King. 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 sides. — How is't, my lord? Osr. How is't, Laertes? Laer. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery. King. She swoons to see them bleed. Queen. No, no, the drink, the drink!-O, my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink!-I am poison'd! [Dies. Ham. O villainy!-Ho! let the door be lock'd: Treachery seek it out. [LAERTES falls. Laer. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain; No medicine in the world can do thee good: In thee there is not half an hour of life; 41 The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, All. Treason! treason! King. O! yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt. Ham. Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, Drink off this potion: -is thy union here? [King dies. 41 So the folio; the quartos, "half an hour's life." 42 Unbated is unblunted, as in Act iv. sc. 7, note 18. H. H. Laer. He is justly serv'd; It is a poison temper'd by himself. - Thou liv'st report me and my cause aright Hor. Never believe it : I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. As thou 'rt a man, Ham. Give me the cup: let go; by Heaven, I'll have't. O God! - Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me! If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story. [March afar off, and Shot within. Osr. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from To the ambassadors of England gives This warlike volley. Ham. O, I die, Horatio! The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit: 43 43 To overcrow is to overcome, to subdue. "These noblemen I cannot live to hear the news from England; On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice; So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less, The rest is silence. [Dies. Hor. Now cracks a noble heart! - Good night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! [March within. Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and Others. Fort. Where is this sight? Hor. What is it ye would see ? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search. 45 Fort. This quarry cries on havoc ! - O, proud death! What feast is toward in thine eternal cell, That thou so many princes, at a shot, So bloodily hast struck? 1 Amb. The sight is dismal, And our affairs from England come too late: The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Jaboured with tooth and naile to overcrow, and consequently to overthrow one another."- Holinshed's History of Ireland. 44 Occurrents was much used in the Poet's time for events or occurrences. — Solicited is prompted or excited; as "this supernatural soliciting" in Macbeth. -"More and less" is greater and smaller; a common usage with the old writers.-The folio adds, after silence, "O, o, o, o." H. 45 To cry on was to exclaim against. I suppose, when unfair sportsmen destroyed more game than was reasonable, the censure was to call it havoc.-JOHNSON.. Quarry was the term used for a heap of slaughtered game. See Macbeth, Act i. sc. 2, note 3. Hor. Not from his mouth, Had it th' ability of life to thank you: He never gave commandment for their death. Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I Fort. Let us haste to hear it, And call the noblest to the audience. 47 48 Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak, And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more: But let this same be presently perform'd, Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance, On plots and errors, happen. Fort. Let four captains Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage; 46 It has been already observed that jump and just, or exactly, are synonymous. See Act i. sc. 1, note 10. The phrase put on 47 The quartos have "and for no cause." here means instigated or set on foot. Cunning refers, apparently, to Hamlet's action touching "the packet," and forc'd cause, to the "compelling occasion," which moved him to that piece of practice. H. 48 That is, some rights which are remembered in this kingdom. For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov'd most royally: and, for his passage, Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot. [A dead March. [Exeunt, marching; after which, a Peal of Ordnance is shot off. |