HAM.

The king my father!

HOR. Seafon your admiration for a while With an attent ear; till I may deliver,

Upon the witness of

This marvel to you.

HAM.

these gentlemen,

For God's love, let me hear.

HOR. Two nights together had thefe gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waift and middle of the night,'
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Armed at point,+ exactly, cap-à-pé,

Appears before them, and, with folemn march,
Goes flow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd,
By their opprefs'd and fear-furprized eyes,
Within his truncheon's length; whilft they, dif-
till'd

Season your admiration-] That is, temper it. JOHNSON. 2 With an attent ear;] Spenfer, as well as our poet, uses attent for attentive. MALONE.

3 In the dead waift and middle of the night,] This ftrange phrafeology seems to have been common in the time of Shakspeare. By waist is meant nothing more than middle; and hence the epithet dead did not appear incongruous to our poet. So, in Marston's Malecontent, 1604:

""Tis now about the immodeft waist of night.”

i. e. midnight. Again, in The Puritan, a comedy, 1607: "—ere the day be spent to the girdle,-."

In the old copies the word is fpelt waft, as it is in the fecond act, fc. ii: "Then you live about her waft, or in the middle of her favours." The fame fpelling is found in King Lear, Act IV. fc. vi: "Down from the waft, they are centaurs. See alfo Minfheu's Dict. 1617: "Waft, middle, or girdle-fteed." We have the fame pleonafm in another line in this play :

"And given my heart a working mute and dumb."

All the modern editors read-In the dead waste &c. MALONE. Dead wafte may be the true reading. See Vol. III. p. 36, n. 4. STEEVENS.

4 Armed at point,] Thus the quartos. The folio: Arm'd at all points. STEEVENS.

Almost to jelly with the act of fear,'
Stand dumb and speak not to him.
In dreadful fecrecy impart they did;

This to me

And I with them, the third night, kept the watch:
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: I knew your father;
Thefe hands are not more like.

HAM.

But where was this?

MAR. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.

HAM. Did you not speak to it?"

5 — with the act of fear,] Fear was the caufe, the active cause that diffilled them by that force of operation which we strictly call a in voluntary, and power in involuntary agents, but popularly call a in both. JOHNSON.

The folio reads-bestil'd. STEEVENS.

Did you not fpeak to it ?] Fielding, who was well acquainted with vulgar fuperftitions, in his Tom Jones, B. XI. ch. ii. obferves that Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "like a ghoft, only wanted to be spoke to," but then very readily anfwered. It feems from this paffage, as well as from others in books too mean to be formally quoted, that fpectres were fuppofed to maintain an obdurate filence, till interro gated by the people to whom they appeared.

The drift therefore of Hamlet's queftion is, whether his father's fhade had been spoken to; and not whether Horatio, as a particular or privileged perfon, was the fpeaker to it. Horatio tells us he had feen the late king but once, and therefore cannot be imagined to have any particular intereft with his apparition.

The vulgar notion that a ghoft could only be fpoken to with propriety and effect by a fcholar, agrees very well with the cha racter of Marcellus, a common officer; but it would have difgraced the Prince of Denmark to have fuppofed the fpectre would more readily comply with Horatio's folicitation, merely because it was that of a man who had been ftudying at a univerfity.

We are at liberty to think the Ghoft would have replied to Francifco, Bernardo, or Marcellus, had either of them ventured to queftion it. It was actually preparing to addrefs Horatio, when the cock crew. The convenience of Shakspeare's play, however, required that the phantom fhould continue dumb, till Hamlet could

HOR. My lord, I did;

But anfwer made it none: yet once, methought,
It lifted up its head, and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak:

But, even then, the morning cock crew loud;"
And at the found it fhrunk in hafte away,
And vanish'd from our fight.

HAM.

'Tis very strange.

HOR. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true; And we did think it writ down in our duty, To let you know of it.

be introduced to hear what was to remain concealed in his own breaft, or to be communicated by him to fome intelligent friend, like Horatio, in whom he could implicitly confide.

By what particular perfon therefore an apparition which exhibits itfelf only for the purpofe of being urged to fpeak, was addressed, could be of no confequence.

Be it remembered likewife, that the words are not as lately pronounced on the ftage,-" Did not you speak to it ?"-but-"Did you not speak to it?"-How aukward will the innovated sense appear, if attempted to be produced from the paffage as it really stands in the true copies!

Did you not fpeak to it?

The emphafis, therefore, fhould moft certainly reft on-speak.

7

STEEVENS.

the morning cock crew loud;] The moment of the evanefcence of fpirits was fuppofed to be limited to the crowing of the cock. This belief is mentioned fo early as by Prudentius, Cathem. Hymn. I. v. 40. But fome of his commentators prove it to be of much higher antiquity.

It is a moft inimitable circumftance in Shakspeare, fo to have managed this popular idea, as to make the Ghoft, which has been. fo long obftinately filent, and of course must be difmiffed by the morning, begin or rather prepare to speak, and to be interrupted, at the very critical time of the crowing of a cock.

Another poet, according to cuftom, would have fuffered hist ghoft tamely to vanifh, without contriving this ftart, which is like a ftart of guilt. To fay nothing of the aggravation of the future fufpence, occafioned by this preparation to speak, and to impart fome myfterious fecret. Lefs would have been expected, had nothing been promifed. T. WARTON.

HAM. Indeed, indeed, firs, but this troubles me. Hold you the watch to-night?

HAM.

His face.

Then faw you not

ALL. My lord, from head to foot.

HOR. O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.

HAM. What, look'd he frowningly?

Very like: Stay'd it long?

HOR. While one with moderate hafte might tell a hundred.

MAR. BER. Longer, longer.
HOR. Not when I faw it.

wore his beaver up.] Though beaver properly fignified that part of the helmet which was let down, to enable the wearer to drink, Shakspeare always uses the word as denoting that part of the helmet which, when raifed up, expofed the face of the weater: and fuch was the popular fignification of the word in his time. In Bullokar's English Expofitor, 8vo. 1616, beaver is defined thus:"In armour it fignifies that part of the helmet which may be lifted *p, to take breath the more freely." MALONE.

HAM.

His beard was grizzl❜d? no?

HOR. It was, as I have seen it in his life,

HAM. If it affume my noble father's person,
I'll speak to it, though hell itself fhould gape,
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal'd this fight,
Let it be tenable in your filence ftill;"
And whatsoever else fhall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue;
I will requite your loves: So, fare
you well:
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
I'll vifit you.

ALL.

Our duty to your honour.

HAM. Your loves, as mine to you: Farewell. [Exeunt HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO. My father's spirit in arms!' all is not well; I doubt fome foul play: 'would, the night were

come!

Till then fit ftill, my foul: Foul deeds will rife, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

9 A fable filver'd.] So, in our poet's 12th fonnet:

[Exit.

"And fable curls, all filver'd o'er with white." MALONE. 2 Let it be tenable in your filence ftill;] Thus the quartos, and rightly. The folio, 1623, reads-treble. STEEVENS.

3 My father's Spirit in arms!] From what went before, I once hinted to Mr. Garrick, that these words might be fpoken in this

mannner:

My father's fpirit! in arms! all is not well ;———.

WHALLEY.