How (could it be) otherwise! I admit that we should expect in this case, the word 'if' to be repeated, but I can make sense of the speech in no other manner. The general meaning is clear: the King is puzzling over this sudden return of Hamlet, and he rapidly reviews the situation. First he asks Are all the rest come back? Or is it some abuse, and no such thing? Surely his trusty spaniels, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, cannot have disobeyed or deceived him! Then where are they? They would not go to England without Hamlet, and surely they would not let him escape. The writing is certainly Hamlet's; he answers to Laertes' inquiry— 'Naked!' And in a postscript here, he says, 'alone. Can they have been wrecked and he alone saved? Hamlet cannot have discovered the plot against him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern did not know the contents of the letter -they could not have betrayed him. No-it must be that he has on a sudden caprice refused to continue the voyage, and made the sailors turn back. Yes, it must be sowithout question it must be. Then in that case how can he get rid of Hamlet and appease Laertes at one and the same time? Something like these thoughts would pass through the mind of Claudius before he succeeds in hitting upon the ingenious scheme which he now proceeds to divulge to Laertes." 525. Line 63: As CHECKING AT his voyage.-Q. 2, Q. 3 have the preposterous misprint the King at, altered conjecturally in Q. 4 into liking not. To check is a metaphor from falconry, applied to a hawk when she forsakes her proper game to fly after some other bird. Compare Twelfth Night, ii. 5. 124, and iii. 1. 71. 526. Line 69-82.-These lines, from My lord to graveness, are omitted in Ff. 527. Line 77: the unworthiest SIEGE.-Siege, the French siége, is here used for rank, as in Othello, i. 2. 22: “men of royal siege." The word came to have that meaning from the arrangement of persons at table in order of precedence. Compare Measure for Measure, iv. 2. 101, where siege is used for seat. 528. Lines 79-82: for youth no less becomes Johnson understood the last line to refer entirely to settled age, and supposed health to mean care for, or attention to, health. I think it may better be taken, as Furness suggests, as referring both to youth and to age; the light and careless livery importing (that is implying) health, and the sables and weeds importing graveness. The construction is a very common one, not only in Shakespeare but in later writers, notably Mr. Swinburne. 529. Line 85: And they CAN well on horseback.--Ff. misprint ran. Shakespeare uses the word can in a few places in its absolute sense of power to do. Compare Tempest, iv. 1. 27: the strong'st suggestion Our worser Genius can. The Clarendon Press edd. quote Bacon, Essay, xi. p. 40: "In evil the best condition is not to will, the second not to can." 530. Line 89: 80 far he TOPP'D my thought.-Topp'd is of course surpassed, as in Macbeth, iv. 3. 57: “to top Macbeth." Shakespeare seems to have been fond of metaphors derived from top, which he uses a good many times both as verb and noun. This fact was probably not remembered by the precisians whom Browning scandalized in his translation of the Agamemnon by using the word topping for anges, in the sense of surpassing. See p. 53: Thou hast, like topping bowman, touched the target; and p. 93: I would not boast to be a topping critic. 531. Line 93: Lamond.-This is Pope's version of the Lamound of Ff. The Qq. have Lamord. No personage of this name is known, but Mr. C. Eliot Browne, in a letter to the Athenæum, July 29, 1876, suggests that this is "an allusion to Pietro Monte (in a Gallicized form), the famous cavalier and swordsman, who is mentioned by Castiglione (I Cortegiano, bk. i.) as the instructor of Louis the Seventh's Master of Horse. In the English translation he is called 'Peter Mount." 532. Line 99: especially.-This is the reading of Ff. Qq. have especial. 533. Line 101: the SCRIMERS of their nation.-Serimers is of course intended to represent the French escrimeurs, fencers; the word has not been found elsewhere. 534. Line 106: him.-Qq. print you, which seems a less suitable reading, though it can be made to express the same sense. 535. Line 107: WHAT out of this?-Ff. here have Why, which again makes very good sense. 536. Lines 115-124: There lives. . . ulcer.