Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/54

Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Flourish.^{[a 1]} Exeunt all but Hamlet.

Ham. O! that this too too^{[b 1]} solid^{[a 2][b 2]} flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve^{[b 3]} itself into a dew;— 130
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!^{[b 4]} O God! O God!^{[a 3]}
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem^{[a 4]} to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! O fie!^{[a 5]} 'tis an unweeded garden 135
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.^{[b 5]} That it should come to this!^{[a 6]}
But two months dead! nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion^{[b 6]} to a satyr; so loving to my mother 140
That he might not beteem^{[b 7]} the winds of heaven

1. Flourish] Q, omitted F.
2. 129. solid] F; sallied Q 1, Q; sullied Anon, conject
3. 132. O God! O God!] F, o God, God Q.
4. 134. Seem] Q, Seemes F.
5. 135. O fie!] ah fie Q; Oh fie, fie F; Oh fie Ff 3, 4.
6. 137. come to this!] F, come thus Q.

1. 129. too too] Intensive reduplication; hyphened by some editors. Compare Two Gentlemen of Verona, II. iv. 205.
2. 129. solid] Solid and melt are found in conjunction, as here, in 2 Henry IV. III. i. 48. The sallied of Q and Q 1 is defended by Dr. Furnivall, who cites Cotgrave's French Dict, saillie, a sallie, eruption, violent issue; also assaille, assaulted, assayled. If we were to retain sallied, I should explain it as sullied, comparing II. i. 39, where F reads sullyes and Q sallies; and, seeing that Q 1 has here "this too much griev'd and sallied flesh," we have some reason to think that sullied may be right.
3. 130. resolve] Caldecott cites Baret's Alvearie: "To thaw or resolve that which is frozen, regelo." Compare Timon, IV. iii. 442.
4. 132. canon 'gainst self-slaughter] So also Cymbeline, III. iv. 77-80. "Unless it be the sixth commandment, the 'canon' must be one of natural religion", (Wordsworth, Shakespear's Knowledge and Use of the Bible, p. 149).
5. 137. merely] completely. Compare Tempest, I. i. 59: "We are merely cheated of our lives."
6. 140. Hyperion] Spenser, Gray, Keats, like Shakespeare, throw the accent on the second syllable.
7. 141. beteem] permit; "beteene" in Ff I, 2. So Golding, Ovid's Metamorphoses (published 1587):
   "Yet could he not beteeme
   The shape of any other bird then
   eagle for to seeme."