HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. ACT I. SCENE I. Elfinore. A Platform before the Cafile. FRANCISCO on his Poft. Enter to him BERNARDO, BER. Who's there? FRAN. Nay, answer me: ftand, and unfold Yourself, BER. Long live the king !3 FRAN. BER. Bernardo? He. FRAN. You come moft carefully upon your hour. BER. 'Tis now ftruck twelve; 4 get thee to bed, Francifco. me:] i. e. me who am already on the watch, and have a right to demand the watch-word. STEEVENS. 3 Long live the king!] This fentence appears to have been the watch-word. MALONE. ▲ 'Tis now ftruck twelve;] I ftrongly fufpect that the true reading is-new ftruck, &c. So, in Romeo and Juliet, A&t I. fc. i: "But new ftruck nine." STEEVENS. FRAN. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am fick at heart. If BER. Have you had quiet guard ? FRAN. BER. Well, good night. Not a moufe ftirring. you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch,5 bid them make haste. 5 The rivals of my watch.,] Rivals for partners. So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1636: "Tullia. Aruns, affociate him. "Aruns. A rival with my brother," &c. Again, in The Tragedy of Hoffman, 1637: WARBURTON, "And make thee rival in thofe governments." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. fc. v: having made ufe of him in the wars against Pompey, prefently deny'd him rivality." STEEVENS. By rivals the speaker certainly means partners (according to Dr. Warburton's explanation,) or thofe whom he expected to watch with him. Marcellus had watched with him before; whether as a centinel, a volunteer, or from mere curiofity, we do not learn: but, which ever it was, it seems evident that his station was on the fame fpot with Bernardo, and that there is no other centinel by them relieved. Poffibly Marcellus was an officer, whofe bufinefs it was to vifit each watch, and perhaps to 'continue with it fome time. Horatio, as it appears, watches out of curiofity. But in Act. II. fc. i. to Hamlet's question,"Hold you the watch to-night?" Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo, all anfwer,-" We do, my honour'd lord." The folio indeed, reads-both, which one may with great propriety refer to Marcellus and Bernardo. If we did not find the latter gentleman in fuch good company, we might have taken him to have been like Francifco whom he relieves, an honeft but common foldier. The ftrange indifcriminate use of Italian and Roman names in this and other plays, makes it obvious that the author was very little converfant in even the rudiments of either lan guage. RITSON. Rival is conftantly ufed by Shakspeare for a partner or af fociate. In Bullokar's English Expofitor, 8vo. 1616, it is de Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS. FRAN. I think, I hear them.-Stand, ho! Who is there! HOR. Friends to this ground. fined "One that fueth for the fame thing with another;" and If you do meet Horatio, and Marcellus because Horatio is a gentleman of no profeffion, and because, as he conceived, there was but one perfon on each watch. But there is no need of change. Horatio is certainly not an officer, but Hamlet's fellow-student at Wittenberg: but as he accompanied Marcellus and Bernardo on the watch from a motive of curiofity, our poet confiders him very properly as an associate with them. Horatio himfelf fays to Hamlet in a fubfequent scene This to me "In dreadful fecrecy impart they did, "And I with them the third night kept the watch." MALONE. HOR. A piece of him." BER. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Mar cellus. HOR. What," has this thing appear'd again tonight? BER. I have feen nothing. MAR. Horatio fays, 'tis but our fantasy; 6 Hor. A piece of him,] But why a piece? He fays this as he gives his hand. Which direction fhould be marked. WARBURTON. A piece of him, is, I believe, no more than a cant expreffion. It is ufed, however, on a ferious occafion in Pericles: "Take in your arms this piece of your dead queen.” STEEVENS. ? Hor. What, &c.] Thus the quarto, 1604. STEEVENS. These words are in the folio given to Marcellus. MALONE. 8 -the minutes of this night;] This feems to have been an expreffion common in Shakspeare's time. I found it in one of Ford's plays, The Fancies chofte and noble, A& V : 66 I promise ere the minutes of the night." STEEVENS. approve our eyes,] Add a new teftimony to that of our eyes. JOHNSON. So, in King Lear:, this approves her letter, "That fhe would foon be here." Se Vol. XVII. p. 12, n. 4. STEEVENS. He may approve our eyes,] He may make good the teftimony of our eyes; be affured by his own experience of the truth of that which we have related, in confequence of having been eyewitneffes to it. To approve in Shakspeare's age, fignified to Sit down awhile; HOR. Tufh! tufh! 'twill not appear. HOR. Well, fit we down, And let us hear Bernardo speak of this. BER. Laft night of all, When yon fame ftar, that's weftward from the pole, MAR. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again! Enter Ghoft. BER. In the fame figure, like the king that's dead. MAR. Thou art a fcholar, fpeak to it, Horatio. make good, or establish, and is fo defined in Cawdrey's Alphabetical Table of hard English Words, Svo. 1604. So, in King Lear: "Good king that must approve the common faw! "To the warm fun." MALONE. What we two nights have feen.] This line is by Sir Thomas Hanmer given to Marcellus, but without neceflity. JOHNSON. 2 Thou art a fcholar, fpeak to it, Horatio.] It has always been a vulgar notion that fpirits and fupernatural beings can only be fpoken to with propriety or effect by perfons of learning. Thus, Toby, in The Night-walker, by Beaumont and Fletcher, fays: It grows ftill longer, ""Tis fteeple-high now; and it fails away, murfe. |