SC. V.]
PRINCE OF DENMARK
51
O'ermaster 't as you may. And now, good friends, 140
As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.
Hor. What is 't, my lord? we will.
Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night.
Hor., Mar. My lord, we will not.
Ham. Nay, but swear 't
Hor. In faith, 145
My lord, not I.
Mar. Nor I, my lord, in faith.
Ham. Upon my sword.[b 1]
Mar. We have sworn, my lord, already.
Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.
Ghost. [Beneath.][a 1] Swear.
Ham. Ah,[a 2] ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, true-penny?—[b 2]150
Come on; you hear this fellow in the cellarage;
Consent to swear.
Hor. Propose the oath, my lord.
- ↑ 147. sword.] The hilt, having the form of a cross, is sworn on. See 1 Henry IV. II. iv. 371. Dyce quotes from Mallet's Northern Antiquities (i. 216, ed. 1770) to show that "the custom of swearing on a sword prevailed even among the barbarous worshippers of Odin."
- ↑ 150. true-penny] Forby (Vocab. of East Anglia): Hearty old fellow. Collier says he has learnt, from Sheffield authorities, that it is a mining term, signifying an indication in the soil of the direction in which ore is to be found. Marston, The Malcontent, 1604, III. iii., has an echo of this scene: "Illo, ho, ho ho! arte there, old true-penny." Middleton, in Blurt, Master-Constable, names a page Truepenny. Hamlet's recoil from horror to half-hysterical jesting is justified to his own consciousness as intended to divert the conjectures of his companions from the dreadful nature of the Ghost's disclosure, which he cannot reveal to Horatio in the presence of Marcellus.
