Act III

Act III

[Footnote III.1: _Forward_] Disposed, inclinable.]

[Footnote III.2: _Assay him to_] Try his disposition towards.]

[Footnote III.3: _O'er-raught on the way:_] Reached or overtook.]

[Footnote III.4 _Have closely sent_] _i.e._, privately sent.]

[Footnote III.5 _May here affront Ophelia:_] To affront is to
come face to face--to confront.]

[Footnote III.6 _Lawful espials_,] Spies justifiably inquisitive.
From the French, _espier_.]

[Footnote III.7 _Too much prov'd_,] Found by too frequent
experience.]

[Footnote III.8 _To be, or not to be, that is the question:_]
Hamlet is deliberating whether he should continue to live, or put
an end to his existence.]

[Footnote III.9: _Or to take arms against a sea of troubles_,] _A
sea of troubles_ among the Greeks grew into a proverbial usage;
so that the expression figuratively means, the troubles of human
life, which flow in upon us, and encompass us round like a sea.]

[Footnote III.10: _This mortal coil_,] Coil is here used in each
of its senses, that of turmoil or bustle, and that which entwines
or wraps round.]

[Footnote III.11: _Must give us pause:_] _i.e._, occasion for
reflection.]

[Footnote III.12: _There's the respect That makes calamity of so
long life_;] The _consideration_ that makes the evils of life so
long submitted to, lived under.]

[Footnote III.13: _The whips and scorns of time_,] Those
sufferings of body and mind, those stripes and mortifications to
which, in its _course_, the life of man is subjected.]

[Footnote III.14: _Contumely_,] Contemptuousness, rudeness.]

[Footnote III.15: _His quietus make_] Quietus means the official
discharge of an account: from the Latin. Particularly in the
Exchequer accounts, where it is still current. Chiefly used by
authors in metaphorical senses.]

[Footnote III.16: _A bare bodkin?_] Bodkin was an ancient term
for a small dagger. In the margin of Stowe's Chronicle it is said
that Cæsar was slain with _bodkins_.]

[Footnote III.17: _Who would fardels bear_,] Fardel is a burden.
Fardellus, low Latin.]

[Footnote III.18: _From whose bourn_] _i.e._, boundary.]

[Footnote III.19: _No traveller returns_,] The traveller whom
Hamlet had seen, though he appeared in the same habit which he
had worn in his life-time, was nothing but a shadow,
"invulnerable as the air," and, consequently, _incorporeal_. The
Ghost has given us no account of the region from whence he came,
being, as he himself informed us, "forbid to tell the secrets of
his prison-house."--MALONE.]

[Footnote III.20: _Thus conscience does make cowards of us all_;]
A state of doubt and uncertainty, a conscious feeling or
apprehension, a misgiving "How our audit stands."]

[Footnote III.21: _Of great pith and moment_,] _i.e._, of great
vigour and importance.]

[Footnote III.22:

  _With this regard, their currents turn away_,
  _And lose the name of action._]

From this sole consideration have their drifts diverted, and lose
the character and name of enterprise.]

[Footnote III.23: _Soft you now!_] A gentler pace! have done with
lofty march!]

[Footnote III.24: _Nymph, in thy orisons_] _i.e._, in thy
prayers. Orison is from _oraison_--French.]

[Footnote III.25: _If you be honest and fair, your honesty should
admit no discourse to your beauty._] _i.e._, if you really
possess these qualities, chastity and beauty, and mean to support
the character of both, your honesty should be so chary of your
beauty, as not to suffer a thing so fragile to entertain
discourse, or to be parleyed with.

The lady interprets the words otherwise, giving them the turn
best suited to her purpose.]

[Footnote III.26: _His likeness:_] Shakespeare and his
contemporaries frequently use the personal for the neutral
pronoun.]

[Footnote III.27: _Inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish
of it:_] So change the original constitution and properties, as
that no smack of them shall remain. "Inoculate our stock" are
terms in gardening.]

[Footnote III.28: _With more offences at my beck_] That is,
always ready to come about me--at my beck and call.]

[Footnote III.29: _Than I have thoughts to put them in, &c._] "To
put a thing into thought," Johnson says, is "to think on it."]

