Hamlet to Gertrude at 3.4.159-167, on the power of habit. And because I hear Proust in the background of everything I imagine a connection to his ‘L’habitude! aménageuse habile‘ early in Swann’s Way and similar reflections elsewhere (which is less absurd if you remember that he did give Hamlet as his sole response to the ‘heroes in fiction’ prompt in the original Proust questionnaire).
HAMLET
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
and either [in]* the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency.
The reading of what follows ‘either’ in the next to last line here is a fun point of conjecture. Q2 has nothing (‘and either the devil, or throw him out’) and Q3 has (I think) ‘and either maister the devil, or throw him out.’ Other suggestions go:
and either master ev’n the devil, or throw him out
and either master the devil, or throw him out
and either curb the devil, or throw him out
and either entertain the devil, or throw him out
and either house the devil, or throw him out
and either lodge the devil, or throw him out
and either shame the devil, or throw him out
Arden takes ‘shame’ from the proverb ‘tell truth and shame the devil’ Shakespeare uses elsewhere but I like the neater Oxford conjecture of a lost preposition – that when replaced gives a synchesis:
______A______B___________B___A
either in the devil, or throw him out
Extracts 