Act V Sc. 1
“Woo’t drink up Esil? eat a crocodile?”
Those who maintain that ‘Esil’ is the acid of that name have not observed that ‘drink up’ means drink the whole of, and so could hardly be used of any liquid in the abstract. It is also to be observed that, at that time, eysel was used as a medicine:—
“Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysel ’gainst my strong infection.”
Son. cxi.
and further that, by association of ideas, ‘crocodile’ presupposes the mention of a river. The Yssel, a river of the Low Countries, runs by Deventer and Zutphen, near which last place Sir Philip Sidney received his death-wound, and so the name Yssel may have been familiar to the English mind. I therefore have placed it in the text.
“In an hour of quiet thereby shall we see.”
Sc. 2
“I folded up the writ in form of the other.”
“For by the image of my cause I see
The portraiture of his. I’ll count his favours.”
It is best to read, with Rowe, ‘I’ll court his favour.’
“You will do it, sir, really.”
I incline to read readily.
“And yet but yaw neither.”
So 4to 1604. The others have raw.
“The most fond and winnowed opinions.”
I quite agree with those who read fann’d.
“As that I have shot an arrow o’er the house.”
“Stick fiery off indeed.”
In my Edition I most rashly read Strike for ‘Stick.’ In the language of the time stick off meant set off, show off, display:—
“Nor virtue shines more in a lovely face,
Than true desert is stuck off with disgrace.”
Chapman, Dedic. of Batrach., etc.
“His lute still touch’d to stick more off his tongue.”
Id. Hymn to Hermes, 766.
Yet Chapman, in whom alone I have found it, may have adopted it from one of the 4tos of this play. See on Rom. and Jul. iii. 3.
“I do not fear it; I have seen you both.—
But since he’s better’d, we have therefore odds.”
If he (i.e. Laertes) was bettered, in the ordinary sense of the word, how could the odds lie against him? You’re would give better sense than ‘he’s’; but it does not satisfy me. A line has evidently been lost, and the latter part may be addressed to the Queen. The lost line may have been something like this: “’Tis true he did neglect his exercises.” Hamlet had said (ii. 2) he had “foregone all custom of exercises.” In my Edition I have made an Aside here to the Queen, who may have made a sign of dissent; but a speech of the Queen’s to the same effect may have been what is lost.
“Come.—Another hit.—What say you?
[A touch a touch] I do confess.”
With the 4tos I omit the bracketed words, as needless to the sense and injurious to the measure.
“Good madam...—Gertrude, Gertrude, do not drink.”
This repetition of the name, which is required by the metre, adds, I think, much energy. The name is repeated in the same manner in iv. 5.
“As thou’rt a man!...
Give me the cup; let go; by Heaven I’ll have it.”
This appears to me to be the true punctuation.