Page:Hamlet - The Arden Shakespeare - 1899.djvu/80

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury^{[b 1]} and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive 85
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual^{[b 2]} fire; 90
Adieu, adieu, adieu!^{[a 1]} remember me. [Exit.

Ham. O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? Oh, fie!^{[b 3]} Hold, hold,^{[a 2]} my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly^{[a 3]} up. Remember thee?^{[a 4]} 95
Ay, thou poor ghost, while^{[a 5]} memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe.^{[b 4]} Remember thee?
Yea, from the table^{[b 5]} of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond^{[b 6]} records,^{[b 7]}
All saws^{[b 8]} of books, all forms, all pressures^{[b 9]} past, 100

1. 91. Adieu, adieu, adieu!] Q, Adue, adue, Hamlet: F and many editors.
2. 93. Hold, hold,] Q; hold Qq 4–6, F.
3. 95. stiffly] F, swiftly Q.
4. 95, 97. thee?] F, thee, Q.
5. 96. while] F, whiles Q.

1. 83. luxury] Dyce (Gloss.): lasciviousness, its only sense in Shakespeare.
2. 90. uneffectual] Warburton (approved by Dyce) explains: "shining without heat." Steevens, "lost in the morning light." See Pericles, II, iii. 43.
3. 93. Oh, fie] Capell, Steevens, Mitford, Dyce regard these words as probably an interpolation.
4. 97. globe] Hamlet's hand is upon his forehead.
5. 98. table] tablet, as in Two Gentlemen of Verona, II, vii. 3. In Massinger, The Emperor of the East, IV. v., we find "Writ in the table of my memory."
6. 99. fond] foolish.
7. 99. records] The accent in Shakespeare is variable, on the first, or (as probably here) on the second syllable.
8. 100. saws] maxims, as in As You Like It, II. vii. 156.
9. 100. pressures] impressions. See III. ii. 29. Elsewhere Shakespeare uses impressure in the same sense.