Chapter 2

thee.' As some men are our fools, we are all Nature's fools; we are so far from knowing anything as it is.]

[Footnote 7: Even if Shakspere cared more about grammar than he does, a man in Hamlet's perturbation he might well present as making a breach in it; but we are not reduced even to justification. _Toschaken_ (_to_ as German _zu_ intensive) is a recognized English word; it means _to shake to pieces_. The construction of the passage is, 'What may this mean, that thou revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon, and that we so horridly to-shake our disposition?' So in _The Merry Wives_,

And fairy-like to-pinch the unclean knight.

'our disposition': our _cosmic structure_.]

[Footnote 8: 'with thoughts that are too much for them, and as an earthquake to them.']

[Footnote 9: Like all true souls, Hamlet wants to know what he is _to do_. He looks out for the action required of him.]

[Footnote 10: Note here Hamlet's mood--dominated by his faith. His life in this world his mother has ruined; he does not care for it a pin: he is not the less confident of a nature that is immortal. In virtue of this belief in life, he is indifferent to the form of it. When, later in the play, he seems to fear death, it is death the consequence of an action of whose rightness he is not convinced.]

[Footnote 11: _The Quarto has dropped out_ 'Lord.']

[Page 48]

Or to the dreadfull Sonnet of the Cliffe, [Sidenote: somnet] That beetles[1] o're his base into the Sea, [Sidenote: bettles] [Sidenote: 112] And there assumes some other horrible forme,[2] [Sidenote: assume] Which might depriue your Soueraignty[3] of Reason And draw you into madnesse thinke of it?

[A]

_Ham._ It wafts me still; goe on, Ile follow thee. [Sidenote: waues]

_Mar._ You shall not goe my Lord.

_Ham._ Hold off your hand. [Sidenote: hands]

_Hor._ Be rul'd, you shall not goe.

_Ham._ My fate cries out, And makes each petty Artire[4] in this body, [Sidenote: arture[4]] As hardy as the Nemian Lions nerue: Still am I cal'd? Vnhand me Gentlemen: By Heau'n, Ile make a Ghost of him that lets me: I say away, goe on, Ile follow thee.

_Exeunt Ghost & Hamlet._

_Hor._ He waxes desperate with imagination.[5] [Sidenote: imagion]

_Mar._ Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

_Hor._ Haue after, to what issue will this come?

_Mar._ Something is rotten in the State of Denmarke.

_Hor._ Heauen will direct it.

_Mar._ Nay, let's follow him. _Exeunt._

_Enter Ghost and Hamlet._

_Ham._ Where wilt thou lead me? speak; Ile go no further. [Sidenote: Whether]

_Gho._ Marke me.

_Ham._ I will.

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

The very place puts toyes of desperation Without more motiue, into euery braine That lookes so many fadoms to the sea And heares it rore beneath.]

[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'beckles'--perhaps for _buckles--bends_.]

[Footnote 2: Note the unbelief in the Ghost.]

[Footnote 3: sovereignty--_soul_: so in _Romeo and Juliet_, act v. sc. 1, l. 3:--

My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.]

[Footnote 4: The word _artery_, invariably substituted by the editors, is without authority. In the first Quarto, the word is _Artiue_; in the second (see margin) _arture_. This latter I take to be the right one--corrupted into _Artire_ in the Folio. It seems to have troubled the printers, and possibly the editors. The third Q. has followed the second; the fourth has _artyre_; the fifth Q. and the fourth F. have _attire_; the second and third Folios follow the first. Not until the sixth Q. does _artery_ appear. See _Cambridge Shakespeare. Arture_ was to all concerned, and to the language itself, a new word. That _artery_ was not Shakspere's intention might be concluded from its unfitness: what propriety could there be in _making an artery hardy_? The sole, imperfect justification I was able to think of for such use of the word arose from the fact that, before the discovery of the circulation of the blood (published in 1628), it was believed that the arteries (found empty after death) served for the movements of the animal spirits: this might vaguely _associate_ the arteries with _courage_. But the sight of the word _arture_ in the second Quarto at once relieved me.

