William Shakespeare

“ Jennens prints in brackets the line of the Quartos which we have omitted, and conjectures, as Johnson had done before him, that a line is lost either before or after it, which should rhyme to 'love.' As in the Quartos the line 'For women feare too much, even as they love,' occurs at the top of a page, the omission is more likely to have been caused by a line having dropped out at the foot of the previous page. ”

“ Sweets to the sweet: farewell! [2099]
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife; [2100]
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave. ”

“ Johnson first printed 'You must sing ... call him a-down-a' in italics, as a snatch of song. Steevens (1778) put 'Down a down, as you call him a-down-a' in italics, a reading suggested by Capell's text, where 'Down' begins with a capital letter. The late Mr John Taylor, in a copy of the second Variorum edition (1813) now in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, has made the following note. "Ophelia gives the song without the Burthen first, and then she instructs them 'You must sing a-down a-down, and you (speaking to another) call him a-down-a." ”

“ To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, [1042]
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, [1043]
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; [1044] [1045] 60
No more; and by a sleep to say we end [1045] [1046]
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation [1047]
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; [1048]
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; 65
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, ”

“ Murder most foul, as in the best it is, [434]
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. ”

“ What is't to leaue betimes?'
The Quartos of 1676, 1683, 1695 and 1703 have:
'The readiness is all, since no man of ought he leaves knows what
'tis to leave betimes, let be.'
Rowe, Pope and Theobald followed the Folios.
Hanmer:
'The readiness is all. Since no man owes aught of what he leaves,
what is't to leave betimes?'
Warburton:
'The readiness is all. ”

“ O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, [177]
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! 130
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
[Pg 17] His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! [178]
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable [179]
Seem to me all the uses of this world! [180]
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, [181] 135
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this! [182]
But two months dead! nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this, [183]
Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother, ”

“ diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved, 10
Or not at all. ”

“ The great man down, you mark his favourite flies; [1260]
[Pg 95] The poor advanced makes friends of enemies: 195
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend; ”

“ I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; [1093]
God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves [1094]
another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name [1095]
[Pg 83] God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. ”

“ Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks: that to provoke in him, [4193]
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish. ”

“ Capell supposed the words 'O, give me leave' to be addressed, not to Hamlet, but to the King and Queen, whose Exeunt he placed after these words. His arrangement has been followed by all subsequent [Pg 190] editors, till we ventured, in the Globe edition, to recur to the old order. It appears to us that the words 'O, give me leave,' commencing with an exclamation, are more naturally addressed to Hamlet than to the King and Queen, with whom Polonius had been previously conversing.
Mr Dyce transferred the entrance of Hamlet to follow the Exeunt of the King and Queen, line 169. ”

“ Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter, [2457] [2458]
Dearer than eye-sight, space and liberty, [2459]
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare, 55
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour,
As much as child e'er loved or father found; [2460]
A love that makes breath poor and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you. ”

“ What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, [979]
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion [980]
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears 535
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free, [981]
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. [982] [983]
Yet I, [982] [984] [985] 540
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, [984] [985] [986]
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, [985] [987]
And can say nothing; no, not for a king, [985]
Upon whose property and most dear life ”

“ Love's not love [2613] [2615]
When it is mingled with regards that stand [2613] [2616]
Aloof from the entire point. ”

“ Come, my good lord, away. [Exeunt all but Gloucester and Kent. [3280]
Glou. I am sorry for thee, friend; 'tis the duke's pleasure, [3281]
Whose disposition, all the world well knows,
Will not be rubb'd nor stopp'd: I'll entreat for thee. [3282]
Kent. Pray, do not, sir: I have watch'd and travell'd hard; [3283] 150
Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I'll whistle. [3284]
A good man's fortune may grow out at heels:
Give you good morrow!
Glou. The duke's to blame in this; 'twill be ill taken.
[Exit. [3285]
Kent. ”

“ But virtue, as it never will be moved, [454]
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd, [456] 55
Will sate itself in a celestial bed [457] [458]
And prey on garbage. ”

“ I do believe you think what now you speak, [1252]
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth but poor validity: [1253]
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree, [1254] 180
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. ”

“ nay, it is; I know not 'seems.'
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, [149]
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 80
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
[Pg 15] Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, [150]
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, [151]
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passes show; [152] 85
These but the trappings and the suits of woe. ”

