King.

What is the cause, Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?

Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.

Why thou art thus
Gertrude:

Tell me, Laertes,

incensed: let him go,

King. Let him demand his fill.

Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled

with:

To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation: to this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
Most throughly for my father.

King.

Who shall stay you?

Laer. My will, not all the world:

And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

King.

If

Good Laertes.

you desire to know the certainty

141

121. "unsmirched brows"; Grant White's emendation; F. 1, “unmirched brow."-I. G.

127. "Acts little of his will"; "Proofs," says Coleridge, "as indeed All else is, that Shakespeare never intended us to see the King with Hamlet's eyes; though, I suspect, the managers have long done so." -H. N. H.

Of your dear father's death, is 't writ in your re

venge

That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend

and foe,

Winner and loser?

Laer. None but his enemies.

King.

Will you know them then?

Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my

arms;

And, like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

King.

Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.

Danes. [Within]

Let her come in.

Laer. How now! what noise is that?

Re-enter Ophelia.

150

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with
weight,

Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!

153. “your judgment pierce"; the folio has pierce; the quartos, pear, meaning, of course, appear. The latter is both awkward in language and tame in sense. Understanding level in the sense of direct, pierce gives an apt and clear enough meaning.-H. N. H. 156. “Re-enter Ophelia"; modern editions commonly add here, "fantastically dressed with Straws and Flowers." There is no authority, and not much occasion, for any such stage-direction.— H. N. H.

Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

O heavens! is 't possible a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

160

Oph. [Sings] They bore him barefaced on the bier:

Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny:
And in his grave rain'd many a

tear,

Fare you well, my dove!

Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade re

venge,

It could not move thus.

Oph. [Sings] You must sing down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.

O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
steward, that stole his master's daughter.
Laer. This nothing's more than matter.
Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remem-

162-165, 167, omitted in Qq.—I. G.

168. "rain'd"; so Qq.; Ff. 1, 2, "raines."—I. G.

170

174–175. “It is the false steward,” &c.; the story has not yet been identified.-I. G.

177. "There's rosemary"; our ancestors gave to almost every flower and plant its emblematic meaning, and, like the ladies of the east, made them almost as expressive as written language. Perdita, in The Winter's Tale, distributes her flowers in the same manner as Ophelia, and some of them with the same meaning. The Handfull of Pleasant Delites, 1584, has a ballad called "A Nosegaie alwaies sweet for Lovers to send for Tokens," where we find,

"Rosemarie is for remembrance
Betweene us day and night."

Rosemarie had this attribute because it was said to strengthen the

OPHELIA: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance

Act IV, Scene 5.