I do not know if a list has ever been gathered of the words _made_ by Shakspere: here is one of them--_arture_, from the same root as _artus, a joint--arcere, to hold together_, adjective _arctus, tight. Arture_, then, stands for _juncture_. This perfectly fits. In terror the weakest parts are the joints, for their _artures_ are not _hardy_. 'And you, my sinews, ... bear me stiffly up.' 55, 56.

Since writing as above, a friend informs me that _arture_ is the exact equivalent of the [Greek: haphae] of Colossians ii. 19, as interpreted by Bishop Lightfoot--'the relation between contiguous limbs, not the parts of the limbs themselves in the neighbourhood of contact,'--for which relation 'there is no word in our language in common use.']

[Footnote 5: 'with the things he imagines.']

[Page 50]

_Gho._ My hower is almost come,[1] When I to sulphurous and tormenting Flames Must render vp my selfe.

_Ham._ Alas poore Ghost.

_Gho._ Pitty me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall vnfold.

_Ham._ Speake, I am bound to heare.

_Gho._ So art thou to reuenge, when thou shalt heare.

_Ham._ What?

_Gho._ I am thy Fathers Spirit, Doom'd for a certaine terme to walke the night;[2] And for the day confin'd to fast in Fiers,[3] Till the foule crimes done in my dayes of Nature Are burnt and purg'd away? But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my Prison-House; I could a Tale vnfold, whose lightest word[4] Would harrow vp thy soule, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like Starres, start from their Spheres, Thy knotty and combined locks to part, [Sidenote: knotted] And each particular haire to stand an end,[5] Like Quilles vpon the fretfull[6] Porpentine [Sidenote: fearefull[6]] But this eternall blason[7] must not be To eares of flesh and bloud; list _Hamlet_, oh list, [Sidenote: blood, list, ô list;] If thou didst euer thy deare Father loue.

_Ham._ Oh Heauen![8] [Sidenote: God]

_Gho._ Reuenge his foule and most vnnaturall Murther.[9]

_Ham._ Murther?

_Ghost._ Murther most foule, as in the best it is; But this most foule, strange, and vnnaturall.

_Ham._ Hast, hast me to know it, [Sidenote: Hast me to know't,] That with wings as swift

[Footnote 1: The night is the Ghost's day.]

[Footnote 2: To walk the night, and see how things go, without being able to put a finger to them, is part of his cleansing.]

[Footnote 3: More horror yet for Hamlet.]

[Footnote 4: He would have him think of life and its doings as of awful import. He gives his son what warning he may.]

[Footnote 5: _An end_ is like _agape, an hungred_. 71, 175.]

[Footnote 6: The word in the Q. suggests _fretfull_ a misprint for _frightful_. It is _fretfull_ in the 1st Q. as well.]

[Footnote 7: To _blason_ is to read off in proper heraldic terms the arms blasoned upon a shield. _A blason_ is such a reading, but is here used for a picture in words of other objects.]

[Footnote 8: --in appeal to God whether he had not loved his father.]

[Footnote 9: The horror still accumulates. The knowledge of evil--not evil in the abstract, but evil alive, and all about him--comes darkening down upon Hamlet's being. Not only is his father an inhabitant of the nether fires, but he is there by murder.]

[Page 52]

As meditation, or the thoughts of Loue, May sweepe to my Reuenge.[1]

_Ghost._ I finde thee apt, And duller should'st thou be then the fat weede[2] [Sidenote: 194] That rots it selfe in ease, on Lethe Wharfe,[4] [Sidenote: rootes[3]] Would'st thou not stirre in this. Now _Hamlet_ heare: It's giuen out, that sleeping in mine Orchard, [Sidenote: 'Tis] A Serpent stung me: so the whole eare of Denmarke, Is by a forged processe of my death Rankly abus'd: But know thou Noble youth, The Serpent that did sting thy Fathers life, Now weares his Crowne.

