Page 290 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

2.2. NOTE S 183

sermon against swearing and perjury"), ed. 1850,
P-75-
414. Still on my daughter ' Still' here, as ever, means
'always.'
426-33. You are welcome etc. Ham. greets the
players as a whole first, and then addresses himself to
1 Player and the principal boy separately. All women's
parts were, of course, played by boys in Sh.'s day.
432-33. like a piece...the ring v. G. 'cracked
within the ring.'
434. French falconers The French were the master-
falconers of the age. Turbervile's Booke of Faulconrie
(1575), the best Eliz. book on the subject, was ad-
mittedly drawn from French sources, while Sir T.
Browne, writing Of Hawks and Falconry in 1684,
declares that 'the French Artists... seem to have been
the first and noblest Falconers in the Western part of
Europe,' and relates how one of his favourite authors,
Julius Scaliger, 'an expert Falconer,' saw a gerfalcon of
Henry of Navarre in one day 'strike down a Buzzard,
two wild Geese, divers Kites, a Crane and a Swan' (Sayle,
Works of Sir T. Browne, in. 297, 299). It is prob. that
Southampton, Shakespeare's patron, and the friend of
the Earl of Essex who had served with Navarre, knew
all about the exploits of this gerfalcon. Madden (p. 140)
wrongly interprets Ham.'s words as a sneer at the
French.
441. caviary (Q2) The original form of the word.
443. cried in the top of mine = exceeded mine (v. G.
'top' and 2. 2. 343).
445. with as...cunning = with as much restraint as
skill. The 'modesty' is enlarged upon in what follows.
448. honest = free from wantonness, clean.
449-50. more handsome than fine = a dignified
('handsome'), straightforward style without subtlety or
artistry.
451. JEnea? tale to Dido Critics are agreed neither