MAR. We have fworn, my lord, already. HAM. Indeed, upon my fword, indeed. GHOST. [Beneath.] Swear. HAM. Ha, ha, boy! fay'ft thou fo? art thou there, true-penny? 2 Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage,Confent to fwear. HOR. Propose the oath, my lord. HAM. Never to speak of this that you have feen, Swear by my fword.' 2 true-penny ?] This word, as well as fome of Hamlet's former exclamations, we find in the Malcontent, 1604: "Illo, ho, ho, ho; art there old True-penny?" STEEVENS. 3 Swear by my fword.] Here the poet has preserved the manners of the ancient Danes, with whom it was religion to fwear upon their fwords. See Bartholinus, De caufis contempt. mort. apud Dan. WARBURTON. I was once inclinable to this opinion, which is likewife well defended by Mr. Upton; but Mr. Garrick produced me a paffage, I think, in Brantome, from which it appeared, that it was common to fwear upon the fword, that is, upon the cross which the old fwords always had upon the hilt. JOHNSON. Shakspeare, it is more than probable, knew nothing of the ancient Danes, or their manners. Every extract from Dr. Farmer's pamphlet muft prove as inftructive to the reader as the following: "In the Paffus Primus of Pierce Plowman, • David in his daies dubbed knightes, And did them fwere on her fword to serve truth ever.' "And in Hieronymo, the common butt of our author, and the wits of the time, fays Lorenzo to Pedringano: GHOST. [Beneath.] Swear. HAM. Hic & ubique? then we'll fhift our ground: Come hither, gentlemen, And lay your hands again upon my fword: Never to speak of this that you have heard. GHOST. [Beneath.] Swear by his fword. HAM. Well faid, old mole! can't work i'the earth fo faft? • Swear on this cross, that what thou fay'ft is true: This very fword, whereon thou took'st thine oath, To the authorities produced by Dr. Farmer, the following may be added from Holinfhed, p. 664: "Warwick kiffed the cross of K. Edward's fword, as it were a vow to his promife." Again, p. 1038, it is faid: " that Warwick drew out his fword, which other of the honourable and worshipful that were then prefent likewife did, whom he commanded, that each one should kifs other's fword, according to an ancient custom amongst men of war in time of great danger; and herewith they made a folemn vow," &c. Again, in Decker's comedy of Old Fortunatus, 16c0: "He has fworn to me on the cross of his pure Toledo." Again, in his Satiromaflix: "By the cross of this fword and dagger, captain, you fhall take it." In the foliloquy of Roland addreffed to his fword, the cross on it is not forgotten: capulo eburneo candidiffime, cruce aurea fplendidiffime," &c. Turpini Hift. de Geftis Caroli Mag. cap. 22. Again, in an ancient MS. of which fome account is given in a note on the firft fcene of the first act of The Merry Wives of Windfor, the oath taken by a master of defence when his degree was conferred on him, is preferved, and runs as follows: "First you fhall fweare (fo help you God and halidome, and by all the chriftendome which God gave you at the fount-ftone, and by the croffe of this faword which doth reprefent unto you the croffe which our Saviour fufered his moft payneful deathe upon,) that you fhall upholde, maynteyne, and kepe to your power all foch articles as fhal be heare declared unto you, and receve in the prefence of me your maifter, and thefe the rest of the maifters my bretheren heare with me at this tyme." STEEVENS. A worthy pioneer!-Once more remove, good friends. HOR. O day and night, but this is wondrous ftrange! HAM. And therefore as a ftranger give it wel come.4 There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philofophy. But come ; Here, as before, never, fo help you mercy! That you, at fuch times feeing me, never fhall, Or fuch ambiguous giving out, to note That you know aught of me : -This do you fwear," Spenfer obferves that the Irish in his time ufed commonly to fwear by their fword. See his View of the State of Ireland, written in 1596. This cuftom, indeed, is of the higheft antiquity; having prevailed, as we learn from Lucian, among the Scythians. MALONE. 