Hor.

Enter Ghost.

Look, my lord, it comes! Ham. Angels and ministers of grace,defend us13 !Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd 14, Doth all the noble substance often dout [i. e. do out.] To his own scandal.'

I see no reason why dout should be substituted for doubt. The editors have unwarrantably made the same substitution in King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 2, and then cite it as a precedent. Mr. Boswell has justly observed, that to doubt may mean to bring into doubt or suspicion; many words similarly formed are used by Shakspeare and his cotemporaries. Thus to fear is to create fear; to pale is to make pale; to cease is to cause to cease, &c. I have followed the emendation in other respects, though I have ventured to read bale (i. e. evil) instead of base, as nearer to the reading of the first edition. A passage of similar import is in King Henry IV. Part I. :

Oftentimes it doth present harsh rage
Defect of manners, want of government,
Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain :
The least of which, haunting a nobleman,
Loseth men's hearts, and leaves behind a stain,
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,

Beguiling them of commendation.'

13 Hamlet's speech to the apparition of his father seems to consist of three parts. When he first sees the spectre, he fortifies himself with an invocation:

Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!'

As the spectre approaches, he deliberates with himself, and determines that, whatever it be, he will venture to address it :'Be thou a spirit of health,' &c.

This he says while his father's spirit is advancing; he then, as he had determined, speaks to him, and calls him :

Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!'

Johnson.

14 Art thou a god, a man, or else a ghost? Com'st thou from heaven, where bliss and solace dwell? Or from the airie cold-engendering coast?

Or from the darksome dungeon-hold of hell?'

Acolastus, or After Wit, 1604.

Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,
Thou com'st in such a questionable 15 shape,
That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee, Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me:
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,
Why thy canóniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd 16,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in cómplete steel 17
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition 18,
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.

Mar.

Look, with what courteous action

It waves you to a more removed ground:

But do not go with it.

Hor.

No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham.

Why, what should be the fear?

15 Questionable must not be understood in its present acceptation of doubtful, but as conversable, inviting question or conversation; this was the most prevalent meaning of the word in Shakspeare's time.

16 Quarto 1603—interr'd.

17 It appears from Olaus Wormius, cap. vii. that it was the custom to bury the Danish kings in their armour. The accentuation of complete and canónized on the first syllable is not peculiar to Shakspeare, but the practice of several of his cotemporaries.

18 Frame of mind.

I do not set my life at a pin's fee 19;
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again;-I'll follow it.

Hor. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,

That beetles 20 o'er his base into the sea?

And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason21,
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys 22 of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain,
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

Ham.

Go on, I'll follow thee.

It waves me still:

Mar. You shall not go, my

Ham.

lord.

Hold off

your hands.

My fate cries out,

Hor. Be rul'd, you shall not go.

Ham.
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Némean lion's nerve.—

[Ghost beckons.

Still am I call'd ;—-unhand me, gentlemen ;

[Breaking from them.

19 I do not estimate my life at the value of a pin.'

20 i. e. overhangs his base. Thus in Sidney's Arcadia, b. i.— 'Hills lift up their beetle brows, as if they would overlooke the pleasantnesse of their under prospect.' The verb to beetle is apparently of Shakspeare's creation.

21 To deprive your sovereignty of reason,' signifies to take from you or dispossess you of the command of reason. We have similar instances of raising the idea of virtues or qualities by giving them rank in Banquo's royalty of nature,' and even in this play we have nobility of love,' and' dignity of love.'

22 i. e. whims.

6

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets 23 me:— I say, away:-Go on, I'll follow thee.

[Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET.

Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination. Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him. Hor. Have after:-To what issue will this come? Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Hor. Heaven will direct it24.

Mar.

Nay, let's follow him.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. A more remote Part of the Platform.

Re-enter Ghost and HAMLET.

Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go

My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

Ham.

Alas, poor ghost!

Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold.

Ham.

23

Speak, I am bound to hear.

Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt

hear.

Ham. What?

Ghost. I am thy father's spirit;

Villains, set down the corse, or by St. Paul
I'll make a corse of him that disobeys.'

King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 1. To let, in old language is to hinder, to stay, to obstruct; and still a current term in leases and other legal instruments.

24 Marcellus answers Horatio's question, ' To what issue will this come?' and Horatio also answers it himself with pious resignation, Heaven will direct it.'

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night;
And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires1,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes,like stars,start from their spheres3;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine *:
But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood.-List, list, O list!-
If thou didst ever thy dear father love,

The spirit being supposed to feel the same desires and appetites as when clothed in the flesh, the pains and punishments promised by the ancient moral teachers are often of a sensual nature. Chaucer in the Persones Tale says, 'The misese of hell shall be in defaute of mete and drinke.'

'Thou shalt lye in frost and fire,

With sicknes and hunger,' &c.

The Wyll of the Devyll, blk. 1. 2 Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonic hell into the punytion of the saulis in purgatory.' Dr. Farmer thus compressed his account:-'It is a nedeful thyng to suffer panis and torment ;--sum in the wyndis, sum under the watter, and in the fire uther sum: thus the mony vices-

Contrakkit in the corpis be done away
And purgit.'

3 How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted

In the distraction of this madding fever.' Sh. Son. 108. 4 Vide note on The Comedy of Errors, Act iii. Sc. 2. It is porpentine in the old editions in every instance. Fretful is the reading of the folio; the quartos read fearful. The irascible nature of the animal is noted in a curious passage of the Speculum Vitæ, by Richard Rolle, MS. :

That beest is felle and sone is wrath,

And when he is greved he wol do scathe;

For when he tenes [angers] he launches out felly
The scharpe pinnes in his body.'