my
student's attention. If it be what I suggest, it is clear that Shakspere
had not at first altogether determined how he would carry the
soliloquy--what line he was going to follow in it: here hope and fear
contend for the place of motive to patience. The changes from it in the
text are well worth noting: the religion is lessened: the hope
disappears: were they too much of pearls to cast before 'barren
spectators'? The manuscript could never have been meant for any eye but
his own, seeing it was possible to print from it such a chaos--over
which yet broods the presence of the formative spirit of the Poet.

_Ham._ To be, or not to be, I there's the point,
To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:
No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,
For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,
[Sidenote: 24, 247, 260] And borne before an euerlasting Iudge,
From whence no passenger euer retur'nd,
The vndiscouered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd.
But for this, the ioyfull hope of this,
Whol'd beare the scornes and flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?
The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd,
The taste of hunger, or a tirants raigne,
And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and sweate vnder this weary life,
When that he may his full _Quietus_ make,
With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,
But for a hope of something after death?
Which pulses the braine, and doth confound the sence,
Which makes vs rather beare those euilles we haue,
Than flie to others that we know not of.
I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of vs all,
Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembred.]

[Page 126]

_Ham._ You should not haue beleeued me. For
vertue cannot so innocculate[1] our old stocke,[2] but
we shall rellish of it.[3] I loued you not.[4]

_Ophe._ I was the more deceiued.

_Ham._ Get thee to a Nunnerie. Why would'st [Sidenote: thee a]
thou be a breeder of Sinners? I am my selfe indifferent[5]
[Sidenote: 132] honest, but yet I could accuse me of
such things,[6] that it were better my Mother had
[Sidenote: 62] not borne me,[7] I am very prowd, reuengefull,
Ambitious, with more offences at my becke, then I
haue thoughts to put them in imagination, to giue
them shape, or time to acte them in. What should
such Fellowes as I do, crawling between