4 And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.] i. e. receive it to yourself; take it under your own roof; as much as to fay, Keep it fecret. Alluding to the laws of hofpitality. WARBURTON. Warburton refines too much on this paffage. Hamlet means merely to requeft that they would feem not to know it-to be unacquainted with it. M. MASON. 5 an if they might;] Thus the quarto. The folio readsan if there might. MALONE. 6 Or fuch ambiguous giving out, to note That you know aught of me:] The conftruction is irregular and elliptical. Swear as before, fays Hamlet, that you never shall by So grace and mercy at your most need help you! HAM. Reft, reft, perturbed fpirit! -So, gentle men, folded arms or fhaking of your head intimate that a fecret is lodgea in your breafts; and by no ambiguous phrases denote that you know aught of me. Shakspeare has in many other places begun to construct a fentence in one form, and ended it another. So, in All's well that ends well: "I would the cutting of my garments would ferve the turn, or the baring of my beard; and to fay it was in ftratagem." Again in the fame play: "No more of this, Helena;-left it be rather thought you affect a forrow, than to have:" where he ought to have written than that you have: or, left you rather be thought to affect a forrow, than to have. Again, ibidem: "I bade her-if her fortunes ever stood Again, in The Tempeft: "I have with fuch provifion in mine art No, not fo much perdition as an hair "Betid to any creature in the vessel." See alfo Vol. III. p. 12, n. 2; and Vol. VII. p. 60, n.7; and p. 181, n. 3. Having used the word never in the preceding part of the fentence, [that you never fhall-] the poet confidered the negative implied in what follows; and hence he wrote-" or-to note," instead of MALONE. nor. 7 This do you fwear, &c.] The folio reads,―this not to do, fwear, &c. STEEVENS. Swear is ufed here as in many other places, as a diffyllable. MALONE. Here again my untutored ears revolt from a new diffyllable; nor have I fcrupled, like my predeceffors, to fupply the pronoun -you, which muft accidentally have dropped out of a line that is imperfect without it. STEEVENS. 8 Reft, reft, perturbed fpirit!] The skill difplayed in Shakspeare's management of his Ghoft, is too confiderable to be overlooked. He has rivetted our attention to it by a fucceffion of forcible circumftances: by the previous report of the terrified centinels,-by the folemnity of the hour at which the phantom walks,-by its With all my love I do commend me to you: May do, to express his love and friending to you, The time is out of joint ;-O curfed fpite! [Exeunt. martial ftride and difcriminating armour, vifible only per incertam lunam, by the glimpfes of the moon,-by its long taciturnity,by its preparation to fpeak, when interrupted by the morning cock, by its myfterious referve throughout its firft fcene with Hamlet, by his refolute departure with it, and the fubfequent anxiety of his attendants,-by its conducting him to a folitary angle of the platform,-by its voice from beneath the earth,-and by its unexpected burst on us in the closet. Hamlet's late interview with the fpectre, muft in particular be regarded as a stroke of dramatick artifice. The phantom might have told his story in the presence of the officers and Horatio, and yet have rendered itself as inaudible to them, as afterwards to the Queen. But fufpenfe was our poet's object; and never was it more effectually created, than in the prefent inftance. Six times has the royal femblance appeared, but till now has been withheld from fpeaking. For this event we have waited with impatient curiofity, unaccompanied by laffitude, or remitted attention. The Ghoft in this tragedy, is allowed to be the genuine product of Shakspeare's ftrong imagination. When he afterwards avails himfelf of traditional phantoms, as in Julius Cæfar, and King Richard III, they are but inefficacious pageants; nay, the apparition of Banquo is a mute exhibitor. Perhaps our poet defpaired to equal the vigour of his early conceptions on the fubject of preternatural beings, and therefore allotted them no further eminence in his dramas; or was unwilling to diminish the power of his principal fhade, by an injudicious repetition of congenial images. STEEVENS. The verb perturb is ufed by Holinfhed, and by Bacon in his Efay on Superftitign: therefore atheism did never perturb ftates." MALONE. 66 |