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You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with't no less nobility of love,

Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart tow'rd you. For your intent
In going back to school to Wittenberg, (21)
It is most retrograde to our desire:

And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers,
Hamlet: (22)

I pr'ythee, stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.
Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, Madam.
King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply;
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart, in grace whereof
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell;
And the King's rowse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.
[Exeunt.

(21) The terms going back, and retrograde, have regard to the libratory motion of the moon.

(22) Gertrude, the queen, is drawn in fig. 59, as she may be seen (if the south side of the moon be placed on the right hand), in pale light, with her face towards the

Manet HAMLET.

Ham. Oh, that this too-too-solid flesh would

Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

[melt,

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed

north, about the moon's centre, and her body, made up of streaks of light, crossing the body of Hudibras at right angles: she appears crowned, and in the act of kissing the lips of the late king, her first husband, the father of Hamlet; a circumstance noticed hereafter by Hamlet's saying of her, that she would hang on him, as if increase of appetite had grown, &c.

Fig. 59.

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! oh God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fy on't! oh fy! 'tis an unweeded garden, [ture That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in naPossess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months dead! nay, not so much: not

two;

So excellent a King, that was, to this, (23)
Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not let e'en the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember?-why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on; yet, within a month,-
Let me not think-Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month! or ere those shoes were old,
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears-Why she, evʼn she,—
(O heav'n! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer-) married with mine
uncle,

(23) Figure 60 gives a view of the late king on his throne, (being the same character as that introduced as the undermost of the two in figure 54, ante.) His prototype may be easily traced in the moon, as being directly opposite and contiguous to the queen's, particularly pointed.

My father's brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month!-
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her gauled eyes,

out in the last note. The melting, thawing, and dew, mentioned in the beginning of this speech of Hamlet, have regard to the streaks of running light, visible on his person

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She married.-Oh, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot, come to good.

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS. Hor. Hail to your Lordship!

Ham. I am glad to see you well;

Horatio, or I do forget myself?

Hor. The same, my Lord, and your poor ser

vant ever,

Ham. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you.

And what makes you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus!

Mar. My good Lord—

Ham. I am very glad to see you; good even, Sir. But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg ? Hor. A truant disposition, good, my Lord. Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so; Nor shall you do mine ear that violence, To make it truster of your own report Against yourself. I know you are no truant; (24)

(24) As Horatio's person (vide figure 49, ante), occupies that portion of the moon which is so often assimilated to an hour-glass, it explains the expression of no truant, (true an; the opposite of the truth), the hour-glass being a correct evidence of time.

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