[Sidenote: 30,32] _Ham._ O my Propheticke soule: mine Vncle?[5] [Sidenote: my]

_Ghost._ I that incestuous, that adulterate Beast[6] With witchcraft of his wits, hath Traitorous guifts. [Sidenote: wits, with] Oh wicked Wit, and Gifts, that haue the power So to seduce? Won to to this shamefull Lust [Sidenote: wonne to his] The will of my most seeming vertuous Queene: Oh _Hamlet_, what a falling off was there, [Sidenote: what failing] From me, whose loue was of that dignity, That it went hand in hand, euen with[7] the Vow I made to her in Marriage; and to decline Vpon a wretch, whose Naturall gifts were poore To those of mine. But Vertue, as it neuer wil be moued, Though Lewdnesse court it in a shape of Heauen: So Lust, though to a radiant Angell link'd, [Sidenote: so but though] Will sate it selfe in[8] a Celestiall bed, and prey on Garbage.[9] [Sidenote: Will sort it selfe] But soft, me thinkes I sent the Mornings Ayre; [Sidenote: morning ayre,] Briefe let me be: Sleeping within mine Orchard, [Sidenote: my] My custome alwayes in the afternoone; [Sidenote: of the] Vpon my secure hower thy Vncle stole

[Footnote 1: Now, _for the moment_, he has no doubt, and vengeance is his first thought.]

[Footnote 2: Hamlet may be supposed to recall this, if we suppose him afterwards to accuse himself so bitterly and so unfairly as in the _Quarto_, 194.]

[Footnote 3: Also _1st Q_.]

[Footnote 4: landing-place on the bank of Lethe, the hell-river of oblivion.]

[Footnote 5: This does not mean that he had suspected his uncle, but that his dislike to him was prophetic.]

[Footnote 6: How can it be doubted that in this speech the Ghost accuses his wife and brother of adultery? Their marriage was not adultery. See how the ghastly revelation grows on Hamlet--his father in hell--murdered by his brother--dishonoured by his wife!]

[Footnote 7: _parallel with; correspondent to_.]

[Footnote 8: _1st Q_. 'fate itself from a'.]

[Footnote 9: This passage, from 'Oh _Hamlet_,' most indubitably asserts the adultery of Gertrude.]

[Page 54]

With iuyce of cursed Hebenon[1] in a Violl, [Sidenote: Hebona] And in the Porches of mine eares did poure [Sidenote: my] The leaperous Distilment;[2] whose effect Holds such an enmity with bloud of Man, That swift as Quick-siluer, it courses[3] through The naturall Gates and Allies of the Body; And with a sodaine vigour it doth posset [Sidenote: doth possesse] And curd, like Aygre droppings into Milke, [Sidenote: eager[4]] The thin and wholsome blood: so did it mine; And a most instant Tetter bak'd about, [Sidenote: barckt about[5]] Most Lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All my smooth Body. Thus was I, sleeping, by a Brothers hand, Of Life, of Crowne, and Queene at once dispatcht; [Sidenote: of Queene] [Sidenote: 164] Cut off euen in the Blossomes of my Sinne, Vnhouzzled, disappointed, vnnaneld,[6] [Sidenote: Vnhuzled, | vnanueld,] [Sidenote: 262] No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head; Oh horrible, Oh horrible, most horrible: If thou hast nature in thee beare it not; Let not the Royall Bed of Denmarke be A Couch for Luxury and damned Incest.[7] But howsoeuer thou pursuest this Act, [Sidenote: howsomeuer thou pursues] [Sidenote: 30,174] Taint not thy mind; nor let thy Soule contriue [Sidenote: 140] Against thy Mother ought; leaue her to heauen, And to those Thornes that in her bosome lodge, To pricke and sting her. Fare thee well at once; The Glow-worme showes the Matine to be neere, And gins to pale his vneffectuall Fire: Adue, adue, _Hamlet_: remember me. _Exit_. [Sidenote: Adiew, adiew, adiew, remember me.[8]]

_Ham._ Oh all you host of Heauen! Oh Earth: what els? And shall I couple Hell?[9] Oh fie[10]: hold my heart; [Sidenote: hold, hold my] And you my sinnewes, grow not instant Old;

[Footnote 1: Ebony.]

