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

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.