Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/55

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would^{[a 1]} hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on; and yet, within a month—^{[a 2]} 145
Let me not think on't.—Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month! or ere^{[b 1]} those shoes^{[a 3]} were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears; why she, even she—^{[a 4]}
O God!^{[a 5]} a beast, that wants discourse of reason,^{[b 2]} 150
Would have mourn'd longer,—married with my^{[a 6]} uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules.^{[b 3]} Within a month? ^{[a 7]}
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the^{[a 8]} flushing^{[b 4]} in her gallpd eyes, 155
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity^{[b 5]} to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good;
But break^{[b 6]} my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

1. 143. would] F, should Q.
2. 145. month—] month, Q, month? F.
3. 147. shoes] Q, F; shows Ingleby conj.
4. 149. even she] F, omitted in Q.
5. 150. O God!] Q, O Heaven F.
6. 151. my]Q, mine F.
7. 153. month?] F, month, Q.
8. 155. the] their Q 1; in] Q, of F.

1. 147. or ere] "Or," an old form of "ere"; so in line 183 of this scene, "Or ever." The reduplication is found in several other passages.
2. 150. discourse of reason] discursive power of reason. Found several times in Florio's Montaigne, 1603. Johnson's Dictionary defines discourse: "the act of the understanding by which it passes from premises to consequences." See IV. iv. 36, and Troilus and Cressida, II. ii. 116.
3. 153. Hercules] Perhaps a relic of the history of Amlethus in Saxo Grammaticus, whose Hamlet is in some respects the opposite of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The closing words are: "Hic Amlethi exitus fuit, qui si parem naturæ. atq. fortunæ indulgentiam expertus fuisset, æquasset fulgore superos, Herculea virtutibus opera transcendisset."
4. 155. flushing] Hudson and Rolfe explain this as redness. Clar. Press: "The verb 'flush' is still used transitively, meaning, to fill with water."
5. 157. dexterity] adroitness. Clar. Press compares 1 Henry IV, II. iv. 286.
6. 159. break] "A subjunctive, not an imperative, and 'heart' is a subject, not a vocative" (Corson).