Of unimproved a mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,

For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in 't: which is no other
(And it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,
And terms compulsative, those 'foresaid lands.
So by his father lost: And this, I take it,

Is the main motive of our preparations;

The source of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

b

[BER. I think it be no other, but even so:

Well may it sort, that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch: so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.
HOR. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets d:

• Unimproved, in folio; in quarto (4), inapproved. Johnson says, " unimproved mettle" is “full of spirit, not regulated or guided by knowledge and experience." Gifford affirms that the word unimproved" here means "just the contrary." Improve was originally used for reprove.

Romage. The stowing of a ship is the roomage; the stower is the romager. Thus, the hurried search attending lading and unlading gave us rummage, or romage, in the sense of tumbling over and tossing about things in confusion.

e

• The eighteen lines in brackets are found in quarto (B), but are omitted in the folio. It is probable that Shakspere suppressed this magnificent description of the omens which preceded the fall of "the mightiest Julius," after he had written Julius Cæsar.' In that noble play we have a description greatly resembling this, especially in the lines which we print in italics:—

"There is one within,

Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

And graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead:
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol:

The noise of battle hurtled in the air;

Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan;

And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.”

The commentators assume that a line is here omitted. Rowe alters the construction of the next two lines, and reads,

"Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell,

Disasters veil'd the sun."

Malone, instead of "As stars" would read astres. This appears to get rid of the difficulty, for we then have the recital of other prodigies, in connection with the appearance of "the sheeted dead." Steevens, however, says that there is no authority for the use of the word astre. But astral was not uncommon; and asterisk was used for a little star, and asterism for a constellation. We leave the passage as we find it in the quarto.

As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist stara,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.—]

Re-enter GHOST.

But, soft; behold! lo, where it comes again!

I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,

That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,

Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

Speak of it-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Marcellus. MAR. Shall I strike at it with my partizan?

HOR. Do, if it will not stand.

BER.

HOR.

MAR. T is gone!

[Cock crows.

"T is here!

"T is here!

[Exit GHOST.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence;

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BER. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
HOR. And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,

• The moist star is the moon. So in The Winter's Tale:'

"Nine changes of the watery star have been

The shepherd's note."

Omen is here put for " portentous event." The word is used in the sense of fate by Heywood:

Upton points out that Shakspere uses "omen" here in the very same manner as Virgil does, Æn. i. 349.

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,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine1: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
MAR. It faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
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 yon 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?

MAR. Let's do 't, I pray and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.

SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the same.

[Exeunt.

Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, Cornelius, and Lords Attendant.

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,

• Morn, in quarto (B); in folio, day. The reading of the quarto avoids the repetition of day in the next line but one.

• Takes-seizes with disease. As in The Merry Wives of Windsor'

"And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle."

The imperial jointress of this warlike state,

Have we, as 't were, with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye;
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 the 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 gaita 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 bearing of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power

To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow3.

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 wouldst 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.

Gait-progress, the act of going. Thus, in 'A Midsummer-Night's Dream,'

What wouldst thou have, Laertes ?

LAER.

Dread my 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 towards France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.
KING. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?
POL. He hath, my lord, [wrunga from me my slow leave,
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,—
HAM. 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.
QUEEN. Good Hamlet, cast thy nightly colour off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust :

Thou know'st 't is common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

HAM. Ay, madam, it is common.

Why seems it so particular with thee?

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,

• The passage in brackets is found in quarto (B), but not in the folio.

[Aside.

⚫ Caldecott interprets this passage thus:-" More than a common relation; having a confessedly accumulated title of relationship, you have less than benevolent, or less than even natural feeling." But surely Hamlet applies these words to himself. The King has called him, "My cousin Hamlet." He says, in a suppressed tone, "A little more than kin"-a little more than cousin. The King adds, " and my son." Hamlet says, "less than kind;"-I am little of the same nature with you. Kind is constantly used in the sense of nature by Ben Jonson and other contemporaries of Shakspere.

⚫ Farmer thinks that a quibble was intended between sun and son. Surely not. Hamlet says he is too much in the sun for clouds to hang over him; and his meaning is at once explained by an old proverb. In Grindal's Profitable Discourse,' 1555, we find this proverb; and the context clearly gives its meaning: "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." Raleigh has the same expression in his 'History of the World.'