[Footnote 2: _producing leprosy_--as described in result below.]

[Footnote 3: _1st Q_. 'posteth'.]

[Footnote 4: So also _1st Q_.]

[Footnote 5: This _barckt_--meaning _cased as a bark cases its tree_--is used in _1st Q_. also: 'And all my smoothe body, barked, and tetterd ouer.' The word is so used in Scotland still.]

[Footnote 6: _Husel (Anglo-Saxon)_ is _an offering, the sacrament. Disappointed, not appointed_: Dr. Johnson. _Unaneled, unoiled, without the extreme unction_.]

[Footnote 7: It is on public grounds, as a king and a Dane, rather than as a husband and a murdered man, that he urges on his son the execution of justice. Note the tenderness towards his wife that follows--more marked, 174; here it is mingled with predominating regard to his son to whose filial nature he dreads injury.]

[Footnote 8: _Q_. omits _Exit_.]

[Footnote 9: He must: his father is there!]

[Footnote 10: The interjection is addressed to _heart_ and _sinews_, which forget their duty.]

[Page 56]

But beare me stiffely vp: Remember thee?[1] [Sidenote: swiftly vp] I, thou poore Ghost, while memory holds a seate [Sidenote: whiles] In this distracted Globe[2]: Remember thee? Yea, from the Table of my Memory,[3] Ile wipe away all triuiall fond Records, All sawes[4] of Bookes, all formes, all presures past, That youth and obseruation coppied there; And thy Commandment all alone shall liue Within the Booke and Volume of my Braine, Vnmixt with baser matter; yes, yes, by Heauen: [Sidenote: matter, yes by] [Sidenote: 168] Oh most pernicious woman![5] Oh Villaine, Villaine, smiling damned Villaine! My Tables, my Tables; meet it is I set it downe,[6] [Sidenote: My tables, meet] That one may smile, and smile and be a Villaine; At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmarke; [Sidenote: I am] So Vnckle there you are: now to my word;[7] It is; Adue, Adue, Remember me:[8] I haue sworn't. [Sidenote: _Enter Horatio, and Marcellus_]

_Hor. and Mar. within_. My Lord, my Lord. [Sidenote: _Hora._ My]

_Enter Horatio and Marcellus._

_Mar_. Lord _Hamlet_.

_Hor_. Heauen secure him. [Sidenote: Heauens]

_Mar_. So be it.

_Hor_. Illo, ho, ho, my Lord.

_Ham_. Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come bird, come.[9] [Sidenote: boy come, and come.]

_Mar_. How ist't my Noble Lord?

_Hor_. What newes, my Lord?

_Ham_. Oh wonderfull![10]

_Hor_. Good my Lord tell it.

_Ham_. No you'l reueale it. [Sidenote: you will]

_Hor_. Not I, my Lord, by Heauen.

_Mar_. Nor I, my Lord.

_Ham_. How say you then, would heart of man once think it? But you'l be secret?

[Footnote 1: For the moment he has no doubt that he has seen and spoken with the ghost of his father.]

[Footnote 2: his head.]

[Footnote 3: The whole speech is that of a student, accustomed to books, to take notes, and to fix things in his memory. 'Table,' _tablet_.]

[Footnote 4: _wise sayings_.]

[Footnote 5: The Ghost has revealed her adultery: Hamlet suspects her of complicity in the murder, 168.]

[Footnote 6: It may well seem odd that Hamlet should be represented as, at such a moment, making a note in his tablets; but without further allusion to the student-habit, I would remark that, in cases where strongest passion is roused, the intellect has yet sometimes an automatic trick of working independently. For instance from Shakspere, see Constance in _King John_--how, in her agony over the loss of her son, both her fancy, playing with words, and her imagination, playing with forms, are busy.