[Footnote III.30: _I have heard of your paintings_,] These
destructive aids of beauty seem, in the time of Shakespeare, to
have been general objects of satire.]

[Footnote III.31: _Heaven hath given you one face, and you make
yourselves another:_] _i.e._, Heaven hath given you one face, and
you disfigure his image by making yourself another.]

[Footnote III.32: _You jig, you amble, and you lisp_,] This is an
allusion to the manners of the age, which Shakespeare, in the
spirit of his contemporaries, means here to satirise.]

[Footnote III.33: _Make your wantonness your ignorance._] You
mistake by _wanton_ affectation, and pretend to mistake by
_ignorance_.]

[Footnote III.34: _All but one shall live_;] _One_ is the king.]

[Footnote III.35: _To a nunnery, go. Exit Hamlet._] There is no
doubt that Hamlet's attachment to Ophelia is ardent and sincere,
but he treats her with apparent severity because he is aware that
Ophelia has been purposely thrown in his way; that spies are
about them; and that it is necessary for the preservation of his
life, to assume a conduct which he thought would be attributed to
madness only.]

[Footnote III.36: _The expectancy and rose of the fair state_,]
The first hope and fairest flower. "The gracious mark o' the
land."]

[Footnote III.37: _Glass of fashion_] Speculum
consuetudinis.--CICERO.

[Footnote III.38: _The mould of form_,] The cast, in which is
shaped the only perfect form.

[Footnote III.39: _Musick vows_,] Musical, mellifluous.

[Footnote III.40: _Be round with him_;] _i.e._, plain with
him--without reserve.

[Footnote III.41: _If she find him not_,] Make him not out.

[Footnote III.42: _As lief_] As willingly.]

[Footnote III.43: _Thus_;] _i.e._, thrown out thus.]

[Footnote III.44: _Robustious perrywig-pated fellow_] This is a
ridicule on the quantity of false hair worn in Shakespeare's
time, for wigs were not in common use till the reign of Charles
the Second. _Robustious_ means making an extravagant show of
passion.]

[Footnote III.45: _The ears of the groundlings_,] The meaner
people appear to have occupied the pit of the theatre (which had
neither floor nor benches in Shakespeare's time), as they now sit
in the upper gallery.]

[Footnote III.46: _O'er-doing Termagant_;] The Crusaders, and
those who celebrated them, confounded Mahometans with Pagans, and
supposed Mahomet, or Mahound, to be one of their deities, and
Tervagant or Termagant, another. This imaginary personage was
introduced into our old plays and moralities, and represented as
of a most violent character, so that a ranting actor might always
appear to advantage in it. The word is now used for a scolding
woman.]

[Footnote III.47: _It out-herods Herod:_] In all the old
moralities and mysteries this personage was always represented as
a tyrant of a very violent temper, using the most exaggerated
language. Hence the expression.]

[Footnote III.48: _The very age and body of the time its form and
pressure._] _i.e._, to delineate exactly the manners of the age,
and the particular humours of the day--_pressure_ signifying
resemblance, as in a print.]

[Footnote III.49: _Come tardy off_,] Without spirit or animation;
heavily, sleepily done.]

[Footnote III.50: _The censure of which one_] _i.e._, the censure
of one of which.]

[Footnote III.51: _Your allowance_,] In your approbation.]

[Footnote III.52: _Not to speak it profanely_,] _i.e._,
_irreverently_, in allusion to Hamlet's supposition that God had
not made such men, but that they were only the handy work of
God's assistants.]

[Footnote III.53: _Indifferently_] In a reasonable degree.]

[Footnote III.54: _Speak no more them is set down for them:_]
Shakespeare alludes to a custom of his time, when the clown, or
low comedian, as he would now be called, addressing the audience
during the play, entered into a contest of raillery and sarcasm
with such spectators as chose to engage with him.]

[Footnote III.55: _Barren spectators_] _i.e._, dull,
unapprehensive spectators.]

[Footnote III.56: _Question_] Point, topic.]

[Footnote III.57: _Cop'd withal._] Encountered with.]

[Footnote III.58: _Pregnant hinges of the knee_,] _i.e._, bowed
or bent: ready to kneel where _thrift_, that is, thriving, or
emolument may follow sycophancy.]

