(5.) And fo, OTHELLO, pag. 478.

What is the Reason of this terrible Summons?

XXIX. Act 1. Scene 8. Page 368.

Emendation.

HAMLET being retir'd to a remote Ground with his Father's Conjectural Apparition, the Ghost immediately discloses himself, and the Circumstances he was under in the other State, as far as he was licens'd, or it was proper for him, to declare.

I am thy father's Spirit;

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day, confin'd to FAST in fires;

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away.

Tho' all the Copies, old and modern, agree, in this Reading, I
cannot help fufpecting (at least, till I am better informed of
the Force of it ;) the Expreffion, to falt in Fires. If these

are the Poet's Words, his Meaning in them must be, to do Penance in fires: as Fafting is often a Part of Penance injoin'd by the Church for our Sins. But could it be any great Punishment for a Spirit, a Being which requires no Suftenance, to fast? Or could fafting in Fires burn and purge away Crimes more effectually, than the not being in such a State of Abstinence? The Poet certainly, in my Opinion, intends to mix the old Pagan System here with the more modern Notion of a local Purgatory; and to intimate, that Souls are cleansed and purified from their Mortal Stains by the Torment of Fire. The Variation will be but very small, to suppose he might have wrote;

And, for the Day, confin'd to ROAST in fires;

Now this takes in all the Ideas necessary to the Punishment, of being burnt, fcorched, pain'd, Uc. (and the Word, thus meta

phorically

341

phorically used, conveys no meaner an Image than carving, fcalding, wringing, and an hundred other Technical Terms do, frequent in the most elevated Poetry :) But that this was the very Cafe too of our Ghost, his own Words, in a Speech but juft before, fufficiently teftify.

My Hour is almost come,

When I to fulph'rous and tormenting Flames

Muft render up my felf.

And our Poet, I remember, afterwards in this very Play, pag. 393. again ufes the Expreffion; fpeaking of Pyrrhus in the Heat of Rage, and running about the flaming Streets of Troy :

ROASTED in Wrath and Fire, &c.

There is another fine Paffage, that I at prefent remember, in which our Poet has touched this Subject of Punishments after Death, and there he does not fay the leaft Word of fasting in fires: But he makes a Suppofition of fiery Floods, like the Infernal Rivers, fabled in the old Heathen Poets, and that the Spirits of the Deceafed fhould be doom'd to bathe in 'em.

MEASURE for MEASURE, pag 363.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where :
To lie in cold Obftruction, and to rot ;
This fenfible warm Motion to become
Akneaded Clod; and the delighted Spirit
To BATHE in fiery Floods, or to refide
In thrilling Regions of thick-ribbed Ice,
To be imprisoned in the Viewless Winds,

And blown with reftless Violence round about

The pendant World ;

Now, either to be roafted, or bath'd, in Fire, takes in the Idea of being burnt and punished; and comes up to the Term among

the

the LATINES, exurier igni. Whoever will allow SHAKESPEARE to have imitated any Paffages of the Antients, will, I believe, be of Opinion with me, that in these two Descriptions he had those fine Verfes of VIRGIL in his Eye upon this Topick: There are fuch Strokes of Similitude, as well in the Thought as the Diction, of both Poets.

VIRG. Æneid. VI. v. 736, &c.

Non tamen omne Malum miferis, nec funditùs omnes
Corporea excedunt Peftes: penitùsque necesse est
Multa diù concreta modis inolefcere miris.
Ergò exercentur pœnis, veterumque Malorum
Supplicia expendunt: alia panduntur inanes
Sufpenfæ ad Ventos; aliis fub gurgite vasto
Infectum eluitur Scelus, aut exuritur igni..

Which Paffage is thus tranflated by Mr. DRYDEN.

Nor Death it felf can wholly wash their Stains ;
But long-contracted Filth ev'n in the Soul remains.
The Reliques of invet'rate Vice they wear;
And Spots of Sin obfcene in ev'ry Face appear.
For this are various Penances injoin'd;

And Some are hung to bleach upon the Wind:
Some plung'd in Waters, Others purg'd in Fires,

Till all the Dregs are drain'd, and all the Ruft expires.

