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Ham. He will stay till ye come.
King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial fafety,

(Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done) must send thee hence
With fiery quickness; therefore prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
Th' associates tend, and every thing is bent
For England.

Ham. For England?
King. Ay, Hamlet.

Ham. Good.

King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.
Ham. I fee a Cherub that fees them; but come,

for England! farewel, dear mother.

King. Thy loving father, Hamlet.

Ham. My mother: father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh, and fo, my mother. Come, for England. [Exit.

King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with

fpeed aboard;

Delay it not: I'll have him hence to-night.
Away, for every thing is fealed and done

That elfe leans on th' affair; pray you, make hafle.

[Exeunt Rof. and Guild.

And, England! if my love thou hold'stataught, (57)
As my great power thereof may give thee ienie,

(57) And England, if my love thou hoidest at anght,
As my great power thereof may give thee fe fe,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish fword, and thy free awe

Pays homage to us;] This is the only passage in the play from which one might expect to trace the date of the action of it; but I am afraid our Author, according to his usual licence, plays fast and loofe with time. England is here supposed to have been conquered by the Dane, and to be a homager to that state. The chronology of the Danish affairs is wholly uncertain, till we come to the reign of Ivarus VOL. XII.

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Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us, thou may'st not coldly fet
Our fovereign process, which imports at full,
By letters congruing to that effect,
The prefent death of Hamlet. Do it, England:
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me; 'till I know 'tis done,
Howe'er my haps, my joys will ne'er begin. [Exit.

SCENE, A Camp on the Frontiers of Denmark.
Enter FORTINBRAS, with an Army.

For. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish

King;

Tell him, that, by his licence, Fortinbras
Claims the conveyance of a promifed march
Over his realm. You know the rendezvous:
If that his Majesty would aught with us,

about the year 870. And 'tis plain from Saxo Grammaticus, that the time in which Amlethus lived, was fome generations earlier than the period of Chriftianity. And the letters which the Danish King's messengers carried over to England, were wooden tablets. Literas ligno infculpias (nam ia celebre quondam genus chartarum erat) fecum geftantes, quibus Brita norum regi transmissi sibi juvenis occifio mandabatur. Such a fort of mandate implies, that the English King was either linked in the dearest amity to the Dane, or in fubjection to him. But what then shall we do with our own home-chronicles? They are express, that the Danes never fet footing on our coaft till the eighth century. 'They infested us for fome time in a piratical way, then made a descent and conquered part of the country; and about the year 800, King Egbert is faid to have fubmitted to a tribute, called Dane-gelt; a tax of 12 d. on every hide of land through the whole nation. But our authors differ about this Dane-gelt, whether it was a tax paid to obtain good terms of the Danes, or levied by our Kings towards the charge of defences, to repel the invafions of the Danes.

We shall express our duty in his eye,
And let him know fo.

Capt. I will do't, my Lord.

For. Go foftly on.

[Exit Fortinbras, with the Army.

Enter HAMLET, ROSINCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, &C.

Ham. Good Sir, whose powers are these?
Capt. They are of Norway, Sir.
Ham. How purposed, Sir, I pray you?
Capt. Against some part of Poland.
Ham. Who commands them, Sir?

Capt. The nephew of old Norway, Fortinbras.
Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, Sir,

Or for fome frontier?

Capt. Truly to speak it, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground,
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats-five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway, or the Pole,
A ranker rate, should it be fold in fee.

Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Capt. Yea, 'tis already garrifoned.

Ham. Two thousand fouls, and twenty thousand
Will not debate the question of this straw; (ducats,
This is the impofthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shews no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, Sir.

Capt. God b'w'ye, Sir.

Rof. Will't please you

go, my

Lord?

Ham. I'll be with you strait, go a little before.

Manet HAMLET.

[Exeunt.

How all occafions do inform against me,
And fpur my dull revenge! What is a man,

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If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to fleep and feed? a beast, no more.
(58) Sure, he that made us with fuch large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reafon

'To ruft in us unufed. Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or fome craven scruple

Of thinking too precifely on th' event, [wisdom,
(A thought which, quartered, hath but one part
And ever three parts coward:) I do not know
Why yet I live to say this thing's to do;
Sith I have cause, and will, and itrength, and means
To-do't. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me.:.
Witness this army of fuch mais and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender Prince,
Whofe fpirit, with divine ambition puft,
Makes mouths at the invisible event;
Exposing what is mortal and unfure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Ev'n for an egg-shell. 'Tis not to be great,
Never to ftir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,

When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,.

(58) Sure he that made us with fuch large difcourse,

Looking before and after.] This is an expreffion purely Homeric;

Οῖς δ ̓ ὁ γέρων μεπεησιν, ἃ μα ΠΡΟΣΣΩ & ̓ΟΠΙ ́ΣΣΩ

Λεύσσει.

And again;

Iliad. y. ver. 1098

----ὁ γὰν διος όρα ΠΡΟΣΣΩ & ΟΠΙ'ΣΣΩ.

Iliad. r. ver, 250.

The short scholiaft on the last passage gives us a comment that very aptly explains our Author's phrafe. Συνετῦ γὰρ ' ἀνδρὸς ἐσι, τα μελλονία τοῖς γεγενημενοις ἀρμόζ εσθαι, ὰ ὕτως ὁρᾶν τα ἑπόμενα. "For it is the part of an understanding man to connect the reflection of events to come with fuch as have paffed, and fo to foresee what shall follow." This is, as our Author phrases it, isoking before and after.

That have a father killed, a mother stained,
(Excitements of my reason and my blood)
And let all fleep? while, to my shame, I fee
The imminent death of twenty thousand men;
That for a fantasy and trick of fame
Go to their graves like beds; fight for a plot,
Whereon the numbers cannot try the caufe,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the flain? O, then, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth. [Exit.

SCENE changes to a Palace.

Enter Queen, HORATIO, and a Gentleman.

Queen. I will not speak with her.

Gent. She is importunate,

Indeed, distract; her mood will needs be pitied.
Queen. What would the have?
[hears
Gent. She speaks much of her father; fays, the
There's tricks i' th' world; and hems, and beats

her heart;

Spuras enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt
That carry but half sense; her fpeech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield

-them,

Indeed, would make one think there might be Tho' nothing fure, yet much unhappily. (thought; Hor. 'Twere good the were spoken with, for the

may strow

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.
Let her come in..

Queen. To my fick foul, as fin's true nature is, Each toy feems prologue to fome great amiss;

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