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 20;
As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star21,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,—
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,

22

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 me23.—Stay, illusion!

20 There is evidently some corruption of the text here. It has been conjectured that a line has been omitted, and perhaps we might read:"The sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
And as the earth, so portents fill'd the sky,

Asters, with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun, &c."

The poet uses disaster as a verb in the following passage in Antony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Sc. 7:-"To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in it, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully disaster the cheeks." It has therefore been conjectured that we should read disastering here. 21 The moist star, i. e. the moon.

"Not that night-wand'ring pale and watry star."

Marlowe's Hero and Leander. 22 Omen is here put by a figure of speech for predicted event. 23 The person who crossed the spot on which a spectre was seen became subject to its malignant influence. Among the reasons for supposing the death of Ferdinand, Earl of Derby, (who died young, in 1594,) to have been occasioned by witchcraft, is the following:-" On Friday there appeared a tall man, who twice crossed him swiftly; and when the earl came to the place where he saw this man he fell sick."-Lodge's Illustrations of English History, vol. iii. p. 48.

The quartos have here a stage direction: "It spreads his arms."

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,

[Cock crows. 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. 'Tis gone!

'Tis here!

'Tis 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 cock, that is the trumpet to the morn 25, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and at his warning,

24 Thus in Macbeth:

"As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress."

And in King John:

"Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven."

25 The folio has day instead of morn, which is the reading of the quartos.

"And now the cocke, the morning's trumpeter,
Play'd hunts-up for the day-star to appear."

Drayton.

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring 26 spirit hies
To his confine; 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, This bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then they say no spirit can walk 28 abroad; The nights are wholesome: then no planets strike, No fairy takes 29, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious 30 is the time.

25 The extravagant and erring spirit.

"Extra-vagans, wandering about, going beyond bounds." Thus in Othello:"To an extravagant and wheeling stranger." It is remarkable that stravagant is the reading of the first quarto, which Steevens points out as used in the sense of vagrant. "They took me up for a stravagant." This is the "stravagare" of the Italians; 66 to wander, to gad, or stray beyond or out of the way." Thus in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,

At whose approach, ghosts wandering here and there
Troop home."

Erring is erraticus, straying or roving up and down. Mr. Douce has justly observed that "the epithets extravagant and erring are highly poetical and appropriate, and seem to prove that Shakespeare was well acquainted with the Latin language."

27 This is a very ancient superstition. Philostratus, giving an account of the apparition of Achilles' shade to Apollonius of Tyana, says, "that it vanished with a little gleam as soon as the cock crowed." There is a Hymn of Prudentius, and another of St. Ambrose, in which it is mentioned; and there are some lines in the latter very much resembling Horatio's speech. Mr. Douce has given them in his Illustrations of Shakespeare.

28 Thus the folio. The quartos have, dares stir, except that of 1603, which has, dare walk.

29 i. e. No fairy blasts, or strikes. Palsgrave has " Taken, as children's limbs be by the fairies, Faée." Thus in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iv. Sc. 4:

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

See note on that passage.

30 It has already been observed that gracious is sometimes used

Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe it. But, look, the morn31, 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 32. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same.

A Room of State in the same.

Enter the King, Queen, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LaERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants.

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,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,—
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye1;
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,

by Shakespeare for graced, favoured. Vide note on As You Like It, Act i. Sc. 2.

31 The first quarto has sun.

32 The quarto has "most convenient."

Thus the folio. The quarto reads:

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 this 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 bonds2 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 gait3 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 bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the
Of these dilated articles allow 5.

scope

"With an auspicious and a dropping eye." The same thought occurs in The Winter's Tale: "She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled." There is an old proverbial phrase, "To laugh with one eye, and cry with the other."

2 The quarto reads, bands; but bands and bonds signified the same thing in the poet's time.

3 Gait here signifies course, progress. The old copies spell it gate. Gait for road, way, path, is still in use in the north. We have this word again in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 2:

66

Every fairy takes his gait."

• Thus the quartos. The folio has, For bearing.

Malone says, "the poet should have written allows;" but the