Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,—
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose,-to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
Cor. In that and all things will we show our
Vol.
King. We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
[Exeunt Voltimand and Cornelius.
And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit; what is 't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice: what wouldst thou beg,
Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
To show my duty in your coronation,
Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
38. dilated, set out at large. Ff have delated,' an Elizabethan spelling of the same
word. Others have connected it with the genuine though rare 'delate,' convey.
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. King. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius ?
Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition, and at last
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
I do beseech you, give him leave to go.
King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,-
Ham. [Aside] A little more than kin, and
less than kind.
King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Ham. Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.
Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen.
Why seems it so particular with thee?
Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not
56. pardon, permission of ab
65. A little more than kin, and less than kind; their relationship is nearer than mere kinship, yet devoid of kindness. There may be a further, more sinister, suggestion that their relation is against kind,' i.e. ' incestuous.'
67. too much the sun; an allusion to the proverb: 'Out of God's blessing into the warm sun,' which, whatever its origin, implied passing into an inferior condition. Ex equis ad asinos' is equated with it by Ray. There is also a play on 'son.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play :
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your
nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
obsequious, (almost) funereal. The word is habitually coloured in Shakespeare
by the associations of
quies.'
95. incorrect, unsubdued.
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers,
Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the king's rouse the heavens shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder.
Come away.
[Flourish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.
Ham. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
112. impart; probably there is a change of construction, the sentence ending as if it had begun with 'And no less nobility of love.'
113. to school in Wittenberg. The University or 'high school' of Wittenberg, founded in 1502, was for the play-going public above all the scene of the 'tragical life and death of Dr. Faustus. To Protestant England at large it was the uni
versity of Luther. To a few
cultivated Englishmen, includ-
ing, it is just possible, Shake-
speare himself, it was associated
with Giordano Bruno, who
lectured there for three years
after his sojourn in England.
114. retrograde, contrary.
125. Denmark, i.e. the king.
127. rouse, health.
129. too too, an emphatic re-
duplication of 'too,' frequently
used.
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on 't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she 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 shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears :—why she, even she—
O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer-married with my
-My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
134. uses, customary occupations, familiar routine.
137. merely, wholly.
140. Hyperion, the Titanic Sun-god.
141. beteem, suffer.
149. Niobe, a daughter of Tantalus, turned by the venge
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