The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 18

[Footnote 2: This may well seem prating inconsistency, but I suppose means that he must not be represented as without moderation in his wickedness.]

[Footnote 3: _Untamed_, as a hawk.]

[Footnote 4: The lines are properly arranged in _Q_.

A sauagenes in vnreclamed blood, Of generall a.s.sault.

--that is, 'which a.s.sails all.']

[Footnote 5: Here a hesitating pause.]

[Footnote 6: --with the expression of, 'Is that what you would say?']

[Footnote 7: 'a fetch with warrant for it'--a justifiable trick.]

[Footnote 8: Compare _sallied_, 25, both Quartos; _sallets_ 67, 103; and see _soil'd_, next line.]

[Footnote 9: 'Addition,' epithet of courtesy in address.]

[Footnote 10: _Q_. has not this line]

[Page 68]

_Polon._ At closes in the consequence, I marry, He closes with you thus. I know the Gentleman, [Sidenote: He closes thus,]

I saw him yesterday, or tother day; [Sidenote: th'other]

Or then or then, with such and such; and as you say, [Sidenote: or such,]

[Sidenote: 25] There was he gaming, there o'retooke in's Rouse, [Sidenote: was a gaming there, or tooke]

There falling out at Tennis; or perchance, I saw him enter such a house of saile; [Sidenote: sale,]

_Videlicet_, a Broth.e.l.l, or so forth. See you now; Your bait of falshood, takes this Cape of truth; [Sidenote: take this carpe]

And thus doe we of wisedome and of reach[1]

With windlesses,[2] and with a.s.saies of Bias, By indirections finde directions out: So by my former Lecture and aduice Shall you my Sonne; you haue me, haue you not?

_Reynol._ My Lord I haue.

_Polon._ G.o.d buy you; fare you well, [Sidenote: ye ye]

_Reynol._ Good my Lord.

_Polon._ Obserue his inclination in your selfe.[3]

_Reynol._ I shall my Lord.

_Polon._ And let him[4] plye his Musicke.

_Reynol._ Well, my Lord. _Exit_.

_Enter Ophelia_.

_Polon_. Farewell: How now _Ophelia_, what's the matter?

_Ophe_. Alas my Lord, I haue beene so affrighted.

[Sidenote: O my Lord, my Lord,]

_Polon_. With what, in the name of Heauen?

[Sidenote: i'th name of G.o.d?]

_Ophe_. My Lord, as I was sowing in my Chamber, [Sidenote: closset,]

Lord _Hamlet_ with his doublet all vnbrac'd,[5]

No hat vpon his head, his stockings foul'd, Vngartred, and downe giued[6] to his Anckle, Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, And with a looke so pitious in purport, As if he had been loosed out of h.e.l.l,

[Footnote 1: of far reaching mind.]

[Footnote 2: The word windlaces is explained in the dictionaries as _shifts, subtleties_--but apparently on the sole authority of this pa.s.sage. There must be a figure in _windlesses_, as well as in _a.s.saies of Bias_, which is a phrase plain enough to bowlers: the trying of other directions than that of the _jack_, in the endeavour to come at one with the law of the bowl's bias. I find _wanla.s.s_ a term in hunting: it had to do with driving game to a given point--whether in part by getting to windward of it, I cannot tell. The word may come of the verb wind, from its meaning '_to manage by shifts or expedients_': _Barclay_. As he has spoken of fishing, could the _windlesses_ refer to any little instrument such as now used upon a fishing-rod? I do not think it. And how do the words _windlesses_ and _indirections_ come together? Was a windless some contrivance for determining how the wind blew? I bethink me that a thin withered straw is in Scotland called a _windlestrae_: perhaps such straws were thrown up to find out 'by indirection' the direction of the wind.

The press-reader sends me two valuable quotations, through Latham's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, from Dr. H. Hammond (1605-1660), in which _windla.s.s_ is used as a verb:--

'A skilful woodsman, by windla.s.sing, presently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compa.s.s, and thereby a commodious stand, he could never have obtained.'

'She is not so much at leasure as to windlace, or use craft, to satisfy them.'

To _windlace_ seems then to mean 'to steal along to leeward;' would it be absurd to suggest that, so-doing, the hunter _laces the wind_?

Shakspere, with many another, I fancy, speaks of _threading the night_ or _the darkness_.

Johnson explains the word in the text as 'A handle by which anything is turned.']

[Footnote 3: 'in your selfe.' may mean either 'through the insight afforded by your own feelings'; or 'in respect of yourself,' 'toward yourself.' I do not know which is intended.]

[Footnote 4: 1st Q. 'And bid him'.]

[Footnote 5: loose; _undone_.]

[Footnote 6: His stockings, slipped down in wrinkles round his ankles, suggested the rings of _gyves_ or fetters. The verb _gyve_, of which the pa.s.sive participle is here used, is rarer.]

[Page 70]

To speake of horrors: he comes before me.

_Polon._ Mad for thy Loue?

_Ophe._ My Lord, I doe not know: but truly I do feare it.[1]

_Polon._ What said he?

_Ophe._[2] He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard; Then goes he to the length of all his arme; And with his other hand thus o're his brow, He fals to such perusall of my face, As he would draw it. Long staid he so, [Sidenote: As a]

At last, a little shaking of mine Arme: And thrice his head thus wauing vp and downe; He rais'd a sigh, so pittious and profound, That it did seeme to shatter all his bulke, [Sidenote: As it]

And end his being. That done, he lets me goe, And with his head ouer his shoulders turn'd, [Sidenote: shoulder]

He seem'd to finde his way without his eyes, For out adores[3] he went without their helpe; [Sidenote: helps,]

And to the last, bended their light on me.