Note to Hamlet, 1.3.117-120: "These blazes . . .fire"


Return
to
Hamlet,
Act 1, Scene 3, lines 117-120
Here is the whole long sentence:
These blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire:

Here is my line-by-line paraphrase:
These passionate declarations of love, daughter,
which have more of attractive appearance than of true warmth of feeling, but are really devoid of both
—even at the very moment that the promise of true love is made—
you must not mistake for the genuine fire of true love.