King. The doors are broke. [Noife within. Enter LAERTES, arm'd; Danes following. Laer. Where is this king?-Sirs, stand you all without. Dan. No, let's come in. Laer. I pray you, give me leave. Dan. We will, we will. [They retire without the door. Laer. I thank you :-keep the door.-O thou vile king, Give me my father. Queen. Calmly, good Laertes. Laer. That drop of blood, that's calm, proclaims me baftard; Cries, cuckold, to my father; brands the harlot King. What is the cause, Laertes, That thy rebellion looks fo giant-like ?- 7 Why thou art thus incens'd;-Let him go, Gertrude ;Speak, man. Laer. Where is my father? King. Dead. Queen. But not by him. King. Let him demand his fill. Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with: King. Who fhall stay you ? 7unfmirched brow-] i. e. clean, not defiled. To befmirch, our author uses A&t I. fc. v. This feems to be an allufion to a proverb often introduced in the old comedies. Thus, in the London Prodigal, 1605; "as true as the skin between any man's brows." STEEVENS. Laer. Laer. My will, not all the world's : And, for my means, I'll husband them fo well, King. Good Laertes, If you defire to know the certainty Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge, That, fweep-ftake, you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and lofer ? Laer. None but his enemies. King. Will you know them then? Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms; And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican, Repaft them with my blood. King. Why, now you speak Like a good child, and a true gentleman. Danes. [within.] Let her come in. Enter OPHELIA, fantastically drefs'd with straws and flowers. O heat, dry up my brains! tears, feven times falt, 8 · life-rend'ring pelican,] So, in the ancient Interlude of Nature, bl. 1. no date: "Who taught the cok hys watche-howres to obferve, "Who taught the pellycan her tender hart to carve ?- It is almost needless to add that this account of the bird is entirely fabulous. STEEVENS. 9 — most sensibly-] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio, following the errour of a later quarto, reads-moft fenfible. MALONE. I - to your judgment 'pear,] So the quarto. The folio, and all the later editions, read,-to your judgment pierce, less intelligibly. JOHNSON. This elifion of the verb to appear, is common to Beaumont and Fletcher. So, in The Maid of the Mill: "And where they 'pear fo excellent in little, "They will but flame in great." STEEVENS. Burn Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!— Oph. They bore him bare-fac'd on the biers; And in his grave rain'd many a tear ;— Laer. Hadft thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus. Oph. You must fing, Down a-down, an you 2 Nature is fine in love: and, where 'tis fine, It fends fome precious inftance of itself call him a-down-a. After the thing it loves.] Thefe lines are not in the quarto, and might have been omitted in the folio without great lofs, for they are obfcure and affected; but, I think, they require no emendation. Love (fays Laertes) is the paffion by which nature is moft exalted and refined; and as fubftances, -refined and fubtilifed, eafily obey any impulfe, or follow any attraction, fome part of nature, fo purified and refined, flies off after the attracting object, after the thing it loves. As into air the purer fpirits flow, And feparate from their kindred dregs below, The meaning of the paffage may be of fine effences, flew off or evaporated. that her wits, like the spirit STEEVENS. 3 They bore bim bare-fac'd on the bier, &c.] So, in Chaucer's Knighte's Tale, late edit. ver. 2879: "He laid him bare the vifage on the bere, "Therwith he wept that pitee was to here." STEEVENS. 4 Hey no nonny, &c.] Thefe words, which were the burthen of a fong, are found only in the folio. See Vol. VIII. p. 592, n. 6. MALONE. 5-fing, Down a-down,] Perhaps Shakspeare alludes to Phabe's Sonnet, by Tho. Lodge, which the reader may find in England's Helicon, 1614: "Down a-down, &c. "Thus Phillis fung, "By fancy once diftreffed: &c. "And fo fing I, with downe a-downe," &c. Down a-down a-down-a. O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the falfe fteward, that ftole his master's daughter. Laer. This nothing's more than matter. Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, Down a-down is likewise the burthen of a fong in the Three Ladies of London, 1584, and perhaps common to many others. STEEVENS. See Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: "Filibuftaccbina, The burden of a countrie fong; as we fay Hay doune a doune, douna." MALONE. 60, bow the wheel becomes it !] The story alluded to I do not know; but perhaps the lady stolen by the steward was reduced to spin. JOHNSON The wheel may mean no more than the burthen of the fong, which fhe had just repeated, and as fuch was formerly used. I met with the following obfervation in an old quarto black-letter book, published be-fore the time of Shakspeare: "The fong was accounted a good one, though it was not moche graced by the wheele, which in no wife accorded with the subject matter thereof." I quote this from memory, and from a book, of which I cannot recollect the exact title or date; but the paffage was in a preface to fome fongs or fonnets. I well remember to have met with the word in the fame fenfe in other old books. The ballad, alluded to by Ophelia, is perhaps entered on the books of the Stationers' Company. "October 1580. Four ballades of the Lord of Lorn and the Falfe Steward," &c. STEEVENS. I am inclined to think that subeel is here used in its ordinary sense, and that these words allude to the occupation of the girl who is suppofed to fing the song alluded to by Ophelia.-The following lines in Hall's Virgidemiarum, 1597, appear to me to add fome fupport to this interpretation: "Some drunken rimer thinks his time well spent, "If he can live to fee his name in print; So, in Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, 1614: "She makes her hands hard with labour, and her heart foft with pittie; and when winter evenings fall early, fitting at her merry wheele, the fings a defiance to the giddy wheele of fortune." Our authour likewife furnishes an authority to the same purpose. Twelfth Night, A& II. sc. iv. -Come, the fong we had last night: "The Spinfters, and the knitters in the fun, A mufical you, love, remember: and there is panfies, that's for thoughts 7. Laer. A document in madness; thoughts and remembrance fitted. Opb.There's fennel for you, and columbines :-there's rue A mufical antiquary may perhaps contend, that the controverted words of the text allude to an ancient inftrument mentioned by Chaucer, and called by him a rote, by others a vielle; which was played upon by the friction of a wheel. MALONE. 7 There's rofemary, that's for remembrance; and there is panfies, that's for thoughts. There is probably fome mythology in the choice of thefe herbs, but I cannot explain it. Panfies is for thoughts, becaufe of its name, Penfées; but why rofemary indicates remembrance, except that it is an ever-green, and carried at funerals, I have not difcovered. JOHNSON. So, in All Fools, a comedy, by Chapman, 1605: "What flowers are thefe ? "The Panfie this. "O, that's for lovers' thoughts!" Rofemary was anciently supposed to strengthen the memory. It was not only carried at funerals, but worn at weddings, as appears from a paffage in Beaumont and Fletcher's Elder Brother, A& III. sc. i. So, in A Dialogue between Nature and the Phoenix, by R. Chefter, 1601: "There's refemarie; the Arabians justifie "(Phyfitions of exceeding perfect skill) "It comforteth the braine and memorie," &c. STEEVENS Rofemary being fuppofed to ftrengthen the memory, was the emblem of fidelity in lovers. So, in A Handfull of Pleasant Delites, containing fundrie new Sonets, 16mo, 1584: "Rofemary is for remembrance "Betweene us daie and night; "You prefent in my fight." The poem in which thefe lines are found, is entitled A Nofegaie alwaies sweet for Lovers to fend for Tokens of love, &c. MALONE. 8 There's fennel for you, and columbines:] Greene, in his Quip for an Upftart Courtier, 1620, calls fennel, women's weeds: " fit generally for that fex, fith while they are maidens, they wish wantonly." I know not of what columbines were fuppofed to be emblematical. They are again mentioned in All Fools, by Chapman, 1605: "What's that?-a columbine? "No: that thankless flower grows not in my garden." VOL. IX. вь Gerard, |