70
HAMLET
[ACT II.
Mark the encounter; if he love her not,
And be not from his reason fall'n thereon, 165
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But[a 1] keep a farm and carters.
King. We will try it.
Queen. But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away;
I'll board[b 1] him presently.[b 2]—
[Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants.
Enter Hamlet[a 2] [reading].
Oh, give me leave;[b 3] 170
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
Ham. Well, God-a-mercy.
Pol. Do you know me, my lord?
- ↑ 170. board] accost, as in Twelfth Night, I. iii. 60.
- ↑ 170. presently] immediately, as in Romeo and Juliet, IV. i. 95.
- ↑ 170. Oh, give me leave] addressed to Hamlet. The Exeunt of King and Queen is indicated in Q after line 169; in F as here. Capell, supposing the words to be addressed to the King and Queen, placed Exeunt after "leave."
- ↑ 174. fishmonger] Malone: "Fishmonger was a cant term for wencher"; he cites B. Rich's Irish Hubbub: "him they call Senex fornicator and old fishmonger." Farmer and Henley's Slang Dictionary gives obscene meanings under "fish" and "fishmarket," which suggest that fishmonger may have meant bawd, but I have found no example. There are Elizabethan references to the smell of fishmongers, which here could be easily indicated by an actor, as if Polonius had brought an ill air with him. Presently, however, Hamlet discourses on procreation, connecting Ophelia with his talk. Perhaps the following from Platt's Jewell House, 1594 (p. 97, ed. 1653), may be cited: "And some hold opinion that the females . . . do conceive only by licking of salt. And this maketh the Fishmongers' wives so wanton and beautiful." Whiter notices that in Jonson's Masque of Christmas, Venus, as a tire woman, says, "I am a fishmonger's daughter." Does Jonson only mean sea-born, or mean wanton and beautiful? Joubert (Seconde