XXX. Act 1. Scene 8. Page 369.

And each particular Hair to ftand ON End,
Like Quills upon the fretful Porcupine.

Thus Mr. POPE writes this Paffage, as it ought to be; whereas
all the Editions, both old and modern, that I have seen, concurr
in reading ftand an end, &c. And yet this Passage either

feems

Occafional
Explanation.

feems to have been rectified by Chance, or fome others, where the fame Phrase recurs, have been revised with a strange Careleffnefs. For in the Second Part of Henry VI. pag. 164. we find him reading with the old Impreffions,

Mine Eyes fhould fparkle like the beaten Flint,

Mine Hair be fixt AN end, like One diftraught.

And fo in HAMLET, pag, 424.

Your bedded Hairs, like Life in Excrements,
Start up, and Stand AN end.

Whereas in both thefe Places we likewife ought to reftore it,
ON end. I cannot difmifs this laft quoted Paffage from
HAMLET, without taking Notice, that I think the Expreffion
like Life in Excrements, as much wants an Explication, as
any the most antiquated Word in our Poet wants a Glofs.
Mr.HUGHS, in his Impreffion of HAMLET, has left it out; either
because he could make nothing of it, or thought it alluded to
an Image too naufeous. The Poet's Meaning is founded on a
Phyfical Determination, that the Hair and Nails are excrementi-
tious Parts of the Body, as indeed they are, without Life or
Senfation: * And yet that Fear and furprize had fuch an Effect
upon HAMLET, that his Hairs, as if there were Life in those
Excrements, started up and stood on End: Or, as he expresses it
in his TEMPEST, pag. 13.

With Hair upftaring, then like Reeds, not Hair.

That our Poet was acquainted with this Notion in Phyfics, of the Hair being without Life, we need no ftronger Warrant, than that frequently he mentions the Hair, as an Excrement. So,

* This Doctrine, I fuppofe, is inculcated by the old Claffical Phyficians; a Point which I have not Leifure here to look into: But MACROBIUS, I know, (the greater Part of whofe Writings is from Collection;) in his Saturnalia, (lib. 7. cap. 9.) not only speaks of those Parts of the Humane Body, which have no Senfation, but likewife affigns the Reasons, why they can have Offa, Dentes, cum Unguibus & Capillis, nimia Siccitate ità denfata funt, ut penetra bilia non fint effe&tui Anime qui Senfum miniftrat. &c.

Com. of ERRORS, pag. 432.

Why is Time fuch a Niggard of Hair, being, as it is, fo plen-
tiful an Excrement?

JEW of VENICE, pag. 49.

How many Cowards, whofe Hearts are all as false

As Stairs of Sand, wear yet upon their Chins

The Beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars;

Who, inward fearch'd, have Livers white as Milk?
And Thefe affume but Valour's Excrement

To render them redoubted.

i. e. a Beard.

And in Love's LABOUR LOST, pag. 147.

For 1 muft tell thee, It will pleafe his Grace (by the World!) fome time to lean upon my poor fhoulder, and with his Royal Finger thus dally with my Excrement, with my Mustachio.

BUT befides that he fo often makes Ufe of this Term, to put the Matter out of all Difpute, he has the very Thought, which he has here in HAMLET, again in his MACBETH, and expreft in much plainer Words, pag. 592.

I have almost forgot the Taste of Fears:

The Time has been, my Senfes would have cool'd
To hear a Night-fhriek, and my Fell of Hair
Would at a difmal Treatife rowze, and stir

As Life were in't.

XXXI. Ibid.

The Ghost intimating how foully he had been murthered, con- Coniectura! jures HAMLET by his filial Love to revenge his Death. The Emendation. Prince starting at this dreadful Information, and the Ghost proceeding to remark, that any Murther, tho' ever fo favourable

I

in