Are nurs'd by baseness.

Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by "baseness"
is meant "self-love" here assigned as the motive of all human
actions. Shakespeare meant only to observe, that a minute analysis of
life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination.
Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by "baseness",
by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All
the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles
and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the
quarry, and all the pomp of ornaments, dug from among the damps
and darkness of the mine.

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 16-17.)

The soft and tender fork
of a poor worm.

"Worm" is put for any creeping thing or "serpent". Shakespeare supposes
falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds
with his tongue, and that his tongue is "forked". He confounds reality
and fiction, a serpent's tongue is "soft" but not "forked" nor
hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be soft. In Midsummer-night's
Dream he has the same notion.

--With doubler tongue
Then thine, O serpent, never adder stung.

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 32-4.)