Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/100

Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her?

Pol. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful. 115

[Reads.]^{[a 1]} Doubt^{[b 1]} thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; 120

I have not art to reckon^{[b 2]} my groans; but that I

love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this

machine is to him,^{[b 3]} Hamlet.

This in obedience hath my daughter shown^{[a 2]} me; 125
And more above,^{[a 3]} hath his solicitings,^{[a 4][b 4]}
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

King. But how hath she
Received his love?

Pol. What do you think of me?

1. 116. Reads] Letter Q, omitted F.
2. 125. shown] Q, shew'd F.
3. 126. above] F, about Q.
4. 126. solicitings] Q, soliciting F.

III. i. 250: letters delivered "Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love." There was a pocket in the breast of a lady's dress, but there may be no reference to it here.

1. 116–119. Doubt] In the first two lines and the fourth "doubt" means be doubtful that; in the third it means suspect. Hamlet's letter begins in the conventional lover's style, which perhaps was what Ophelia would expect from a courtly admirer; then there is a real outbreak of passion and self-pity; finally, in the word "machine," Hamlet indulges, after his manner, his own intellectuality, though it may baffle the reader; the letter is no more simple or homogeneous than the writer, T. Bright, in A Treatise of Melancholy (1586), explains the nature of the body as that of a machine, connected with the "soul" by the intermediate "spirit." He compares (p. 66) its action to that of a clock.
2. 121. reckon] Delius suggests that this may mean "to number metrically."
3. 124. machine is to him] whilst this body is attached to him. See Cymbeline, V. v. 383, for use of "to."
4. 126. solicitings] Solicit was sometimes—but perhaps not here—used of immoral proposals. Heywood, The Wise Woman of Hogsden, I. i.: "I'll visit my little rascall and solicite."