King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine; (3) And thy beft graces fpend it at thy will. But now, my coufin Hamlet, and my fon--- [Afide. King: How is it that the clouds ftill hang on you? Ham. Not fo, my Lord, I am too much i' th' fun. Queen. Good Hamlet, caft thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids, Seek for thy noble father in the duft ; Thou knoweft 'tis common; all that live must die, Paffing through nature to eternity. Ham. Ay, Madam, it is common. Queen. If it be, Why feems it fo particular with thee? Ham. Seems, Madam? nay, it is; I know not 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, (3) Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine, And thy fair graces; Spend it at thy will.] This is the pointing in both Mr Pope's editions; but the Poet's meaning is loft by it, and the clofe of the fentence miferably flattened. The pointing I have reftored, is that of the beft copies, and the fenfe this; "You have my leave to go, Laertes; make the faireft ufe you pleafe of your time, and fpend it at your will with the fairest graces you are-mafter of." But I have that within which paffeth fhew: To give these mourning duties to your father: To do obfequious forrow.. But to perfevere As of a father: for let the world take note, (4) But you must krow, your father left a fibers That father his.] This fuppofed refinement is from Mr Pope; but all the editions elfe, that 1 have met with, old and modern, read; That father loft, loft bis. The reduplication of which word kere gives an energy, and elegance, which is much easier to be conceived than explained in terms. And every judicious reader of this Poet must have obferved how frequent it is with him to make this reduplication, where he intends either to affert or deny, augment or dinimith, or add a degree of velismence * to his expreilion. And with't no lefs nobility of love, (5) Than that which dearest father bears his fon, It is most retrograde to our defire: And we beseech you, bend you to remain Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye, Our chiefeft courtier, cousin, and our fon. Queen. Let not thy mother lofe her prayers Hamlet: I pr'ythee, ftay with us, go not to Wittenberg. (5) And with no less nobility of love Than that which dearest father bears his fon,. Do I impart towards you. But what does the King im part? We want the fubftantive governed of the verb The King had declared. Hamlet bis immediate fucceffor, and with that declaration, he must mean, he imparts to him as noble a love, as ever fond father tendered to his own fon. I have. ventured to make the text conform with this fenfe. In going back to school to Wittenberg;] The Poet ufes a prolepfis here; for the university at Wittenberg was opened by Frederick III. elector of Saxony, in the year 1502, feveral ages later in time than the date of Hamlet. But I defign this remark for another purpofe. I would take notice, that a confiderable space of years is fpent in this tragedy; or Hamlet, as a Prince, fhould be too old to go to an univerfity. We here find him a scholar refident at that univerfity; but, in act fifth, we find him plainly thirty years old; for the gravedigger had taken up that occupation the very, day on which young Hamlet was born, and had followed it, as he fays, thirty years. And the King's rowfe the heaven fhall bruit again, Re-fpeaking earthly thunder. Come away. Manet HAMLET. [Exeunt. Ham. Oh, that this too-too-folid flesh would melt, Thaw, and refolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlafting had not fixed (7) (7) Or that the Everlafting had not fixed His cannon 'gainst felf-flaughter! The generality of the editions read thus, as if the Poet's thoughts were, Or that the Almighty had not planted his artillery, his refentment, or arms of vengeance against felf-murder. But the word which I have restored to the text, (and which was efpoufed by the accurate Mr Hughes, who gave an edition of this play) is the Poet's true reading. i. e. That he had not reftained fuicide by his exprefs law, and peremptory prohibition. Miftakes are perpetually made in the old editions of our Poet, betwixt thofe two words, cannon and canon. I fhall now fubjoin my reasons why I think the Poet intended to fay Heaven had fixed its injunction rather than its artillery. In the first place, I much doubt the propriety of the phrafe, fixing cannon, in the meaning here fuppofed. The military expreflion, which imports what would be neceffary to the fenie of the Poet's thought, is mounting or planting cannon; and whenever cannon is faid to be fixed, it is when the enemy become mafters of it and nail it down. In the next place, to fix a canon, or law, is the term of the civilians peculiar to this bufinefs. This Virgil had in his mind when he wrote; Leges fit pretio, atque refixit. Æneid. VI. So Cicero, in his Philippic orations; Num figentur rurfus he Tabule, quas vos decretis veftris refixytis? And it was the conftant cuftom of the Romans to fay, upon this occafion, figere legem, as the Greeks before them ufed the fynonymous term νόμον παραπῆξαι, and called their fatues thence παραyuxтa. But my laft reafon, and which fways moft with. me, is from the Poet's own turn and caft of thought. For, as he has done in a great many more inftances, it is the very fentiment which he falls into in another of his plays, though he has clothed it in different expreffion; gainst Jelf-flaughter There is a prohibition fo drvine, Cymbeline, His canon 'gainft felf-flaughter! O God! oh God! Fy on't! oh fy! 'tis an unweeded garden, [ture,. So excellent a King, that was, to this, Hyperion to a fatyr: fo loving to my mother, (8) By what it fed on; yet, within a month, (8) -fo loving to my mother, That he permitted not the winds of heaven Vifit her face too roughly. This is a fophifticated reading, copied from the players in fome of the modern editions, for want of understanding the Poet, whofe 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 beteere the winds of heaven. Beteene is a corruption,without doubt, but not so 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. (9) -Frailty, thy name is woman!] But that it would difplease Mr Pope to have it fuppofed that fatire. can have any place in tragedy, (of which I fhall have occafion to speak farther anon) I fhould make no fèruple to pronounce this reflection a fine laconic farcafin. It is as concife in the terms, and, perhaps, more fprightly in the thought and image, than that fling of Virgil upon the fex, in hist fourth Ænerd; -varium et mutabile femper Famina. |