Sits fmiling to my heart: in grace whereof, [Exeunt King, Queen, Lords, &c. POLONIUS, and LAERTES. HAм. O, that this too too folid flesh would melt, Thaw, and refolve itself into a dew!3 Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainft felf-flaughter!+ O God! O God! Sits Smiling to my heart:] Thus, the dying Lothario: Sits fmiling to my heart:] Surely it should be- STEEVENS. To my heart, I believe, fignifies—near to, close, next to, my heart. 9 No jocund health,] The king's intemperance is very strongly impreffed; every thing that happens to him gives him occafion to drink. JOHNSON. 2 the king's roufe-] i. e. the king's draught of jollity. See Othello, A&t II. fc. iii. STEEVENS. So, in Marlowe's Tragical Hiftorie of Doctor Fauftus: "He tooke his roufe with stoopes of Rhennish wine." RITSON, 3 - refolve itself into a dew!] Refolve means the fame as diffolve. Ben Jonfon ufes the word in his Volpone, and in the fame fense: "Forth the refolved corners of his eyes." Again, in The Country Girl, 1647: my fwoln grief, refolved in thefe tears." STEEVENS. 4 Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainft felf-flaughter!] The generality of the editions read-cannon, as if the poet's thought were,-Or that the Almighty had not planted his artillery, or arms of vengeance, against felf-murder. But the word which I reftored (and which was efpoufed by the accurate Mr. Hughes, who gave an edition of this play) is the true reading, i. e. that he had not reftrained fuicide by his exprefs law and peremptory prohibition. THEOBALD. There are yet those who fuppofe the old reading to be the true X How weary, ftale, flat, and unprofitable That grows to feed; things rank, and gross in na ture, Poffefs it merely. That it fhould come to this! But two months dead!-nay, not fo much, not two: So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a fatyr: fo loving to my mother, one, as they fay the word fixed feems to decide very strongly in its favour. I would advife fuch to recollect Virgil's expreffion: 66 - fixit leges pretio, atque refixit." STEEVENS. If the true reading wanted any fupport, it might be found in Cymbeline: 'gainst felf flaughter "There is a prohibition fo divine, In Shakspeare's time canon (norma) was commonly spelt cannon. MALONE. S merely.] is entirely, abfolutely. See Vol. III. p. 9, n. 5; and Vol. XII. p. 131, n. 6. STEEVENS. 6 So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a fatyr:] This fimilitude at first fight feems to be a little far-fetched; but it has an exquifite beauty. By the Satyr is meant Pan, as by Hyperion, Apollo. Pan and Apollo were brothers, and the allufion is to the contention between thofe gods for the preference in mufick. WARBURTON. All our English poets are guilty of the fame falfe quantity, and call Hyperion Hyperion; at least the only inftance I have met with to the contrary, is in the old play of Fuimus Troes, 1633: Blow gentle Africus, "Play on our poops, when Hyperion's fon "Shall couch in weft." Shakspeare, I believe, has no allufion in the present inftance, except to the beauty of Apollo, and its immediate oppofite, the deformity of a Satyr. STEEVENS. Hyperion or Apollo is reprefented in all the ancient ftatues, &c. as exquifitely beautiful, the fatyrs hideously ugly.-Shakspeare may furely be pardoned for not attending to the quantity of Latin names, here and in Cymbeline; when we find Henry Parrot, the PRINCE OF DENMARK. 37 That he might not beteem the winds of heaven' author of a collection of epigrams printed in 1613, to which a Latin preface is prefixed, writing thus: Pofthumus, not the laft of many more, "Afks why I write in fuch an idle vaine," &c. Laquei ridiculoft, or Springes for Woodcocks, 16mo. fign. c. 3. MALONE. 