Your skill fhall, like a ftar i'the darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed. LAER. You mock me, fir. HAM. No, by this hand. KING. Give them the foils, young Ofrick.- You know the wager? HAM. Very well, my lord; Your grace hath laid the odds o'the weaker fide.'. KING. I do not fear it; I have feen you both:But fince he's better'd, we have therefore odds." LAER. This is too heavy, let me fee another. HAM. This likes me well: length? OSR. Ay, my good lord. Thefe foils have all a [They prepare to play. $ Your grace hath laid the odds o' the weaker fide.] When the odds were on the fide of Laertes, who was to hit Hamlet twelve times to nine, it was perhaps the author's flip. Sir T. Hanmer reads Your grace hath laid upon the weaker fide. JOHNSON. I fee no reafon for altering this paffage, Hamlet confiders the things impon'd by the King, as of more value than those impon'd by Laertes; and therefore fays, "that he had laid the odds on the weaker fide." M. MASON. Hamlet either means, that what the king had laid was more valuable than what Laertes ftaked; or that the king hath made his bet, an advantage being given to the weaker party. I believe the first is the true interpretation. In the next line but one the word odds certainly means an advantage given to the party, but here it may have a different sense. This is not an uncommon practice with our poet. MALONE. These are The king had wagered, on Hamlet, fix Barbary horses, against a few rapiers, poniards, &c. that is, about twenty to one. the odds here meant. RITSON. But fince he's better'd, we have therefore odds.] were twelve to nine in favour of Hamlet, by Laertes three. RITSON, Thefe odds giving him KING. Set me the ftoups of wine" upon ble: that ta If Hamlet give the first or second hit, 7 the ftoups of wine-] A ftoup is a kind of flaggon. See Vol. IV. p. 51, n. 2. STEEVENS. Containing fomewhat more than two quarts. MALONE. Stoup is a common word in Scotland at this day, and denotes a pewter veffel, refembling our wine measure; but of no determinate quantity, that being afcertained by an adjunct, as gallon-floup, pint-foup, mutchkin-floup, &c. The veffel in which they fetch or keep water is alfo called the water-floup. A ftoup of wine is therefore equivalent to a pitcher of wine. RITSON. 8 And in the cup an union shall he throw,] In fome editions, And in the cup an onyx fhall he throw. This is a various reading in feveral of the old copies; but union feems to me to be the true word. If I am not mistaken, neither the onyx, nor fardonyx, are jewels which ever found place in an imperial crown. An union is the finest fort of pearl, and has its place in all crowns, and coronets. Befides, let us confider what the King fays on Hamlet's giving Laertes the first hit: "Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine; Therefore, if an union be a pearl, and an onyx a gem, or ftone, quite differing in its nature from pearls; the king faying, that Hamlet has earn'd the pearl, I think, amounts to a demonftration that it was an union pearl, which he meant to throw into the cup. THEOBALD. And in the cup an union fball he throw,] Thus the folio rightly. In the first quarto by the careleffnefs of the printer, for union, we have unice, which in the fubfequent quarto copies was made onyx. An union is a very precious pearl. See Bullokar's English Expofitor, 1616, and Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598, in v. MALONE. So, in Soliman and Perfeda: Ay, were it Cleopatra's union." The union is thus mentioned in P. Holland's tranflation of Pliny's Natural Hiftory: "And hereupon it is that our dainties and delicates here at Rome, &c. call them unions, as a man would fay fingular and by themselves alone." Richer than that which four fucceffive kings The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth, HAM. Come on, fir. KING. Stay, give me drink: Hamlet, this pearl is thine;" Here's to thy health.-Give him the cup. [Trumpets found; and cannon shot off within. HAM. I'll play this bout firft, fet it by awhile. Come.-Another hit; What say you? [They play, To swallow a pearl in a draught feems to have been equally common to royal and mercantile prodigality. So, in the Second Part of If you know not Me, you know Nobody, 1606, Sir Thomas Gresham fays: "Here 16,000 pound at one clap goes. "Instead of fugar, Grefham drinks this pearle "Unto his queen and mistress." It may be obferved, however, that pearls were supposed to poffefs an exhilarating quality. Thus, Rondelet, Lib. I. de Teftac. c. xv: "Uniones quæ à conchis &c. valde cordiales funt.” STEEVENS. 2 this pearl is thine;] Under pretence of throwing a pearl into the cup, the king may be fuppofed to drop fome poisonous drug into the wine. Hamlet feems to fufpect this, when he afterwards difcovers the effects of the poison, and tauntingly asks him, "Is the union here?" STEEVENS. LAER. A touch, a touch, I do confefs. QUEEN. He's fat, and scant of breath.’— Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows: The queen caroufes to thy fortune, Hamlet.' HAM. Good madam, KING. Gertrude, do not drink. QUEEN. I will, my lord;-I pray you, pardon me. KING. It is the poifon'd cup; it is too late. [Afide. HAM. I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by. QUEEN. Come, let me wipe thy face.* 2 Queen. He's fat, and feant of breath.] It feems that Joh Lorvin, who was the original Falstaff, was no lefs celebrated for his performance of Henry VIII. and Hamlet. See the Hiftoria Hiftrionica, &c. If he was adapted, by the corpulence of his figure, to appear with propriety in the two former of these characters, Shakspeare might have put this obfervation into the mouth of her majefty, to apologize for the want of fuch elegance of perfon as an audience might expect to meet with in the reprefentative of the youthful prince of Deninark, whom Ophelia fpeaks of as " the glafs of fashion and the mould of form." This, however, is mere conjecture, as Jofeph Taylor likewise acted Hamlet during the life of Shakspeare. STEEVENS. The author of Hiftoria Hiftrionica, and Downes the prompter, concur in saying that Taylor was the performer of Hamlet. Roberts the player alone has afferted, (apparently without any autho rity,) that this part was performed by Lowin. MALONE. 3 The queen caroufes to thy fortune, Hamlet.] i. e. (in humbler language) drinks good luck to you. A fimilar phrafe occurs in David and Bethfabe, 1599: "With full caroufes to his fortune paft." STEEVENS. 4 Come, let me wipe thy face.] Thefe very words (the present repetition of which might have been fpared) are addreffed by Doll Tearsheet to Falstaff, when he was heated by his pursuit of Piftol. See Vol. IX. p. 95. STEEVENS, LAER. My lord, I'll hit him now. KING. I do not think it. LAER. And yet it is almost against my conscience. [Afide. HAM. Come, for the third, Laertes: You do but dally; I pray you, pass with your best violence; I am afeard, you make a wanton of me. LAER. Say you fo? come on. LAER. Have at you now. [They play. [LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then, in fcuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds KING. LAERTES. Part them, they are incens'd. HAM. Nay, come again. OSR. [The Queen falls. Look to the queen there, ho! HOR. They bleed on both fides :-How is it, my lord? OSR. How is't, Laertes? -you make a wanton of me.] A avanton was a man feeble and effeminate. In Cymbeline, Imogen fays, I am not fo citizen a wanton, as "To feem to die, ere fick." JOHNSON. Rather, you trifle with me as if you were playing with a child. So, in Romeo and Juliet: I would have thee gone, "And yet no further than a wanton's bird, "That lets it hop a little from her hand, "And with a filk thread pulls it back again." RITSON. A paffage in King John fhows that wanton here means a man feeble and effeminate, as Dr. Johnfon has explained it: Shall a beardlefs boy, "A cocker'd filken wanton, brave our fields, "And flesh his spirit in a warlike foil," &c. MALOVE,, |