Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/101

King. As of a man faithful and honourable. 130

Pol. I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this^{[a 1]} hot love on the wing,—
As I perceived it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me,—what might you,
Or my dear majesty, your queen here, think, 135
If I had play'd the desk or table-book,^{[b 1]}
Or given my heart a winking,^{[a 2][b 2]} mute and dumb,
Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;
What might you think? No, I went round^{[b 3]} to work,
And my young mistress thus^{[a 3]} I did bespeak; 140
"Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star;^{[a 4][b 4]}
This must not be;" and then I prescripts^{[a 5]} gave her,
That she should lock herself from his^{[a 6]} resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice; 145
And he, repulsed,^{[a 7]} a short tale to make,
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch,^{[b 5]} thence into a weakness,
Thence to a^{[a 8]} lightness,^{[b 6]} and by this declension

1. 132. this] his Ff 3, 4.
2. 137. a winking] F, a working Q.
3. 140. thus] this Qq 4, 5.
4. 141. out of thy star] Q, F; out of your starre Q 1; out of thy sphere Ff 2–4, Q 6.
5. 142. prescripts] Q, precepts F.
6. 143. his] F, her Q.
7. 146. repulsed] F, repell'd Q.
8. 149. a] omitted Q.

1. 136. desk or table-book] silent recipient. Clar. Press explains: "If I had been the agent of their correspondence." See tables, I. v. 107.
2. 137. winking] closed the eyes of my heart. "Wink" did not necessarily mean, as now, "a brief closure of the eyes." In Sonnets, xliii. 1, it is used for sleep.
3. 139. round] roundly, that is plainly. See round in III. i. 191.
4. 141. out of thy star] above thee in fortune. See Twelfth Night, II. v. 156: "In my stars I am above thee." Nash, in Pierce Pennilesse, speaks of the strict division of ranks in Denmark with reference to marriage: "It is death there for anie but a husbandman to marry a husbandman's daughter, or a gentleman's child to joyne with any but the sonne of a gentleman."
5. 148. watch] a sleepless state, as in Cymbeline, iii. iv. 43.
6. 149. lightness] lightheadedness.