thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell. He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet. Come, I will give you way for these your letters; [Exeunt. SCENE VII. Another Room in the same. Enter King and LAERTES. King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for friend; Laer. It well appears:-But tell me, As by your safety, greatness, wisdom, all things else, O, for two special reasons; King. Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew'd, But yet to me they are strong. The queen his mo ther, Lives almost by his looks; and for myself, 6 - for the bore of the matter.] The bore is the caliber of a gun, or the capacity of the barrel. The matter (says Hamlet) would carry heavier words. (My virtue, or my plague, be it either which,) Laer. And so have I a noble father lost; Whose worth, if praises may go back again," For her perfections:-But my revenge will come. King. Break not your sleeps for that: you must not think, That we are made of stuff so flat and dull, And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,— Mess. Enter a Messenger. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet: This to your majesty; this to the queen. King. From Hamlet! who brought them? Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say: I saw them not; They were given me by Claudio, he receiv'd them the general gender-] The common race of the people. * Work like the spring, &c.] The allusion here is to the quality still ascribed to the dropping well at Knaresborough in Yorkshire. 9- if praises may go back again,] If I may praise what has been, but is now to be found no more. Of him that brought them. King. Leave us. Laertes, you shall hear them:[Exit Messenger. [Reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes: when I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return. Hamlet. What should this mean! Are all the rest come back? Or is it some abuse, and no such thing? Laer. Know you the hand? King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,— And, in a postscript here, he says, alone: Can you advise me? Laer. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come; It warms the very sickness in my heart, That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, Thus didest thou. King. As how should it be so? how otherwise?— If it be so, Laertes, Ay, my lord; Will you be rul'd by me? Laer. So you will not o'er-rule me to a peace. King. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd,- As checking at his voyage,' and that he means To an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall: And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe; But even his mother shall uncharge the practice, Laer. My lord, I will be rul'd; The rather, if you could devise it so, That I might be the organ. As checking at his voyage,] The phrase is from falconry. King. It falls right. You have been talk'd of since your travel much, Laer. What part is that, my lord? King. A very ribband in the cap of youth, Yet needful too; for youth no less becomes The light and careless livery that it wears, Than settled age his sables, and his weeds, Importing health and graveness.3-Two months since, Here was a gentleman of Normandy, I have seen myself, and serv'd against, the French, With the brave beast: so far he topp'd my thought, Come short of what he did. Laer. King. A Norman. A Norman, was't? Laer. Upon my life, Lamord. King. The very same. Laer. I know him well: he is the brooch, indeed, And gem of all the nation. King. He made confession of you; And gave you such a masterly report, That he cried out, 'twould be a sight indeed, Of the unworthiest siege.] Of the lowest rank. Siege, for seat, place. ' Importing health and graveness.] i. e. implying, denoting. in your defence,] That is, in the science of defence. If one could match you: the scrimers' of their nation, That he could nothing do, but wish and beg Laer. What out of this, my lord? King. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart? Laer. Why ask you this? King. Not that I think, you did not love your father; A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it; Dies in his own too-much: That we would do, As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; 6 8 5 the scrimers-] The fencers. From escrimeur, Fr. a fencer. love is begun by time;] This is obscure. The meaning may be, love is not innate in us, and co-essential to our nature, but begins at a certain time from some external cause, and being always subject to the operations of time, suffers change and diminution. JOHNSON. 7 -- passages of proof,] In transactions of daily experience. 8 And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh, That hurts by easing.] A spendthrift sigh is a sigh that makes an unnecessary waste of the vital flame. It is a notion very prevalent, that sighs impair the strength, and wear out the animal powers. JOHNSON. |