Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/47

SCENE II.—A Room of State in the Castle.

Flourish.^{[a 1]} Enter the King, Queen, Hamlet, Polonius
Laertes, Voltimand, Cornelius, Lords, and Attendants.

King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature 5
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime^{[a 2]} sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress^{[b 1]} of^{[a 3]} this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated^{[b 2]} joy,— 10
With one auspicious and one^{[a 4]} dropping eye,^{[b 3]}
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,—
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd.
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone 15
With this affair along: for all, our thanks.

1. Flourish] Q, omitted F; the stage direction here is Malone's. Q after "Gertrad the Queene" has "Counsaile: as Polonius"; F names Ophelia as present.
2. 8. sometime] Q, sometimes F.
3. 9. of] F, to Q,
4. 11. one . . . one] F, an . . . a Q.

1. 9. jointress] Schmidt explains as dowager. Clar. Press: joint possessor. Hudson: heiress—"the Poet herein follows the history, which represents the former King to have come to his throne by marriage."
2. 10. defeated] disfigured, marred, as in Othello, I, iii. 346; or destroyed, undone, as in Othello, IV. ii. 160: "his unkindness may defeat my life."
3. 11.] Steevens notes the same thought in Winter's Tale, V. ii, 80. Grant White reads "drooping."