Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/127

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94
HAMLET
[ACT II.

Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless[b 1] villain!
O, vengeance![a 1] 620
Why,[a 2] what an ass am I! This[a 3] is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,[b 2] [a 4]
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab, 625
A scullion![a 5]
Fie upon 't! foh! About, my brain![a 6][b 3] I[a 7] have heard
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,[b 4]
Have, by the very cunning of the scene,
Been struck so to the soul that presently[b 5] 630
They have proclaimed their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle; I'll observe his looks; 635

  1. 620. O vengeance!] omitted in Q.
  2. 621. Why,] Why Q, Who? F.
  3. 621. This] Q, I [i.e. Ay] sure, this F.
  4. 622. a dear father murder'd] Q 4, a deere murthered Q, the Deere murthered F.
  5. 626. scullion] F, stallyon Q, cullion Theobald.
  6. 627. brain] F, braines Q.
  7. 627. I] F, hum, I Q.
  1. 619. kindless] unnatural.
  2. 622. dear father murder'd] Halliwell supports the reading, "a dear murdered " by comparing the phrase "the dear departed."
  3. 627. About, my brain!] Wits, to you work! Steevens quotes from Heywood, The Iron Age, Part II.:
    "My brain about again! for thou hast found
    New projects now to work on."
    The Hum of Q is a meditative interjection, retained by Cambridge Sh. and by Furness.
  4. 628. play] Massinger had this passage probably in his mind in writing The Roman Actor, II. i. In A Warning for Fair Women, 1599, the tale is told of a woman led by a play to confess her husband's murder, Heywood, in his Apology for Actors, tells of this case, and of another at Amsterdam.
  5. 630. presently] immediately, as in line 170.