-This pas sage is omitted in Ff. 537. Lines 118, 119: For goodness, growing to a PLURISY, Dies in his own too-much. Plurisy (often spelt by modern editors pleurisy) is often found in the old dramatists for plethora, or plethory, probably from an erroneous idea that the word was derived from plus, pluris. Massinger has a close imitation of the passage in The Unnatural Combat, iv. 1: Thy pleurisy of goodness is thy ill. -Works, p. 196, ed. Gifford. Compare Cyril Tourneur, The Atheist's Tragedy, iii. 2, and Ford, 'Tis Pity, iv. 3 (both of which have “pleurisy of lust"), Beaumont and Fletcher, Custom of the Country, ii. 1: "grow to a pleurisy and kill," &c. The word does not occur elsewhere in Shakespeare. 538. Line 123: And then this "should" is like a SPENDTHRIFT sigh.-Spendthrift is the obvious and certain emendation of Q. 6, the earlier Qq. reading spendthrift s. For the idea that sighing drew blood from the heart, see Midsummer Night's Dream, note 184; and compare Romeo and Juliet, iii. 5. 59. 539. Line 139: A sword, UNBATED.-Unbated means unblunted, i.e. without a button on the point. Bate, abate, and rebate are all used in Shakespeare with a similar meaning. See Measure for Measure, note 47. 540. Line 142: mountebank.-Cotgrave has: "Charlatan: m. A mountebanke, a cousening drug-seller, a pratling quack-salver" [he continues, "a tatler, babler, foolish prater, or commender of trifles"]. Boyer, French Dictionary, defines mountebank as "a wandering and juggling physician, a quack.' In Othello, i. 3. 61 (“medicines bought of mountebanks"), the word is used in the same sense. In the two other places in which Shakespeare uses it (Comedy of Errors, i. 2. 101, and v. 1. 238) it is less clearly limited to the special sense of medicine-seller. The Clarendon Press edd. quote Bacon (Advancement of Learning, ii. 10. § 2): "Nay, we see the weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often prefer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician." 541. Line 144: cataplasm.-Boyer has: "Cataplasme, S. M. (espéce d'emplâtre pour fomenter,) a Cataplasm or Poultice." In Cyril Tourneur's Atheist's Tragedy one of the characters is a certain Mistress Cataplasma, "a maker of periwigs and attires" by profession. 542. Line 162: If he by chance escape your venom'd STUCK. - Stuck seems to be found only here and in Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 303, but it is no doubt the same as stock, used in Merry Wives, ii. 3. 26, which means a thrust in fencing-the Italian stoccata (from stocca, a rapier), Spanish estocada (from estoque), French estocade (from estoc, which means both a rapier and the point of a rapier). The word is often found in Elizabethan literature in the form stoccado (compare Merry Wives, ii. 1. 234: "your passes, stoccadoes," and see Nares, s.v. Stockado). Stoccado is generally defined as the Spanish term, but there is no such word in Spanish. 543. Line 163: But stay, what noise?-These words are omitted in Ff. 544. Line 164: How now, sweet queen?-Omitted in Qq. 545. Line 165: One woe doth tread upon another's heel. -Ritson called attention to a rather similar line in Locrine (one of the so-called Doubtful Plays), which Shakespeare may have seen, as it was published in 1595, but which he is as likely to have written as Mr. Swinburne's drama of the same name. Guendoline is speaking of Sabren, who has drowned herself, and she exclaims (v. 5): One mischief follows on another's neck. Who would have thought so young a maid as she With such a courage would have sought her death? 546. Line 167: There is a willow grows aslant a brook, &c. Compare with this description the description in Two Noble Kinsmen, iv. 1. 52-103, of the attempted suicide of the Jailor's Daughter. It seems curious that the Queen should be so well acquainted with all the minute particulars of the affair. Seymour (vol. ii. p. 197, apud Furness) reasonably asks why, as the Queen seems to give this description from personal observation, "she did not take steps to avert the fatal catastrophe, especially as there was so fair an opportunity of saving her while she was, by her clothes, borne mermaid-like up,' and the Queen was at leisure to hear her 'chanting old tunes.'" Monck Mason also notes that "there is not a single circumstance in the relation of Ophelia's death, that induces us to think she had drowned herself intentionally;" to which, however, Malone plausibly enough replies, "that the account here given is that of a friend; and that the Queen could not possibly know what passed in the mind of Ophelia, when she placed herself in so perilous a situation. After the facts had been weighed and considered, the priest in the next act pronounces, that her death was doubtful." The Qq., in this line, print ascaunt the brook, and they have been followed by some editors, who take ascaunt to be the same as Chaucer's ascaunce. 547. Line 168: That shows his HOAR leaves in the glassy stream.