7 That he might not beteem the winds of heaven-] In former editions: That he permitted not the winds of heaven-. This is a fophifticated reading, copied from the players in fome of the modern editions, for want of understanding the poet, whose text is corrupt in the old impreffions: all of which that I have had the fortune to fee, concur in reading: -fo loving to my mother, That he might not beteene the winds of heaven Vifit her face too roughly. Beteene is a corruption without doubt, but not fo inveterate a one, but that, by the change of a fingle letter, and the feparation. of two words mistakenly jumbled together, I am verily perfuaded, I have retrieved the poet's reading That he might not let e'en the winds of heaven &c. THEOBALD. The obfolete and corrupted verb-beteene, (in the first folio) which should be written (as in all the quartos) beteeme, was changed, as above, by Mr. Theobald; and with the aptitude of his conjecture fucceeding criticks appear to have been satisfied. Beteeme, however, occurs in the tenth book of Arthur Golding's verfion of Ovid's Metamorphofis, 4to. 1587; and, from the correfponding Latin, muft neceffarily fignify, to vouchsafe, deign, permit, or fuffer: Yet could he not beteeme "The shape of anie other bird than egle for to feeme. Sign. R. 1. b. "Dignatur, nifi quæ poffit fua fulmina ferre." V. 157. Jupiter (though anxious for the poffeffion of Ganymede) would not deign to affume a meaner form, or fuffer change into an humbler fhape, than that of the auguft and vigorous fowl who bears the thunder in his pounces. The existence and fignification of the verb beteem being thus eftablished, it follows, that the attention of Hamlet's father to his queen was exactly fuch as is described in the Enterlude of the Must I remember? why, fhe would hang on him, 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 woman! A little month; or ere thofe fhoes were old, My father's brother; but no more like my father, Life and Repentance of Marie Magdalaine, &c. by Lewis Wager, 4to. 1567: But evermore they were unto me very tender, "They would not fuffer the wynde on me to blowe." I have therefore replaced the ancient reading, without the flightest hesitation, in the text. This note was inferted by me in the Gentleman's Magazine, fome years before Mr. Malone's edition of our author (in which the fame juftification of the old reading-beteeme, occurs,) had made its appearance. STEEVENS. This paffage ought to be a perpetual memento to all future editors and commentators to proceed with the utmoft caution in emendation, and never to difcard a word from the text, merely because it is not the language of the prefent day. Mr. Hughes or Mr. Rowe, fuppofing the text to be unintelligible, for beteem boldly fubftituted permitted. Mr. Theobald, in order to favour his own emendation, stated untruly that all the old copies which he had feen, read beteene. His emendation appearing uncommonly happy, was adopted by all the fubfequent editors. We find a fentiment fimilar to that before us, in Marfton's Infatiate Countefs, 1603: she had a lord, Jealous that air fhould ravish her chafte looks." MALONE. Like Niobe, all tears;] Shakspeare might have caught this idea from an ancient ballad intitled The falling out of Lovers is the renewing of Love: "Now I, like weeping Niobe, "May wash my handes in teares," &c. Of this ballad Amantium iræ &c. is the burden. STEEVENS. Ere yet the falt of moft unrighteous tears But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue! Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS. HOR. Hail to your lordship! HAM. I am glad to fee Horatio, or I do forget myself. - you well HOR. The fame, my lord, and your poor fervant ever. HAM. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name? with you. 2 And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?Marcellus? MAR. My good lord, HAM. I am very glad to fee you; good even, fir.3But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? 9 I'll change that name— -] I'll be your fervant, you shall be my friend. JOHNSON. 2 what make you-] A familiar phrafe for what are you doing. JOHNSON. See Vol. VI. p. 7, n. 5. STEEVENS. 3 good even, fir.] So the copies. Sir Thomas Hanmer and Dr. Warburton put it-good morning. The alteration is of no importance, but all licence is dangerous. There is no need of any change. Between the firft and eighth fcene of this act it is apparent, that a natural day muft pafs, and how much of it is already over, there is nothing that can determine. The king has held a council. It may now as well be evening as morning. JOHNSON. The change made by Sir T. Hani.... might be juftified by what Marcellus faid of Hamlet at the conclufion of fcene i: and I this morning know "Where we shall find him moft convenient." STEEVENS, |