Note the glimpse of Hamlet's character here given: he had been something of an optimist; at least had known villainy only from books; at thirty years of age it is to him a discovery that a man may smile and be a villain! Then think of the shock of such discoveries as are here forced upon him! Villainy is no longer a mere idea, but a fact! and of all villainous deeds those of his own mother and uncle are the worst! But note also his honesty, his justice to humanity, his philosophic temperament, in the qualification he sets to the memorandum, '--at least in Denmark!']

[Footnote 7: 'my word,'--the word he has to keep in mind; his cue.]

[Footnote 8: Should not the actor here make a pause, with hand uplifted, as taking a solemn though silent oath?]

[Footnote 9: --as if calling to a hawk.]

[Footnote 10: Here comes the test of the actor's _possible_: here Hamlet himself begins to act, and will at once assume a _rôle_, ere yet he well knows what it must be. One thing only is clear to him--that the communication of the Ghost is not a thing to be shared--that he must keep it with all his power of secrecy: the honour both of father and of mother is at stake. In order to do so, he must begin by putting on himself a cloak of darkness, and hiding his feelings--first of all the present agitation which threatens to overpower him. His immediate impulse or instinctive motion is to force an air, and throw a veil of grimmest humour over the occurrence. The agitation of the horror at his heart, ever working and constantly repressed, shows through the veil, and gives an excited uncertainty to his words, and a wild vacillation to his manner and behaviour.]

[Page 58]

_Both_. I, by Heau'n, my Lord.[1]

_Ham_. There's nere a villaine dwelling in all Denmarke But hee's an arrant knaue.

_Hor_. There needs no Ghost my Lord, come from the Graue, to tell vs this.

_Ham_. Why right, you are i'th'right; [Sidenote: in the] And so, without more circumstance at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands, and part: You, as your busines and desires shall point you: [Sidenote: desire] For euery man ha's businesse and desire,[2] [Sidenote: hath] Such as it is: and for mine owne poore part, [Sidenote: my] Looke you, Ile goe pray.[4] [Sidenote: I will goe pray.[3]]

_Hor_. These are but wild and hurling words, my Lord. [Sidenote: whurling[5]]

_Ham_. I'm sorry they offend you heartily: [Sidenote: I am] Yes faith, heartily.

_Hor_. There's no offence my Lord.

_Ham_. Yes, by Saint _Patricke_, but there is my Lord,[6] [Sidenote: there is _Horatio_] And much offence too, touching this Vision heere;[7] [Sidenote: 136] It is an honest Ghost, that let me tell you:[8] For your desire to know what is betweene vs, O'remaster't as you may. And now good friends, As you are Friends, Schollers and Soldiers, Giue me one poore request.

_Hor_. What is't my Lord? we will.

_Ham_. Neuer make known what you haue seen to night.[9]

_Both_. My Lord, we will not.

_Ham_. Nay, but swear't.

_Hor_. Infaith my Lord, not I.[10]

_Mar_. Nor I my Lord: in faith.

_Ham_. Vpon my sword.[11]

[Footnote 1: _Q. has not_ 'my Lord.']

[Footnote 2: Here shows the philosopher.]

[Footnote 3: _Q. has not_ 'Looke you.']

[Footnote 4: '--nothing else is left me.' This seems to me one of the finest touches in the revelation of Hamlet.]

[Footnote 5: _1st Q_. 'wherling'.]

[Footnote 6: I take the change from the _Quarto_ here to be no blunder.]

[Footnote 7: _Point thus_: 'too!--Touching.']

[Footnote 8: The struggle to command himself is plain throughout.]

[Footnote 9: He could not endure the thought of the resulting gossip;--which besides would interfere with, possibly frustrate, the carrying out of his part.]

[Footnote 10: This is not a refusal to swear; it is the oath itself: '_In faith I will not_!']

