Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS. FRAN. I think, I hear them.-Stand, ho! Who is there? HOR. Friends to this ground. because Horatio is a gentleman of no profeffion, and because, as he conceived, there was but one perfon on each watch. But there is no need of change. Horatio is certainly not an officer, but Hamlet's fellow-ftudent at Wittenberg: but as he accompanied Marcellus and Bernardo on the watch from a motive of curiofity, our poet confiders him very properly as an affociate with them. Horatio himself fays to Hamlet in a fubfequent fcene, "This to me "In dreadful fecrecy impart they did, "And I with them the third night kept the watch." MALONE. 5 Hor. A piece of him.] But why a piece? He fays this as he gives his hand. Which direction fhould be marked. WARBURTON. A piece of him, is, I believe, no more than a cant expreffion. It is used, however, on a serious occafion in Pericles: "Take in your arms this piece of your dead queen." STEEVENS. BER. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus. HOR. What," has this thing appear'd again tonight? BER. I have feen nothing. MAR. Horatio fays, 'tis but our fantasy; 8 He may approve our eyes, and speak to it. Sit down awhile; BER. 6 Hor. What, &c.] Thus the quarto, 1604. STEEVENS. These words are in the folio given to Marcellus. MALONE. 7- the minutes of this night;] This feems to have been an expreffion common in Shakspeare's time. I find it in one of Ford's plays, The Fancies chafte and noble, A& V : I promise ere the minutes of the night." 66 STEEVENS. -approve our eyes,] Add a new teftimony to that of our eyes. JOHNSON. So, in King Lear: 66 this approves her letter, "That fhe would foon be here." See Vol. XII. p. 413, n. 7. STEEVENS. He may approve our eyes,] He may make good the testimony of our eyes; be affured by his own experience of the truth of that which we have related, in confequence of having been eye-witnesses to it. To approve in Shakspeare's age, fignified to make good, or eftablish, and is fo defined in Cawdrey's Alphabetical Table of hard English words, 8vo, 1604. So, in King Lear: "Good king, that must approve the common faw! "Thou out of heaven's benediction com'ft Well, fit we down, What we two nights have seen." HOR. And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. BER. Laft night of all, When yon fame ftar, that's weftward from the Had made his courfe to illume that part of heaven MAR. Peace, break thee off; look, where it Enter Ghost. BER. In the fame figure, like the king that's MAR. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.* ratio. HOR. Most like:-it harrows me' with 'fear, and wonder. 9 What we two nights have feen.] This line is by Sir T. Hanmer given to Marcellus, but without neceffity. JOHNSON. 2 Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.] It has always been a vulgar notion that fpirits and fupernatural beings can only be spoken to with propriety or effect by perfons of learning. Thus, Toby in The Night-walker, by Beaumont and Fletcher, fays: -It grows ftill longer, ""Tis fteeple-high now; and it fails away, nurse. In like manner the honeft butler in Mr. Addison's Drummer, recommends the steward to speak Latin to the ghost in that play. REED. 3 it harrows me &c.] To harrow is to conquer, to fubdue. 1 BER. It would be spoke to. MAR. Speak to it, Horatio. HOR. What art thou, that ufurp'ft this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form In which the majesty of buried Denmark fpeak. MAR. It is offended. BER. See! it ftalks away. [Exit Ghoft. HOR. Stay; fpeak; speak I charge thee, speak. MAR. 'Tis gone, and will not answer. BER. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale: Is not this fomething more than fantasy? What think you of it? HOR. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the fenfible and true avouch Of mine own eyes. MAR. Is it not like the king? HOR. As thou art to thyself: Such was the very armour he had on, When he the ambitious Norway combated; So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle, The word is of Saxon origin. So, in the old bl. 1. romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys: "He fwore by him that barowed hell." Milton has adopted this phrase in his Comus: "Amaz'd I ftood, harrow'd with grief and fear!" STEEVENS. an angry parle,] This is one of the affected words intro duced by Lyly. So, in Two Wife Men and all the Reft Fools, 1619: that you told me at our last parle." STEEVENS. He fmote the fledded' Polack on the ice." 'Tis strange. MAR. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour," 5 -fledded-] A fled, or fledge, is a carriage without wheels, made ufe of in the cold countries. So, in Tamburlaine, or the Scythian Shepherd, 1590: upon an ivory fled "Thou shalt be drawn among the frozen poles." STEEVENS. 6 He fmote the fledded Polack on the ice.] Pole-ax in the common editions. He fpeaks of a prince of Poland whom he flew in battle. He uses the word Polack again, Act II. fc. iv. POPE. Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland: Polaque, French. As in F. Davifon's tranflation of Pafferatius's epitaph on Henry III. of France, published by Camden: "Whether thy chance or choice thee hither brings, "Stay, paffenger, and wail the hap of kings. "This little ftone a great king's heart doth hold, "Who rul'd the fickle French and Polacks bold: "Whom, with a mighty warlike hoft attended, "With trait'rous knife a cowled monfter ended. "So frail are even the higheft earthly things! "Go, passenger, and wail the hap of kings." JOHNSON, Again, in The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, &c. 1612: I fcorn him All the old copies have Polax. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-Polack; but the corrupted word fhews, I think, that Shakspeare wrote-Polacks. MALONE. With Polack for Polander, the tranfcriber, or printer, might have no acquaintance; he therefore fubftituted pole-ax as the only word of like found that was familiar to his ear. Unluckily, however, it happened that the fingular of the latter has the fame found as the plural of the former. Hence it has been fuppofed that Shakspeare meant to write Polacks. We cannot well fuppofe that in a parley the King belaboured many, as it is not likely that provocation was given by more than one, or that on fuch an occafion he would have condefcended to strike a meaner perfon than a prince. STEEVENS, -jump at this dead hour,] So, the 4to. 1604. The folio juft. STEEVENS. The correction was probably made by the author. JOHNSON, |