SC. I.]
PRINCE OF DENMARK
55
Rey. Ay, very well, my lord.
Pol. "And in part him; but," you may say, "not well;
But if't be he I mean, he's very wild,
Addicted" so and so; and there put on him
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank 20
As may dishonour him; take heed of that;
But, sir, such wanton, wild and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.
Rey. As gaming, my lord.
Pol. Ay, or drinking, fencing,[b 1] swearing, quarrelling, 25
Drabbing;[a 1] you may go so far.
Rey. My lord, that would dishonour him.
Pol. Faith, no;[a 2] as you may season[b 2] it in the charge.
You must not put another[b 3] scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency; 30
That's not my meaning; but breathe his faults so quaintly[b 4]
- ↑ 25. fencing] Perhaps named to show how Polonius regards the other supposed outbreaks of his son—as to be classed with addiction to the fencing-school. Fencers, however, had a like legal disrepute with players. In Middleton's Spanish Gipsy, II. ii. Sancho comes in "from playing with fencers," having lost cloak, band, and rapier at dice. The ill repute of fencers appears from other passages in Elizabethan drama. In Dekker's Gul's Horn-Booke he speaks of the danger to a rich young man of being "set upon" by fencers and cony-catchers (Dekker, ed. Grosart, vol. ii. p. 213).
- ↑ 28. season] qualify; see I. ii. 192.
- ↑ 29. another] Theobald conjectured an utter, which was adopted by Hanmer and some other editors; but Theobald himself withdrew the suggestion. Malone explains: "a very different and more scandalous failing: habitual incontinency." Hudson reads "open of incontinency," that he indulges his passions openly. Perhaps Malone is right; Polonius, who loves nice distinctions, sees a difference between occasional "drabbing" and lying wide open to the access of vice.
- ↑ 31. quaintly] delicately, ingeniously, as in Merchant of Venice, II. iv. 6.