[Footnote 11: He would have them swear on the cross-hilt of his sword.]

[Page 60]

_Marcell._ We haue sworne my Lord already.[1]

_Ham._ Indeed, vpon my sword, Indeed.

_Gho._ Sweare.[2] _Ghost cries vnder the Stage._[3]

_Ham._ Ah ha boy, sayest thou so. Art thou [Sidenote: Ha, ha,] there truepenny?[4] Come one you here this fellow [Sidenote: Come on, you heare] in the selleredge Consent to sweare.

_Hor._ Propose the Oath my Lord.[5]

_Ham._ Neuer to speake of this that you haue seene. Sweare by my sword.

_Gho._ Sweare.

_Ham. Hic & vbique_? Then wee'l shift for grownd, [Sidenote: shift our] Come hither Gentlemen, And lay your hands againe vpon my sword, Neuer to speake of this that you haue heard:[6] Sweare by my Sword.

_Gho._ Sweare.[7] [Sidenote: Sweare by his sword.]

_Ham._ Well said old Mole, can'st worke i'th' ground so fast? [Sidenote: it'h' earth] A worthy Pioner, once more remoue good friends.

_Hor._ Oh day and night: but this is wondrous strange.

_Ham._ And therefore as a stranger giue it welcome. There are more things in Heauen and Earth, _Horatio_, Then are dream't of in our Philosophy But come, [Sidenote: in your] Here as before, neuer so helpe you mercy, How strange or odde so ere I beare my selfe; [Sidenote: How | so mere] (As I perchance heereafter shall thinke meet [Sidenote: As] [Sidenote: 136, 156, 178] To put an Anticke disposition on:)[8] [Sidenote: on] That you at such time seeing me, neuer shall [Sidenote: times] With Armes encombred thus, or thus, head shake; [Sidenote: or this head]

[Footnote 1: He feels his honour touched.]

[Footnote 2: The Ghost's interference heightens Hamlet's agitation. If he does not talk, laugh, jest, it will overcome him. Also he must not show that he believes it his father's ghost: that must be kept to himself--for the present at least. He shows it therefore no respect--treats the whole thing humorously, so avoiding, or at least parrying question. It is all he can do to keep the mastery of himself, dodging horror with half-forced, half-hysterical laughter. Yet is he all the time intellectually on the alert. See how, instantly active, he makes use of the voice from beneath to enforce his requisition of silence. Very speedily too he grows quiet: a glimmer of light as to the course of action necessary to him has begun to break upon him: it breaks from his own wild and disjointed behaviour in the attempt to hide the conflict of his feelings--which suggests to him the idea of shrouding himself, as did David at the court of the Philistines, in the cloak of madness: thereby protected from the full force of what suspicion any absorption of manner or outburst of feeling must occasion, he may win time to lay his plans. Note how, in the midst of his horror, he is yet able to think, plan, resolve.]

[Footnote 3: _1st Q. 'The Gost under the stage.'_]

[Footnote 4: While Hamlet seems to take it so coolly, the others have fled in terror from the spot. He goes to them. Their fear must be what, on the two occasions after, makes him shift to another place when the Ghost speaks.]

[Footnote 5: Now at once he consents.]

[Footnote 6: In the _Quarto_ this and the next line are transposed.]

[Footnote 7: What idea is involved as the cause of the Ghost's thus interfering?--That he too sees what difficulties must encompass the carrying out of his behest, and what absolute secrecy is thereto essential.]

[Footnote 8: This idea, hardly yet a resolve, he afterwards carries out so well, that he deceives not only king and queen and court, but the most of his critics ever since: to this day they believe him mad. Such must have studied in the play a phantom of their own misconception, and can never have seen the Hamlet of Shakspere. Thus prejudiced, they mistake also the effects of moral and spiritual perturbation and misery for further sign of intellectual disorder--even for proof of moral weakness, placing them in the same category with the symptoms of the insanity which he simulates, and by which they are deluded.]