-Lowell (Among my Books, p. 185) notices Shakespeare's delicate art in drawing our attention to the silvery under-side of the willow-leaves, not "by bluntly saying so, but [by making] it picturesquely reveal itself to us as it might in Nature." 548. Line 169: There with fantastic garlands did she come.-Qq. print Therewith fantasticke garlands did she make, which Elze (p. 226) strenuously defends. but I think mistakenly 549. Line 170: CROW-FLOWERS, nettles, daisies, and LONG PURPLES.-R. C. A. Prior, Popular Names of British Plants, 1863, has: "Crow-flower, the buttercup from the resemblance of its leaf to a crow's foot, Ranunculus acris and bulbosus, L., but in old authors often applied to the Ragged Robin, Lychnis flos cuculi, L.;" and "Long Purples of Shakespeare's Hamlet, iv. 7, supposed to be the purple flowered Orchis mascula, L." 550. Line 178: Which time she chanted snatches of old TUNES.-Qq. instead of tunes print lauds, which has a rather quaint and pretty sound, but is less likely to be the right word, as Q. 1 agrees with the Ff. in reading tunes. Lauds were psalms, and Jennens (quoted by Fur ness) is convinced that they are the right reading, and imply that Ophelia made an edifying end. 551. Line 190: The woman will be out.-Compare Henry V. iv. 6. 31: "all my mother came into mine eyes;" and Twelfth Night, ii. 1. 41-43. 552. Line 192: douts.-F 1 has doubts, which Knight, with great probability, altered into douts, i.e. extinguishes (dout do out, as dup=do up). In Henry V. iv. 2. 10, 11 the same word is almost certainly meant, though the Ff. again spelt it doubt: That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, And dout them with superfluous courage. Qq. print the word in the text drowns, which the later Ff. conjecturally follow. ACT V. SCENE 1. 553. Line 2: THAT wilfully seeks.-So Ff. Qq. have when she. 554. Line 3: AND therefore.-Qq. omit and; they are followed by some editors, but I think very unreasonably. 555 Line 24: crowner's quest law. -Compare Twelfth Night, i. 5. 142, and see note. Sir John Hawkins supposes the passage in the text to be written in ridicule of the case of Dame Hales, reported by Plowden in his Commentaries, which were not, however, translated from the French till the eighteenth century. Malone suggests that Shakespeare may have heard of the case in conversation. "Our author's study," he adds, "was probably not much encumbered with old French Reports." See Furness, Variorum Ed. vol. i. p. 376, where the points of resemblance are given at some length. 556. Line 32: even Christian; i.e. fellow Christian. Qq. have even Christen, which perhaps would be better in the text. Steevens cites Chaucer, Persones Tale (iii. 294, ed. Morris): "Despitous, is he that hath disdayn of his neighebour, that is to say, of his evencristen.' The Clarendon Press edd. quote from Forshall and Madden's Glossary to the Wycliffite Versions of the Bible, such forms as "euene-caytiff," a fellow-prisoner; "euen disciplis," fellow-disciples, &c. Furness cites The Myroure of oure Ladye (Early Eng. Text Soc. edn., p. 73): "we are enformed to haue loue eche to other, and to all oure euen crystens. 557. Line 68: Go, get thee to YAUGHAN; fetch me a stoup of liquor.-The Ff. print Yaughan in italics. In Qq. the passage reads, Go, get thee in, and fetch, &c. Yaughan is a word that has puzzled all the commentators, and it is impossible to say whether it is the correctly spelt name of some local tavern-keeper (the name is no uncommon Welsh one), whether it is a misprint, or whether it is a corruption of Johan or John. Dr. Nichol. son (I give his argument as condensed by Furness) writes in Notes and Queries, 29th July, 1871: "Most probably Yaughan was the well-known keeper of a tavern near the theatre; and we have three items of corroborative evidence which show: First, that a little before the time of this allusion by Shakespeare, which is not found in the Qq., there was about town a Jew, one Yohan, most probably a German Jew, who was a perruquier, he is mentioned by Jonson in Every Man out of his Humour, v. 6; Second, in The Alchemist, i. 1, which was produced eleven years afterwards, Subtle speaks of 'an alehouse, darker than deaf John,' a name which sounds like that of our foreign John, anglicised, and its owner grown deaf by lapse of time; Third, that there was actually an alehouse attached to the Globe Theatre is proved by the 'Sonnett upon the Burneing' of that playhouse (see Collier's Annals of the Stage, i. 388). Is it then unlikely that our wandering Jew, either in search of a business, or as a profitable extension of his theatrical connection, set up 'the Globe Public-house;' and was thus, as the known refresher of the thirsty actors and audience, mentioned by both Shakespeare and Jonson?" Whether it is likely or not may be left to every man's judgment. The suggestion is certainly ingenious, all the more so as it arises from such very problematical data. 558. Line 68: a STOUP of liquor.