Codes 1.5.42
orchard: palace garden
1.5.44
forgèd process: false story
1.5.45
Rankly abused: completely misled
1.5.57-58
decline/ Upon: to turn to (with the sense of
1.5.65
soft: "enough" or "wait a minute"
1.5.69
hebona: a poison (The word may be linked to "henbane,"
1.5.71
leprous distilment: distillation causing a condition
1.5.75
posset: clot
1.5.76
eager: acid
1.5.78-80
a most instant tetter . . . body: i.e., sores
and 1.5.82
dispatched: dispossessed
1.5.84
unhousled . . . unaneled: without having received
final 1.5.90
luxury: lust
1.5.96
matin: morning
Copyright © 1992.
The Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved.
+ + = emendation; <> = First Folio; [ ] = Second
Quarto only
+1.5+
GHOST
Now, Hamlet, hear.
'Tis given out that, sleeping
in my orchard,
A serpent stung me. So
the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgèd
process of my death
Rankly
abused. But know, thou noble youth,
45
The serpent that did sting
thy father's life
Now wears his crown.
HAMLET O, my prophetic soul! My uncle!
GHOST
Ay, that incestuous, that
adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his
+wit,+ with traitorous gifts-- 50
O wicked wit and gifts,
that have the power
So to seduce!--won to his
shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous
queen.
O Hamlet, what <a> falling
off was there!
From me, whose love was
of that dignity
55
That it went hand in hand
even with the vow
I made to her in marriage,
and to decline
Upon
a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine.
But virtue, as it never
will be moved,
60
Though lewdness court it
in a shape of heaven,
So, <lust,> though to
a radiant angel linked,
Will <sate> itself in
a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
But soft,
methinks I scent the morning air.
65
Brief let me be. Sleeping
within my orchard,
My custom always of the
afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy
uncle stole,
With juice of cursèd
hebona in a vial,
And in the porches of my
ears did pour
70
The leprous
distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with
blood of man
That swift as quicksilver
it courses through
The natural gates and alleys
of the body,
And with a sudden vigor
it doth <posset>
75
And curd, like eager
droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome
blood. So did it mine,
And a
most instant tetter barked about,
Most
lazar-like, with vile and loathsome
crust
All
my smooth body.
80
Thus was I, sleeping, by
a brother's hand
Of life, of crown, of queen
at once dispatched,
Cut off, even in the blossoms
of my sin,
Unhouseled,
disappointed, unaneled,
No reck'ning made, but
sent to my account
85
With all my imperfections
on my head.
O horrible, O horrible,
most horrible!
If thou hast nature in
thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of
Denmark be
A couch for luxury
and damnèd incest.
90
But, howsomever thou pursues
this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor
let thy soul contrive
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. 95
The glowworm shows the
matin to be near
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual
fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember
me. <He
exits.>
"declining" as falling, bending downward)
a poisonous weed, or to "ebony," the sap of which was
thought to be poisonous. Marlowe, in The Jew of
Malta,
mentions "the juice of hebon" as deadly.)
like leprosy
scabs, as on a leper, covered my body with a vile crust
like the bark of a tree tetter:
a skin disease marked
by sores and scabs lazar-like:
like a leper
rites