[Page 62]

Or by pronouncing of some doubtfull Phrase; As well, we know, or we could and if we would, [Sidenote: As well, well, we] Or if we list to speake; or there be and if there might, [Sidenote: if they might] Or such ambiguous giuing out to note, [Sidenote: note] That you know ought of me; this not to doe: [Sidenote: me, this doe sweare,] So grace and mercy at your most neede helpe you: Sweare.[1]

_Ghost_. Sweare.[2]

_Ham_. Rest, rest perturbed Spirit[3]: so Gentlemen, With all my loue I doe commend me to you; And what so poore a man as _Hamlet_ is, May doe t'expresse his loue and friending to you, God willing shall not lacke: let vs goe in together, And still your fingers on your lippes I pray, The time is out of ioynt: Oh cursed spight,[4] [Sidenote: 126] That euer I was borne to set it right. Nay, come let's goe together. _Exeunt._[5]

* * * * *

SUMMARY OF ACT I.

This much of Hamlet we have now learned: he is a thoughtful man, a genuine student, little acquainted with the world save through books, and a lover of his kind. His university life at Wittenberg is suddenly interrupted by a call to the funeral of his father, whom he dearly loves and honours. Ere he reaches Denmark, his uncle Claudius has contrived, in an election (202, 250, 272) probably hastened and secretly influenced, to gain the voice of the representatives at least of the people, and ascend the throne. Hence his position must have been an irksome one from the first; but, within a month of his father's death, his mother's marriage with his uncle--a relation universally regarded as incestuous--plunges him in the deepest misery. The play introduces him at the first court held after the wedding. He is attired in the mourning of his father's funeral, which he had not laid aside for the wedding. His aspect is of absolute dejection, and he appears in a company for which he is so unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave the court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.[A] Left to himself, he breaks out in agonized and indignant lamentation over his mother's conduct, dwelling mainly on her disregard of his father's memory. Her conduct and his partial discovery of her character, is the sole cause of his misery. In such his mood, Horatio, a fellow-student, brings him word that his father's spirit walks at night. He watches for the Ghost, and receives from him a frightful report of his present condition, into which, he tells him, he was cast by the murderous hand of his brother, with whom his wife had been guilty of adultery. He enjoins him to put a stop to the crime in which they are now living, by taking vengeance on his uncle. Uncertain at the moment how to act, and dreading the consequences of rousing suspicion by the perturbation which he could not but betray, he grasps at the sudden idea of affecting madness. We have learned also Hamlet's relation to Ophelia, the daughter of the selfish, prating, busy Polonius, who, with his son Laertes, is destined to work out the earthly fate of Hamlet. Of Laertes, as yet, we only know that he prates like his father, is self-confident, and was educated at Paris, whither he has returned. Of Ophelia we know nothing but that she is gentle, and that she is fond of Hamlet, whose attentions she has encouraged, but with whom, upon her father's severe remonstrance, she is ready, outwardly at least, to break.

[Footnote A: Roger Ascham, in his _Scholemaster_, if I mistake not, sets the age, up to which a man should be under tutors, at twenty-nine.]

[Footnote 1: 'Sweare' _not in Quarto_.]

[Footnote 2: They do not this time shift their ground, but swear--in dumb show.]

[Footnote 3: --for now they had obeyed his command and sworn secrecy.]

[Footnote 4: 'cursed spight'--not merely that he had been born to do hangman's work, but that he should have been born at all--of a mother whose crime against his father had brought upon him the wretched necessity which must proclaim her ignominy. Let the student do his best to realize the condition of Hamlet's heart and mind in relation to his mother.]

[Footnote: 5 This first act occupies part of a night, a day, and part of the next night.]

[Page 64]

ACTUS SECUNDUS.[1]

_Enter Polonius, and Reynoldo._ [Sidenote: _Enter old Polonius, with his man, or two._]

_Polon._ Giue him his money, and these notes _Reynoldo_.[2] [Sidenote: this money]

_Reynol._ I will my Lord.

