Sits fmiling to my heart: in grace whereof, 2 [Exeunt King, Queen, Lords, &c. POLONIUS, HAM. O, that this too too folid flesh would melt, Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst felf-flaughter! O God! O God! Sits fmiling to my heart:] Thus, the dying Lothario: Sits Smiling to my heart:] Surely it should be— STEEVENS. To my heart, I believe, fignifies-near to, clofe, next to, my heart. 9 No jocund health,] The king's intemperance is very strongly impreffed; every thing that happens to him gives him occafion to drink. JOHNSON. 2 -the king's roufe-] i. e. the king's draught of jollity. See Othello, Act II. fc. iii. STEEVENS. So, in Marlowe's Tragical Hiftorie of Doctor Fauftus: 3 He tooke his roufe with ftoopes of Rhennib wine." RITSON. -refolve itself into a dew!] Refolve means the fame as diffolve. Ben Jonfon ufes the word in his Volpone, and in the fame fense: "Forth the refolved corners of his eyes.” Again, in The Country Girl, 1647: tion Alm Self efpo play by his exprefs law and peremptory prohibition. THEOBALD. There are yet thofe who fuppofe the old reading to be the true Again in Giles D 2 in Giles Fletcher's Russe Common wealth 1591 Man lime when all is covered with snow the dead Godis ( 10 many you all the winter time) are piled up in a house in the suburbs, like 44 on a wood stack, as hard with the frost Apring Tide come friend as a very stone, till the what time every mah labs th and resolve the frost, Reed How weary, ftale, flat, and unprofitable Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to feed; things rank, and grofs in na ture, Poffefs it merely. That it fhould come to this! But two months dead!-nay, not fo much, not two: So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a fatyr: fo loving to my mother, one, as they fay the word fixed feems to decide very strongly in its favour. I would advife fuch to recollect Virgil's expreffion:;: "fixit leges pretio, atque refixit." STEEVENS. If the true reading wanted any support, it might be found in Cymbeline: 'gainst felf flaughter "There is a prohibition fo divine, In Shakspeare's time canon (norma) was commonly fpelt cannon. MALONE. merely.] is entirely, abfolutely. See Vol. III. p. 9, n. 5; STEEVENS. and Vol. XII. p. 131, n. 6. 6 So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a fatyr:] This fimilitude at first fight seems to be a little far-fetched; but it has an exquifite beauty. By the Satyr is meant Pan, as by Hyperion, Apollo. Pan and Apollo were brothers, and the allufion is to the contention between thofe gods for the preference in mufick. WARBURTON. All our English poets are guilty of the fame falfe quantity, and call Hyperion Hyperion; at least the only inftance I have met with to the contrary, is in the old play of Fuimus Troes, 1633: Blow gentle Africus, "Play on our poops, when Hyperion's fon Shakspeare, I believe, has no allufion in the prefent inftance, except to the beauty of Apollo, and its immediate oppofite, the deformity of a Satyr. STEEVENS. Hyperion or Apollo is reprefented in all the ancient ftatues, &c. as exquifitely beautiful, the fatyrs hideously ugly.-Shakspeare may furely be pardoned for not attending to the quantity of Latin names, here and in Cymbeline; when we find Henry Parrot, the That he might not beteem the winds of heaven' author of a collection of epigrams printed in 1613, to which a Latin preface is prefixed, writing thus: Pofthumus, not the last of many more, "Asks why I write in fuch an idle vaine," &c. Laquei ridiculofi, or Springes for Woodcocks, 16mo. fign. c. 3. MALONE. 