-Stoup, or stoop, a drinking-vessel, is used again in Twelfth Night, ii. 3. 129, and Othello, ii. 3. 30. Qq. print soope, which is almost certainly a misprint. Jennens suggests that it represents the clownish pronunciation of sup. As a matter of fact, such would be the Warwickshire pronunciation among the lower classes. 559. Line 69: "In youth when I did love, did love. 'The song from which three stanzas sung by the clown are taken is one of the poems contained in Tottel's Miscellany, 1557 (Arber's Reprint, pp. 173-175). It is entitled, "The aged louer renounceth loue." Its author's name is not given; but in a manuscript in the British Museum (Harleian MS. 1703), written by William Forrest, the poem is copied (fol. 100) with the heading: "A dyttye or sonet made by the lorde vaux in time of the noble quene Marye representing the Image of death." It is also attributed to Lord Vaux by George Gascoigne in the Epistle to a Young Gentleman, prefixed to his Posies. The three verses selected for maltreatment by the clown are the following (the first, third, and eighth of the song): I Lothe that I did loue, The music sung to the clown's verses on the stage is that of The Children in the Wood (Chappell's Popular Music, i. 200, and Furness, p. 385).1 The fourth line of the first stanza is printed in Qq.: O, methought, there a was nothing a meet, which the Cambridge editors print: there-a was nothing-a meet, taking the "a" to represent the drawling notes in which the grave-digger sings (compare Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 133). 560. Line 86: a politician.-This word is used by Shakespeare in only four other places: Twelfth Night, ii. 3. 80; iii. 2. 34; I. Henry IV. i. 3. 241; and Lear, iv. 6. 175; always in a bad sense, meaning a plotter, conspirator. 561. Line 87: o'er-reaches.-Ff. (instead of the reading of Qq.) have o'er-offices, a word not elsewhere known, perhaps a misprint, perhaps Shakespeare's coinage for his thought. 562. Lines 92-94: my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it.-Compare Timon, i. 2. 216-218: And now I remember, my lord, you gave 563. Line 100: to play at LOGGATS with 'em. A description of the game of loggats (diminutive of log) is 1 The tune given to the song in the margin of an old copy of Tottel's Miscellany is given by Chappel at p. 216, and by Furness at p. 382. given by the Clarendon Press edd. on the authority of the Rev. G. Gould: "The game so called resembles bowls, but with a notable difference. First it is played not on a green, but on a floor strewed with rushes. The Jack is a wheel of lignum-vitæ or other hard wood nine inches in diameter and three or four inches thick. The loggat, made of apple-wood, is a truncated cone 26 or 27 inches in length, tapering from a girth of 8 or 9 inches at the one end to 34 or 4 inches at the other. Each player has three loggats which he throws, holding lightly the thin end. The object is to lie as near the Jack as possible. The only place we have heard of where this once popular game is now played is the Hampshire Hog Inn, Norwich." Compare Ben Jonson, Tale of a Tub, iv. 6: Now are they tossing of his legs and arms Like loggats at a pear-tree. Boyer, French Dictionary, has Logating, "a sort of unlawful game, now disused." It is one of the unlawful games named in the statute of 33 Henry VIII. c. 9. 564. Line 103: FOR AND a shrouding-sheet.-In the original (given above, note 559) For and is represented by And eke, of which it is the equivalent. Compare Beaumont and Fletcher, Knight of the Burning Pestle, ii. 3: Your squire doth come, and with him comes the lady, For and the squire of damsels, as I take it. See, for further instances, Furness, Variorum Ed. vol. i. p. 385. 565. Line 108: quiddits.—Qq. have quiddities, which is found in I. Henry IV. i. 2. 51: "what, in thy quips and thy quiddities?" The word is from the scholastic term quidditas, used by the mockers for equivocations. Boyer, French Dictionary, has: "Quiddity, a Term in Philosophy, the Essence, Being, or definition of a thing," also "Quiddity, or Pun," and "Quiddity, or subtle Question." 566. Line 108: quillets.-This is a word of similar meaning, perhaps corrupted from quidlibet (see also Love's Labour's Lost, note 137). Compare I. Henry VI. ii. 4. 17: "These nice sharp quillets of the law." Boyer gives: Quillet, Subst. Ex. The Querks and Quillets of the Law, Les Tours & Detours, les Subtilitez, les Chicanes, ou les Chicanneries du Palais." 567. Lines 113, 114: his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries.-Compare Dekker, Gull's Hornbook, ch. v.: "There is another ordinary, to which your London usurer, your stale bachelor, and your thrifty attorney do resort; every man's eye here is upon the other man's trencher, to note whether his fellow lurch him or not: if they chance to discourse, it is of nothing but of statutes, bonds, recognizances, fines, recoveries, audits, rents, subsidies, sureties, inclosures, liveries, indictments, outlawries, feoffments, judgments, commissions, bankrupts, amercements, and of such horrible matter." 568. Line 115: the FINE of his fines.-Fine is used here with a play upon its more remote significance of end, as in All's Well, iv. 4. 35. Rushton (Shakespeare a Lawyer, p. 10) takes fine in the expression below, his fine pate full of FINE dirt, to have the same meaning. 569. Line 149: we must speak by the card.-The origin of the familiar phrase, now become proverbial, to speak by VOL. VIII. the card, is not certain. Malone defines it thus: "we must speak with the same precision and accuracy as is observed in marking the true distances of coasts, the heights, courses, &c. in a sea-chart, which in our poet's time was called a card. So, in the Commonwealth and Government of Venice, 4to, 1599, p. 177: 'Sebastian Munster in his carde of Venice-. Again, in Bacon's Essays, p. 326, edit. 1740: Let him carry with him also some card, or book, describing the country where he travelleth. In 1589 was published in 4to. A Briefe Discourse of Mappes and Cardes, and of their Uses.-The 'shipman's card' in Macbeth [i. 3. 17], is the paper on which the different points of the compass are described." 570. Line 151: the age is grown so PICKED.-Cotgrave defines Miste: "Neat, spruce, compt, quaint, picked, minion, tricksie, fine, gay." See Love's Labour's Lost, note 145. 571. Line 177: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years. This passage has roused a lively discussion on the subject of Hamlet's age. The Clown's statement is very explicit. In line 154 Hamlet says: "How long hast thou been a grave-maker?" to which he replies with considerable detail, that he "came to 't" "the very day that young Hamlet was born." The passage seems to be introduced for the special purpose of giving us a precise idea as to Hamlet's age, yet, all the same, it is difficult to imagine the Hamlet of the early part of the play a man of thirty. A long discussion of the subject will be found in Furness, vol. i. pp. 391-394; Marshall, in his Study of Hamlet, devotes pp. 181, 182 to the question. He comes to the conclusion that Hamlet is really intended to be nearer twenty than thirty, but that Shakespeare “added these details, which tend to prove Hamlet to have been thirty years old, for much the same reason as he inserted the line He's fat and scant of breath namely, in order to render Hamlet's age and personal appearance more in accordance with those of the great actor, Burbage, who personated him." Probably Dr. Furnivall is right in boldly asserting that Shakespeare is really inconsistent with himself (New Shak. Soc. Trans. 1874, p. 494): "We know how early, in olden time, young men of rank were put to arms; how early, if they went to a University, they left it for training in Camp and Court. Hamlet, at a University, could hardly have passt 20; and with this age, the plain mention of his 'youth of primy nature' (I. iii. 7), and ‘nature crescent, not alone in thews and bulk' (I. iii. 11-12), 'Lord Hamlet he is young' (I. iii. 123-4), &c., by Polonius and Laertes, agrees. With this, too, agrees the King's reproach to Hamlet for his 'intent in going back to school at Wittenberg.' I look on it as certain, that when Shakspere began the play he conceivd Hamlet as quite a young man. But as the play grew, as greater weight of reflection, of insight into character, of knowledge of life, &c., were wanted, Shakspere necessarily and naturally made Hamlet a formd man; and, by the time that he got to the Gravediggers' scene, told us the Prince was 30--the right age for him then: but not his age to Laertes & Polonius when they warnd Ophelia against his blood that burnd, his youthful fancy for her-'a toy in blood'-&c. The two 145 201 parts of the play are inconsistent on this main point in Hamlet's state." 572. Line 203: Yorick.-Perhaps connected with the Danish form of the name George (Jörg), the J being pronounced as y. Furness observes that "Jerick" is the name of a "Dutch Bowr" in Chapman's Alphonsus. 573. Line 211: to set the table on a roar.-The Clarendon Press edd. compare the expression "to set on fire," and Exodus xix. 18, where "on a smoke" is used for smoking. 574. Line 236: IMPERIOUS Cæsar.