Would'st thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear: Rankly abus'd: but know, thou noble youth, HAM. O, my prophetick soul! my uncle! GHOST. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit,2 with traitorous gifts, (O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust The will of my most seeming virtuous queen: O, Hamlet, what a falling-off was there! From me, whose love was of that dignity, That it went hand in hand even with the vow I made to her in marriage; and to decline Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor To those of mine! But virtue, as it never will be mov'd, readings of the original copies, when not corrupt, ought, in my opinion, not to be departed from, without very strong reason. That roots itself in case, means, whose sluggish root is idly extended. The modern editors read-Lethe's wharf; but the reading of the old copy is right. So, in Sir Aston Cockain's Poems, 1658, p. 177: "fearing these great actions might die, Neglected cast all into Lethe lake." MALONE. That Shakspeare, or his first editors, supposed-rots itself, to be English, is evident from the same phrase being used in Antony and Cleopatra: 66 - lackeying the varying tide, "To rot itself with motion." See Vol. XVII. p. 47. STEEVENS. จ his wit,] The old copies have wits. The subsequent line shows that it was a misprint. MALONE. Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven; And prey on garbage.3 But, soft! methinks, I scent the morning air; 3 sate itself in a celestial bed, And prey on garbage.] The same image occurs again in Cymbeline: ravening first "The lamb, longs after for the garbage." STEEVEns. The same sentiment is expressed in a fragment of Euripides, Antiope, v. 86, edit. Barnes: 66 Κόρος δὲ πάντων, καὶ γὰρ ἐκ καλλιόνων σε Δαιτὸς δὲ πληρωθείς τις, "ασμενος πάλιν 66 Φαύλη διαίτη προσβαλών ησθη στόμα.” TODD. -mine orchard,] Orchard for garden. So, in Romeo and Juliet: "The orchard walls are high, and hard to climb." Sleeping STEEVENS. My custom always of the afternoon,] See the Paston Letters, Vol. III. p. 282: "Written in my sleeping time, at afternoon" &c. See note on this passage. STEEVENS. With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,] The word here used was more probably designed by a metathesis, either of the poet or transcriber, for henebon, that is, henbane; of which the most common kind (hyoscyamus niger) is certainly narcotick, and perhaps, if taken in a considerable quantity, might prove poisonous. Galen calls it cold in the third degree; by which in this, as well as opium, he seems not to mean an actual coldness, but the power it has of benumbing the faculties. Dioscorides ascribes to it the property of producing madness (vovanos uavions). These qualities have been confirmed by several cases related in modern observations. In Wepfer we have a good account of the various effects of this root upon most of the mem And in the porches of mine ears did pour Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand, Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch'd:& Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin," bers of a convent in Germany, who eat of it for supper by mistake, mixed with succory;-heat in the throat, giddiness, dimness of sight, and delirium. Cicut. Aquatic. c. xviii. GREY, So, in Drayton's Barons' Wars, p. 51: "The pois'ning henbane, and the mandrake drad." Again, in the Philosopher's 4th Satire of Mars, by Robert Anton, 1616: "The poison'd henbane, whose cold juice doth kill." In Marlowe's Jew of Malta, 1633, the word is written in a different manner: 66 the blood of Hydra, Lerna's bane, STEEVENS. 7 The leperous distilment;] So, in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, Vol. II. p. 142: " which being once possessed, never leaveth the patient till it hath enfeebled his state, like the qualitie of poison distilling through the veins even to the heart." MALONE. Surely, the leperous distilment signifies the water distilled from henbane, that subsequently occasioned leprosy. -at once despatch'd:] Despatch'd, for bereft. STEEVENS. WARBURTON. Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, &c.] The very words of this part of the speech are taken (as I have been informed by Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd ;1 1 No reckoning made, but sent to my account a gentleman of undoubted veracity) from an old Legend of Saints, where a man, who was accidentally drowned, is introduced as making the same complaint. STEEVENS. Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd;] Unhousel'd is without having received the sacrament. Disappointed, as Dr. Johnson observes, "is the same as unappointed, and may be properly explained unprepared. A man well furnished with things necessary for an enterprise, was said to be well appointed." This explanation of disappointed may be countenanced by a quotation of Mr. Upton's from Measure for Measure : "Therefore your best appointment make with speed." Isabella, as Mr. Malone remarks, is the speaker, and her brother, who was condemned to die, is the person addressed. Unanel'd is without extreme unction. I shall now subjoin as many notes as are necessary for the support of the first and third of these explanations. I administer the bark only, not supposing any reader will be found who is desirous to swallow the whole tree. In the Textus Roffensis we meet with two of these words"The monks offering themselves to perform all priestly functions of houseling, and aveyling." Aveyling is misprinted for aneyling. STEEVENS. See Mort d'Arthur, p. iii. c. 175: "So when he was houseled and aneled, and had all that a Christian man ought to have," &c. TYRWHITT. The subsequent extract from a very scarce and curious copy of Fabian's Chronicle, printed by Pynson, 1516, seems to remove every possibility of doubt concerning the true signification of the words unhousel'd and unanel'd. The historian, speaking of Pope Innocent's having laid the whole kingdom of England under an interdict, has these words: "Of the manner of this interdiccion of this lande have I seen dyverse opynyons, as some ther be that saye that the lande was interdyted thorwly and the churchis and housys of relygyon closyd, that no where was used mase, nor dyvyne servyce, by whiche reason none of the VII sacramentis all this terme should be mynystred or occupyed, nor chyld crystened, nor man confessed nor marryed; but it was not so strayght. For there were dyverse placys in Englond, which were occupyed with dyvyne servyce all that season by lycence purchased than or before, also chyldren were chrystenyd throughe 3 With all my imperfections on my head: all the lande and men houselyd and anelyd." Fol. 14, Septima Pars Johannis. The Anglo-Saxon noun-substantives husel, (the eucharist) and ele (oil) are plainly the roots of these last-quoted compound adjectives. For the meaning of the affix an to the last, I quote Spelman's Gloss. in loco: "Quin et dictionibus (an) adjungitur, siquidem vel majoris notationis gratia, vel ad singulare aliquid, vel unicum demonstrandum." Hence anelyd should seem to signify oiled or anointed by way of eminence, i. e. having received extreme unction. For the confirmation of the sense given here, there is the strongest internal evidence in the passage. The historian is speaking of the VII sacraments, and he expressly. names five of them, viz. baptism, marriage, auricular confession, the eucharist, and extreme unction. The antiquary is desired to consult the edition of Fabian, printed by Pynson, 1516, because there are others, and I remember to have seen one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, with a continuation to the end of Queen Mary, London, 1559, in which the language is much modernized. BRAND. 2 O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!] It was ingeniously hinted to me by a very learned lady, that this line seems to belong to Hamlet, in whose mouth it is a proper and natural exclamation; and who, according to the practice of the stage, may be supposed to interrupt so long a speech. JOHNSON. A couch for luxury-] i. e. for lewdness. So, in K. Lear: "To't luxury, pell-mell, for I lack soldiers." STEEVENS. See Vol. XV. p. 436 and 482. MALONE. |