[Footnote III.59: _Since my dear soul_] _Dear_ is out of which
arises the liveliest interest.]

[Footnote III.60: _Whose blood and judgment_] Dr. Johnson says
that according to the doctrine of the four humours, _desire_ and
_confidence_ were seated in the blood, and judgment in the
phlegm, and the due mixture of the humours made a perfect
character.]

[Footnote III.61: _The very comment of thy soul_] The most
intense direction of every faculty.]

[Footnote III.62: _Occulted guilt do not itself unkennel_]
Stifled, secret guilt, do not develope itself.]

[Footnote III.63: _As Vulcan's stithy._] A stithy is the smith's
shop, as stith is the anvil.]

[Footnote III.64: _In censure of his seeming._] In making our
estimate of the appearance he shall put on.]

[Footnote III.65: _I have nothing with this answer; these words
are not mine._] _i.e._, they grow not out of mine: have no
relation to anything said by me.]

[Footnote III.66: _No, nor mine, now._] They are now anybody's.
Dr. Johnson observes, "a man's words, says the proverb, are his
own no longer than while he keeps them unspoken."]

[Footnote III.67: _You played once in the university, you say?_]
The practice of acting Latin plays in the universities of Oxford
and Cambridge is very ancient, and continued to near the middle
of the last century.]

[Footnote III.68: _I did enact Julius Cæsar:_] A Latin play on
the subject of Cassar's death, was performed at Christ-church,
Oxford, in 1582.]

[Footnote III.69: _They stay upon your patience._] _Patience_ is
here used for _leisure_.]

[Footnote III.70: _Lying down at Ophelia's feet._] To lie at the
feet of a mistress during any dramatic representation, seems to
have been a common act of gallantry.]

[Footnote III.71: _Jig-maker_,] Writer of ludicrous interludes.
_A jig_ was not in Shakespeare's time only a dance, but a
ludicrous dialogue in metre; many historical ballads were also
called _jigs_.]

[Footnote III.72: _For I'll have a suit of sables._] Wherever his
scene might be, the customs of his country were ever in
Shakespeare's thoughts. A suit trimmed with sables was in our
author's own time the richest dress worn by men in England. By
the Statute of Apparel, 24 Henry VIII., c. 13, (_article
furres_), it is ordained, that none under the degree of an _Earl_
may use _sables_.]

[Footnote III.73: _He must build churches, then._] Such
benefactors to society were sure to be recorded by means of the
feast day on which the patron saints and founders of churches
were commemorated in every parish. This custom has long since
ceased.]

[Footnote III.74: _Miching mallecho_;] To _mich_ is a provincial
word, signifying _to lie hid_, or _to skulk_, or _act by
stealth_. It was probably once generally used. Mallecho is
supposed to be corrupted from the Spanish _Malechor_, which means
a poisoner.]

[Footnote III.75: _The posy of a ring?_] Such poetry as you may
find engraven on a ring.]

[Footnote III.76: _Phoebus' cart_] A chariot was anciently called
a cart.]

[Footnote III.77: _Tellus' orbèd ground_,] _i.e._, the globe of
the earth. Tellus is the personification of the earth, being
described as the first being that sprung from Chaos.]

[Footnote III.78: _My operant powers their functions leave to
do:_] _i.e._, my active energies cease to perform their offices.]

[Footnote III.79: _What we do determine, oft we break._] Unsettle
our most fixed resolves.]

[Footnote III.80: _The argument?_] The subject matter.]

[Footnote III.81: _The mouse-trap._]

  He calls it the mouse-trap, because it is the thing,
  In which he'll catch the conscience of the king.]

[Footnote III.82: _Tropically._] _i.e._, figuratively.]

[Footnote III.83: _The image of a murder_,] _i.e._, the lively
portraiture, the correct and faithful representation of a murder,
&c.]

[Footnote III.84: _Let the galled jade wince_,] A proverbial
saying.]

[Footnote III.85: _Our withers are unwrung._] Withers is the
joining of the shoulder bones at the bottom of the neck and mane
of a horse. _Unwrung_ is _not pinched_.]

[Footnote III.86: _You are as good as a chorus_,] The persons who
are supposed to behold what passes in the acts of a tragedy, and
sing their sentiments between the acts.