-This is the reading of Qq.; Ff have Imperiall, which is of course the sense of the word. The former was quite as customary in Shakespeare's time, and is used by him six or seven times. Dyce compares Fletcher's Prophetess, ii. 3: ""Tis imperious Rome." 575. Line 239: the winter's FLAW.-Cotgrave has "Tourbillon de vent. A whirlewind; also, a gust, flaw, berry, sudden blast, or boisterous tempest of wind." Compare Venus and Adonis, 456: Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds. The word is still used occasionally. 576. Line 241: who is THAT they follow?-Qq. print this in place of the Ff.'s that. The latter seems to me the more appropriate of the two. 577. Line 250: warranty; i.e. warrant, is the reading of Qq., and all the Ff., except the first, which has warrantis, altered by Dyce into warrantise. Cotgrave gives both forms: "Garentage: m. Warrantie, warrantize, warrantage. The word warranty is used again in Merchant of Venice, i. 1. 132, 133: And from your love I have a warranty and in Othello, v. 2. 58-61: I never did Offend you in my life; never lov'd Cassio 578. Line 255: Yet here she is allow'd her virgin CRANTS. -Crants is the reading of Qq. (except the 6th); Ff. and Q.6 have rites, which looks like a conjectural alteration of a word not understood by the editors. The word crants seems to be the German krantz, a garland, which in Lowland Scotch becomes crance, but in English has never been found except in the instance in the text. Elze found in Chapman's Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany, two instances of the word-elsewhere unknown, I believe, in English-corance meaning a crown, probably of flowers. He thought it threw a light on the crants of Hamlet, and that we ought to read that word crance. The custom of bearing garlands before the hearse at a maiden's funeral, and hanging them up afterwards in the church, is narrated in Brand's Pop. Antiq. ii. 302-307; but the word "crants" is not used except as a quotation from the Hamlet instance. These wreaths are still to be seen in many country churches. See N. Sh. Soc. Trans. 1888, p. 180. 579. Line 260: To sing A requiem. - Ff. print sage requiem, which some editors have endeavoured to defend, to explain, or to amend. 580. Lines 261-263: Lay her i the earth; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh Compare Persius, Sat. i.: e tumulo fortunataque favilla and Tennyson, In Memoriam, xviii. : 581. Line 269: 0, treble woes. I have adopted here Walker's conjecture (followed by Furness). Qq. print woe (which is universally followed), Ff. wooer (which is evidently wrong). But as Furness very justly remarks: "I think it likely that either the r in woer of F. 1 is a misprint for s, or else the compositor mistook the s in the MS. from which he set up. Moreover, the plural somewhat avoids the cacophony of the singular: 'Oh, treble woe.' 582. Lines 271, 272: Whose wicked deed thy most INGENIOUS sense The Clarendon Press edd. very aptly compare Lear, iv. 6. 286-291: how stiff is my vile sense, That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling The knowledge of themselves. 583. Line 298: Woo't.-This contraction for "wouldst thou" or "wilt thou," still used by the common people in the North, is used by Shakespeare only here (where it marks contempt); in II. Henry IV. ii. 1. 63, where it is a part of the low language of Hostess Quickly; and in two places in Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 2. 7, where it is used by Antony to Enobarbus in a tone of familiarity, and iv. 15. 59, where Cleopatra says it tenderly to the dying Antony. It occurs several times in Day's Humour out of Breath, always in familiar talk or as a vulgarism. 584. Line 299: Woo't drink up EISEL?-Furness devotes nearly five pages (pp. 405-409) of his New Variorum Ed to this puzzling line. The Qq. print Esill, the Ff. Esile (in italics); Q. 1 has vessels. Theobald (Var. Ed. vol. vii. p. 480) has the following note, which has had the credit of starting the only two really plausible interpretations which have been suggested: "This word has through all the editions been distinguished by Italick characters, as if it were the proper name of some river; and so, I dare say, all the editors have from time to time understood it to be. But then this must be some river in Denmark; and there is none there so called; nor is there any near it in name, that I know of, but Yssel, from which the province of Overyssel derives its title in the German Flanders. Besides, Hamlet is not proposing any impossibilities to Laertes, as the drinking up a river would be: but he rather seems to mean,-Wilt thou resolve to do things the most shocking and distasteful to human nature; and, behold, I am as resolute. I am persuaded the poet wrote: Wilt drink up Eisel! eat a crocodile? |