7 That he might not beteem the winds of heaven-] In former editions: That he permitted not the winds of heaven—. This is a sophisticated reading, copied from the players in some of the modern editions, for want of understanding the poet, whofe text is corrupt in the old impreffions: all of which that I have had the fortune to fee, concur in reading: -fo loving to my mother, That he might not beteene the winds of heaven Vifit her face too roughly. Beteene is a corruption without doubt, but not fo inveterate a one, but that, by the change of a fingle letter, and the feparation of two words mistakenly jumbled together, I am verily perfuaded, I have retrieved the poet's reading That he might not let e'en the winds of heaven &c. THEOBALD. The obfolete and corrupted verb-beteene, (in the first folio) which should be written (as in all the quartos) beteeme, was changed, as above, by Mr. Theobald; and with the aptitude of his conjecture fucceeding criticks appear to have been fatisfied. Beteeme, however, occurs in the tenth book of Arthur Golding's verfion of Ovid's Metamorphofis, 4to. 1587; and, from the correfponding Latin, muft neceffarily fignify, to vouchsafe, deign, permit, or fuffer: "The shape of anie other bird than egle for to feeme. - nulla tamen alite verti Sign. R. 1. b. Dignatur, nifi quæ poffit fua fulmina ferre." V. 157. Jupiter (though anxious for the poffeffion of Ganymede) would not deign to affume a meaner form, or fuffer change into an humbler fhape, than that of the auguft and vigorous fowl who bears the thunder in his pounces. The exiftence and fignification of the verb beteem being thus eftablished, it follows, that the attention of Hamlet's father to his queen was exactly fuch as is defcribed in the Enterlude of the Must I remember? why, fhe would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,— Let me not think on't;-Frailty, thy name is woman!— A little month; or ere those fhoes were old, My father's brother; but no more like my father, Life and Repentance of Marie Magdalaine, &c. by Lewis Wager, 4to. 1567: "But evermore they were unto me very tender, "They would not fuffer the wynde on me to blowe." I have therefore replaced the ancient reading, without the flightest hesitation, in the text. This note was inferted by me in the Gentleman's Magazine, fome years before Mr. Malone's edition of our author (in which the fame juftification of the old reading-beteeme, occurs,) had made its appearance. STEEVENS. This paffage ought to be a perpetual memento to all future editors and commentators to proceed with the utmost caution in emendation, and never to difcard a word from the text, merely because it is not the language of the prefent day. Mr. Hughes or Mr. Rowe, fuppofing the text to be unintelligible, for beteem boldly fubftituted permitted. Mr. Theobald, in order to favour his own emendation, stated untruly that all the old copies which he had feen, read betcene. His emendation appearing uncommonly happy, was adopted by all the fubfequent editors. We find a fentiment fimilar to that before us, in Marfton's Infatiate Countefs, 1603: fhe had a lord, Jealous that air fhould ravish her chafte looks." MALONE. Like Niobe, all tears;] Shakspeare might have caught this idea from an ancient ballad intitled The falling out of Lovers is the renewing of Love: "Now I, like weeping Niobe, May wash my handes in teares,' Of this ballad Amantium iræ &c. is the burden. " &c. STEEVENS. Ere yet the falt of moft unrighteous tears But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue! Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS. HOR. Hail to your lordship! HAM. I am glad to fee you Horatio, or I do forget myself. well: HOR. The fame, my lord, and your poor fervant ever. HAM. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name? with you. 2 And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?— MAR. My good lord, HAM. I am very glad to fee you; good even, fir.3But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg? 9- I'll change that name-] I'll be your fervant, you shall be my friend. JOHNSON. 2 what make you-] A familiar phrafe for what are you doing. JOHNSON. See Vol. VI. p. 7, n. 5. STEEVENS. 3 —good even, fir.] So the copies. Sir Thomas Hanmer and Dr. Warburton put it-good morning. The alteration is of no importance, but all licence is dangerous. There is no need of any change. Between the first and eighth scene of this act it is apparent, that a natural day muft pafs, and how much of it is already over, there is nothing that can determine. The king has held a council. It may now as well be evening as morning, JOHNSON. The change made by Sir T. Hanmer might be juftified by what Marcellus faid of Hamlet at the conclufion of fcene i: "—and I this morning know "Where we shall find him moft convenient." STEEVENS, |