The use to which Shakespeare converted the chorus, may be seen in
King Henry V.]

[Footnote III.87: _I could interpret between you and your love,
if I could see the puppets dallying._] This refers to the
interpreter, who formerly sat on the stage at all _puppet shows_,
and explained to the audience. _The puppets dallying_ are here
made to signify to the agitations of Ophelia's bosom.]

[Footnote III.88:

  _The croaking raven_
  _Doth bellow for revenge._]

_i.e._, begin without more delay; for the raven, foreknowing the
deed, is already croaking, and, as it were, calling out for the
revenge which will ensue.]

[Footnote III.89: _Midnight weeds_] The force of the epithet
_midnight_, will be best displayed by a corresponding passage in
Macbeth:

  "Root of hemlock, _digg'd i' the dark_."]

[Footnote III.90: _Usurp_] Encroach upon.]

[Footnote III.91: _Let the strucken deer go weep_,] Shakespeare,
in _As you like it_, in allusion to the wounded stag, speaks of
the _big round tears_ which _cours'd one another down his
innocent nose in piteous chase_. In the 13th song of Drayton's
Polyolbion, is a similar passage--"_The harte weepeth at his
dying; his tears are held to be precious in medicine._"]

[Footnote III.92: _Marvellous distempered._] _i.e._,
discomposed.]

[Footnote III.93: _Admiration._] _i.e._, wonder.]

[Footnote III.94: _Trade with us?_] _i.e._ Occasion of
intercourse.]

[Footnote III.95: _By these pickers and stealers._] _i.e._, by
these hands. The phrase is taken from the Church catechism,
where, in our duty to our neighbour, we are taught to keep our
hands from _picking and stealing_.]

[Footnote III.96: _You do freely bar the door of your own
liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend._] By your own
act you close the way against your own ease, and the free
discharge of your griefs, if you open not the source of them to
your friends.]

[Footnote III.97: _You have the voice of the king himself for
your succession in Denmark?_] Though the crown was elective, yet
regard was paid to the recommendation of the preceding prince,
and preference given to royal blood, which, by degrees, produced
hereditary succession.]

[Footnote III.98: _"While the grass grows,"--the proverb is
something musty._] The proverb is, "_While the grass grows, the
steed starves._" Hamlet alludes to his own position, while
waiting for his succession to the throne of Denmark. A similar
adage is, "_A slip between the cup and the lip._"]

[Footnote III.99: _Recorder._] _i.e._ A kind of flute, or pipe.]

[Footnote III.100: _Why do you go about to recover the wind of
me_,] Equivalent to our more modern saying of _Get on the blind
side._]

[Footnote III.101: _Into a toil?_] _i.e._, net or snare.]

[Footnote III.102: _If my duty be too bold, my love is too
unmannerly._] If my sense of duty have led me too far, it is
affection and regard for you that makes the carriage of that duty
border on disrespect.]

[Footnote III.103: _Govern these ventages--and it will discourse
most eloquent music._] Justly order these vents, or air-holes,
and it will breathe or utter, &c.]

[Footnote III.104: _Though you can fret me, you cannot play upon
me._] A _fret_ is a stop or key of a musical instrument. Here is,
therefore, a play upon the words. Though you cannot fret, stop,
or vex, you cannot play or impose upon me.]

[Footnote III.105: _They fool me to the top of my bent._] To the
height; as far as they see me _incline_ to go: an allusion to the
utmost flexure of a bow.]

[Footnote III.106: _Bitter business_] _i.e._, shocking, horrid
business.]

[Footnote III.107: _Stands it safe with us_] Is it _consistent_
with our security.]

[Footnote III.108: _This fear_,] Bugbear.]

[Footnote III.109: _Behind the arras I'll convey myself_,] The
arras-hangings, in Shakespeare's time, were hung at such a
distance from the walls, that a person might easily stand behind
them unperceived.]

[Footnote III.110: _To hear the process_;] The course of the
conversation.]

[Footnote III.111: _The speech of vantage._] _i.e._, opportunity
or advantage of secret observations.]

[Footnote III.112: _Lay home to him:_] Pointedly and closely
charge him.]

[Footnote III.113: _Pranks too broad_] Open and bold.]

