad, and from God's blessing, as the proverbe is, into a warme sonne." See King Lear, Act ii. sc. 2, note 27. In the next line, the folio has nightly instead of nighted.

H.

• That is, with downcast eyes. We have repeatedly seen, that

to vail was to lower or let fall. Act i sc. 1, note 3.

See The Merchant of Venice,

H.