“ I am glad I have found this napkin: [5974]
This was her first remembrance from the Moor: 295
My wayward husband hath a hundred times
Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token, [5975]
For he conjured her she should ever keep it,
That she reserves it evermore about her
To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out, [5976] [5977] [5978] 300
And give 't Iago: what he will do with it [5976] [5978] [5979]
Heaven knows, not I; ”

“ Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, [1645]
Looking before and after, gave us not [1645]
That capability and god-like reason [1645]
To fust in us unused. ”

“ Ros. My lord, you once did love me.
Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers. [1336] 320
Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper?
you do surely bar the door upon your own liberty, if you [1337]
deny your griefs to your friend.
Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.
Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the 325
king himself for your succession in Denmark?
Ham. Ay, sir, but 'while the grass grows,'—the proverb [1338]
is something musty.
Re-enter Players with recorders. [1339]
O, the recorders! ”

“ O good Horatio, what a wounded name, [2380]
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me! [2381]
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile, [2382]
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, 335
To tell my story. ”

“ Imperious Cæsar, dead and turn'd to clay, [2079]
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw! ”

“ Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead vast and middle of the night, [227]
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe, [228] 200
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd [229]
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes, [230]
Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distill'd [231]
Almost to jelly with the act of fear, [232] 205
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. ”

“ Anon, as patient as the female dove [2127] [2129]
When that her golden couplets are disclosed, [2130] 275
His silence will sit drooping. ”

“ A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife; [4900] [4901]
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
[Pg 439] More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric, [4902]
Wherein the toged consuls can propose [4903] 25
As masterly as he: mere prattle without practice [4904]
Is all his soldiership. ”

“ She never yet was foolish that was fair; [5410] [5415]
For even her folly help'd her to an heir. ”

“ Y'are very pleasant my lord.
Ham. Who I, your onlie jig-maker, why what shoulde 150
a man do but be merry? for looke how cheerefully my mother
lookes, my father died within these two houres.
Ofel. Nay, t'is twice two months, my Lord.
Ham. Two months, nay then let the diuell weare blacke,
For i'le haue a sute of Sables: Iesus, two months dead, 155
And not forgotten yet? nay then there's some
Likelyhood, a gentlemans death may outliue memorie,
But by my faith hee must build churches then,
Or els hee must follow the olde Epitithe,
With hoh, with ho, the hobi-horse is forgot. 160
Ofel. ”

“ Who's there?
Fool. Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a 40
wise man and a fool. ”

“ Ham. Who is to be buried in 't?
First Clo. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her
soul, she's dead.
Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by
the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, [2035] 130
Horatio, this three years I have taken note of it; the age [2036]
is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so [2037]
near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. How long [2038]
hast thou been a grave-maker? [2039]
First Clo. Of all the days i' the year, I came to't that [2040] 135
day that our last king Hamlet o'ercame Fortinbras. ”

“ He that keeps nor crust nor crumb, [2908] 190
Weary of all, shall want some. ”

“ The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring [293]
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed, [294] 40
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent. ”

“ King Your louing father, Hamlet.
Ham. My mother I say: you married my mother,
My mother is your wife, man and wife is one flesh,
And so (my mother) farewel: for England hoe. 165
Exeunt all but the king.
King Gertred, leaue me,
And take your leaue of Hamlet,
To England is he gone, ne're to returne:
Our Letters are vnto the King of England,
[Pg 234] That on the sight of them, on his allegeance, 170
He presently without demaunding why,
That Hamlet loose his head, for he must die,
There's more in him than shallow eyes can see:
He once being dead, why then our state is free. exit. ”

“ Q2 (Bodl. 2) . A copy in the Bodleian Library (Malone 37) , wanting title but having the last leaf.
It has been supposed in consequence of statements made by Malone and Boswell that a third edition of King Lear was published in 1608. We shall show that there is no evidence for this. In the Variorum Shakespeare (ii. 652) , edited by Boswell in 1821, three Quartos are described, which are distinguished in the notes to the play by the letters A, B, C, respectively. The first of these is a copy of Q2, quoted by us as Q2 (Bodl. 1) ; the second is a copy of Q1 ”

“ To put an antic disposition on, [541] [542] [544]
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall, [542] [546]
With arms encumber'd thus, or this head-shake, [542] [547]
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase, [542] [548] 175
As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,' [542] [549] [550]
Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,' [542] [550] [551]
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note [542] [552]
That you know aught of me: this not to do, [553]
So grace and mercy at your most need help you, [553] 180
Swear. ”

“ Are there no stones in heaven [6848]
But what serve for the thunder? ”