' Hamlet calls Polonius a fish-monger. The latter
fools Hamlet by pretending that yonder cloud is in the shape of a
whale, which just before appeared to him like the back of a weasel.
Every word almost in this wonderful drama is a well-directed hit.
72: Essay III. 5.
73: _Ibid_. 13.
74: _Ibid_. 2.
75: The quarto of 1623 has only the third verse.
76: The old song has the word 'crouch.'
77: Essay III. 5, p. 460. Florio, p. 529.
78: We think it is worth while to quote the following verse Montaigne
(III. 5) mentions when speaking of that nature of woman, which
he thinks suggests to her every possible act of libidinousness:--
Nec tantum niveo gavisa est ulla columbo
Compar, vel si quid dicitur improbius,
Oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro,
Quantum praecipue multivola est mulier.
Florio translates (514):--
No Pigeons hen, or paire, or what worse name
You list, makes with hir Snow-white cock such game,
With biting bill to catch when she is kist,
As many-minded women when they list.
Is not this the character of Ophelia, as described by Shakspere--the
virgin inclining to voluptuousness in Goethe's view?
79: Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5. In _Eastward Hoe_, Marston, Chapman,
and Jonson make capital out of this word, and use it as a sneer
against Hamlet and Ophelia. We shall return to this point later on.
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