ossession of a man,
his opportunities are endless--so many seeming emendations offer
themselves which are in themselves not bad, letters and words affording
as much play as the keys of a piano. 'Being a god kissing carrion,' is
in itself good enough; but Shakspere meant what stands in both Quarto
and Folio: _the dead dog being a carrion good at kissing_. The arbitrary
changes of the editors are amazing.]

[Footnote 11: He cannot help his mind constantly turning upon women; and
if his thoughts of them are often cruelly false, it is not Hamlet but
his mother who is to blame: her conduct has hurled him from the peak of
optimism into the bottomless pool of pessimistic doubt, above the foul
waters of which he keeps struggling to lift his head.]

[Page 86]

_Ham_. Let her not walke i'th'Sunne: Conception[1]
is a blessing, but not as your daughter may [Sidenote: but as your]
conceiue. Friend looke too't.

[Sidenote: 100] _Pol_.[2] How say you by that? Still harping on
my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said [Sidenote: a sayd I]
I was a Fishmonger: he is farre gone, farre gone:
[Sidenote: Fishmonger, a is farre gone, and truly]
and truly in my youth, I suffred much extreamity and truly
for loue: very neere this. Ile speake to him
againe.

What do you read my Lord?

_Ham_. Words, words, words.

_Pol_. What is the matter, my Lord?

_Ham_. Betweene who?[3]

_Pol_. I meane the matter you meane, my
[Sidenote: matter that you reade my]
Lord.

_Ham_. Slanders Sir: for the Satyricall slaue
[Sidenote: satericall rogue sayes]
saies here, that old men haue gray Beards; that
their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thicke
Amber, or Plum-Tree Gumme: and that they haue [Sidenote: Amber, and]
a plentifull locke of Wit, together with weake
[Sidenote: lacke | with most weake]
Hammes. All which Sir, though I most powerfully,
and potently beleeue; yet I holde it not
Honestie[4] to haue it thus set downe: For you
[Sidenote: for your selfe sir shall grow old as I am:]
your selfe Sir, should be old as I am, if like a Crab
you could go backward.

_Pol_.[5] Though this be madnesse,
Yet there is Method in't: will you walke
Out of the ayre[6] my Lord?

_Ham_. Into my Graue?

_Pol_. Indeed that is out o'th'Ayre:
[Sidenot