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groans: but that I love thee best, 0 most best, believe it. Adieu. 'Thine ever more, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, Hamlet.'"
Hamlet cannot wait for the body of the letter in order to "beautify" Ophelia, and Polonius emphasizes the fact by challenging this elegant phrase.Î' Apparently Polonius does not intend to read the letter aloud, but the Queen asks if it is from Hamlet. So Polonius reads at least the latter part, which would settle this question. In this, Ham-let is presenting his "groans" for pity, "suspiria," as Erasmus had directed. So also does he "declare the greatest love conjoined with the greatest desperation"; "I love thee best, 0 most best, believe it." We have already seen that the ending of the letter echoes this work of Erasmus.92 The salutation also echoes the instructions we have examined above. Hamlet has used the two battering rams, praise of the lady's beauty, and pity for the lover's groans. Other illustrations of this formula the reader will have no difficulty in finding for himself. The present illustrations are sufficient to show whence it came.
It would appear also that Fluellen's salmons had their origins in Erasmian waters.
I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the 'orid, I warrant you shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both."
Fluellen is comparing Macedon and Monmouth by their descriptions. Erasmus in De Conscribendis Epistolis directs thus for a Loci
descripti o.
If we describe any place, even as if we led a man by the hand into it, we should subject to the consideration as to one beholding from a distance the whole appearance of the place. We describe the situation as if painting. Whether in a high, or low, or steep place. In a plain, or mountain, or woody spot, or otherwise. By what river, sea, or lake it is watered or encircled .. . If there is a river or lake, how large, how rapid, of what color, whence it arises, whence it is increased, what it Rows past, what it flows into we de-scribe diligently, what bends it makes, what islands, what fields, what groves it waters, what kinds of fish, what kind of fishing, and the forms of vessels."
Erasmus mentions Pomponius Mela and similar books as sources for models and vocabulary. So since Fluellen cannot actually look at
9Î Hamlet, II, x, l o9-1-24. ' See below, p. 364. " See above, p. 273.
"Henry V, IV, 7, 24-33Ã ea Erasmus, Opera (1703), Vol. I, P. 455.
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