[Footnote III.114: _I'll 'sconce me even here._] 'Sconce and
ensconce are constantly used figuratively for _hide._ In "The
Merry Wives of Windsor," Falstaff says, "I will _ensconce_ me
behind the arras."]

[Footnote III.115: _By the rood_,] _i.e._, the cross or
crucifix.]

[Footnote III.116: _How now! a rat?_] This is an expression
borrowed from the History of Hamblet.]

[Footnote III.117: _Have not braz'd it so_,] _i.e._, soldered
with brass.]

[Footnote III.118: _Proof and bulwark against sense._] Against
all feeling.]

[Footnote III.119: _Takes off the rose From the fair forehead of
an innocent love, And sets a blister there_;] _i.e._, takes the
clear tint from the brow of unspotted, untainted innocence. "True
or honest as the skin between one's brows" was a proverbial
expression, and is frequently used by Shakespeare.]

[Footnote III.120: _As from the body of contraction plucks The
very soul_;] Annihilates the very principle of contracts.
Contraction for marriage contract.]

[Footnote III.121: _The counterfeit presentment_] _i.e._, picture
or mimic representation.]

[Footnote III.122: _Hypérion's curls_;] Hyperion is used by
Spenser with the same error in quantity.]

[Footnote III.123: _A station like the herald Mercury_] Station
is attitude--act of standing.]

[Footnote III.124:

  _Like a mildew'd ear_,
  _Blasting his wholesome brother._]

This alludes to Pharaoh's dream, in the 41st chapter of Genesis.]

[Footnote III.125: _Batten on this moor?_] Batten is to feed
rankly.]

[Footnote III.126: _Hey-day in the blood_] This expression is
occasionally used by old authors.]

[Footnote III.127: _Thou canst mutine_] _i.e._, rebel.]

[Footnote III.128: _As will not leave their tinct._] So dyed _in
grain_, that they will not relinquish or lose their tinct--are
not to be discharged. In a sense not very dissimilar he presently
says,

  "Then what I have to do
  Will _want true colour_."]

[Footnote III.129: _An enseamed bed._] _i.e._, greasy bed of
grossly fed indulgence.]

[Footnote III.130: _A vice of kings_;] _i.e._, a low mimick of
kings. The vice was the fool of the old moralities or dramas, who
was generally engaged in contests with the devil, by whom he was
finally carried away. Dr. Johnson says the modern Punch is
descended from the vice.]

[Footnote III.131:

  _From a shelf the precious diadem stole_,
  _And put it in his pocket!_]

In allusion to the usurper procuring the crown as a common
pilferer or thief, and not by open villainy that carried danger
with it.]

[Footnote III.132: _A king of shreds and patches._] This is said,
pursuing the idea of the _vice of kings_. The vice being dressed
as a fool, in a coat of party-coloured patches.]

[Footnote III.133: _Laps'd in time and passion_,] That having
suffered time to slip, and passion to cool, &c. It was supposed
that nothing was more offensive to apparitions than the neglect
to attach importance to their appearance, or to be inattentive to
their admonitions.]

[Footnote III.134: _Cool patience._] _i.e._, moderation.]

[Footnote III.135: _Make them capable._] Make them
intelligent--capable of conceiving.]

[Footnote III.136: _My stem effects:_] _i.e._, change the nature
of my purposes, or what I mean to effect.]

[Footnote III.137: _Nothing at all; yet all that is, I see._] It
is in perfect consistency with the belief that all spirits were
not only naturally invisible, but that they possessed the power
of making themselves visible to such persons only as they
pleased.]

[Footnote III.138: _My father, in his habit as he lived!_] In the
habit he was accustomed to wear when living.]

[Footnote III.139:

  _This bodiless creation ecstasy_
  _Is very cunning in._]

_i.e._, "Such shadows are the weak brain's forgeries." Ecstasy in
this place, as in many others, means a temporary alienation of
mind--a fit.]

[Footnote III.140: _Gambol from._] Start away from.]

[Footnote III.141: _Skin and film_,] Cover with a thin skin.]

[Footnote III.142:

  _And when you are desirous to be bless'd_,
  _I'll blessing beg of you_]

When you are desirous to receive a blessing from heaven (which
you cannot, seriously, till you reform), I will beg to receive a
blessing from you.]