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NOTES ON HAMLET

419

and cheeks (J.C. III. i. 260, Macb. III. iv. 115, Cym. II. ii. 17)? (6) Priam falling with the mere wind of Pyrrhus’s sword is paralleled, not only in Dido Queen of Carthage, but in Tr. and Cr. V. iii. 40 (Warburton). (7) With Pyrrhus standing like a painted tyrant cf. Macb. V. viii. 25 (Delius). (8) The forging of Mars’s armour occurs again in Tr. and Cr. IV. v. 255, where Hector swears by the forge that stithied Mars his helm, just as Hamlet himself alludes to Vulcan’s stithy (III. ii. 89). (9) The idea of ‘strumpet Fortune’ is common: e.g. Macb. I. ii. 15, ‘Fortune . . . show’d like a rebel’s whore.’ (10) With the ‘rant’ about her wheel Warburton compares Ant. and Cl. IV. xv. 43, where Cleopatra would

rail so high
That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel.

(11) Pyrrhus minces with his sword Priam’s limbs, and Timon (IV. iii. 122) bids Alcibiades ‘mince’ the babe ‘without remorse.’^[1]

↑ Steevens observes that Heywood uses the phrase ‘guled with slaughter,’ and I find in his Iron Age various passages indicating that he knew the speech of Aeneas (cf. p. 140 for another sign that he knew Hamlet). The two parts of the Iron Age were published in 1632, but are said, in the preface to the Second, to have ‘been long since writ.’ I refer to the pages of vol. 3 of Pearson’s Heywood (1874). (1) p. 329, Troilus ‘lyeth imbak’d In his cold blood.’ (2) p. 341, of Achilles’ armour:
Vulcan that wrought it out of gadds of Steele
With his Ciclopiam hammers, never made
Such noise upon his Anvile forging it,
Than these my arm’d fists in Ulisses wracke.

(3) p. 357, ‘till Hecub’s reverent lockes Be gul’d in slaughter.” (4) p. 357, ‘Scamander plaines Ore-spread with intrailes bak’d in blood and dust.’ (5) p. 378, ‘We’ll rost them at the scorching flames of Troy.’ (6) p. 379, ‘tragicke slaughter, clad in gules and sables’ (cf. ‘sable arms’ in the speech in Hamlet). (7) p. 384, ‘these lockes, now knotted all, As bak’t in blood.’ Of these, all but (1) and (2) are in Part II. Part I. has many passages which recall Troilus and Cressida. Mr. Fleay’s speculation as to its date will be found in his Chronicle History of the English Drama, i. p. 285.

For the same writer’s ingenious theory (which is of course incapable of proof) regarding the relation of the player’s speech in Hamlet to Marlowe and Nash’s Dido, see Furness’s Variorum Hamlet.

[1] Steevens observes that Heywood uses the phrase ‘guled with slaughter,’ and I find in his Iron Age various passages indicating that he knew the speech of Aeneas (cf. p. 140 for another sign that he knew Hamlet). The two parts of the Iron Age were published in 1632, but are said, in the preface to the Second, to have ‘been long since writ.’ I refer to the pages of vol. 3 of Pearson’s Heywood (1874). (1) p. 329, Troilus ‘lyeth imbak’d In his cold blood.’ (2) p. 341, of Achilles’ armour:
Vulcan that wrought it out of gadds of Steele
With his Ciclopiam hammers, never made
Such noise upon his Anvile forging it,
Than these my arm’d fists in Ulisses wracke.

(3) p. 357, ‘till Hecub’s reverent lockes Be gul’d in slaughter.” (4) p. 357, ‘Scamander plaines Ore-spread with intrailes bak’d in blood and dust.’ (5) p. 378, ‘We’ll rost them at the scorching flames of Troy.’ (6) p. 379, ‘tragicke slaughter, clad in gules and sables’ (cf. ‘sable arms’ in the speech in Hamlet). (7) p. 384, ‘these lockes, now knotted all, As bak’t in blood.’ Of these, all but (1) and (2) are in Part II. Part I. has many passages which recall Troilus and Cressida. Mr. Fleay’s speculation as to its date will be found in his Chronicle History of the English Drama, i. p. 285.

For the same writer’s ingenious theory (which is of course incapable of proof) regarding the relation of the player’s speech in Hamlet to Marlowe and Nash’s Dido, see Furness’s Variorum Hamlet.

[1]

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