_Polon._ You shall doe maruels wisely: good _Reynoldo_, [Sidenote: meruiles] Before you visite him you make inquiry [Sidenote: him, to make inquire] Of his behauiour.[3]

_Reynol._ My Lord, I did intend it.

_Polon._ Marry, well said; Very well said. Looke you Sir, Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; And how, and who; what meanes; and where they keepe: What company, at what expence: and finding By this encompassement and drift of question, That they doe know my sonne: Come you more neerer[4] Then your particular demands will touch it, Take you as 'twere some distant knowledge of him, And thus I know his father and his friends, [Sidenote: As thus] And in part him. Doe you marke this _Reynoldo_?

_Reynol._ I, very well my Lord.

_Polon._ And in part him, but you may say not well; But if't be hee I meane, hees very wilde; Addicted so and so; and there put on him What forgeries you please: marry, none so ranke, As may dishonour him; take heed of that: But Sir, such wanton, wild, and vsuall slips, As are Companions noted and most knowne To youth and liberty.

[Footnote 1: _Not in Quarto._

Between this act and the former, sufficient time has passed to allow the ambassadors to go to Norway and return: 74. See 138, and what Hamlet says of the time since his father's death, 24, by which together the interval _seems_ indicated as about two months, though surely so much time was not necessary.

Cause and effect _must_ be truly presented; time and space are mere accidents, and of small consequence in the drama, whose very idea is compression for the sake of presentation. All that is necessary in regard to time is, that, either by the act-pause, or the intervention of a fresh scene, the passing of it should be indicated.

This second act occupies the forenoon of one day.]

[Footnote 2: _1st Q._

_Montano_, here, these letters to my sonne, And this same mony with my blessing to him, And bid him ply his learning good _Montano_.]

[Footnote 3: The father has no confidence in the son, and rightly, for both are unworthy: he turns on him the cunning of the courtier, and sends a spy on his behaviour. The looseness of his own principles comes out very clear in his anxieties about his son; and, having learned the ideas of the father as to what becomes a gentleman, we are not surprised to find the son such as he afterwards shows himself. Till the end approaches, we hear no more of Laertes, nor is more necessary; but without this scene we should have been unprepared for his vileness.]

[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'son, come you more nearer; then &c.' The _then_ here does not stand for _than_, and to change it to _than_ makes at once a contradiction. The sense is: 'Having put your general questions first, and been answered to your purpose, then your particular demands will come in, and be of service; they will reach to the point--_will touch it_.' The _it_ is impersonal. After it should come a period.]

[Page 66]

_Reynol._ As gaming my Lord.

_Polon._ I, or drinking, fencing, swearing, Quarelling, drabbing. You may goe so farre.

_Reynol._ My Lord that would dishonour him.

_Polon._ Faith no, as you may season it in the charge;[1] [Sidenote: Fayth as you] You must not put another scandall on him, That hee is open to Incontinencie;[2] That's not my meaning: but breath his faults so quaintly, That they may seeme the taints of liberty; The flash and out-breake of a fiery minde, A sauagenes in vnreclaim'd[3] bloud of generall assault.[4]

_Reynol._ But my good Lord.[5]

_Polon._ Wherefore should you doe this?[6]

_Reynol._ I my Lord, I would know that.

_Polon._ Marry Sir, heere's my drift, And I belieue it is a fetch of warrant:[7] [Sidenote: of wit,] You laying these slight sulleyes[8] on my Sonne, [Sidenote: sallies[8]] As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'th'working: [Sidenote: soiled with working,] Marke you your party in conuerse; him you would sound, Hauing euer seene. In the prenominate crimes, [Sidenote: seene in the] The youth you breath of guilty, be assur'd He closes with you in this consequence: Good sir, or so, or friend, or Gentleman. According to the Phrase and the Addition,[9] [Sidenote: phrase or the] Of man and Country.

_Reynol._ Very good my Lord.

_Polon._ And then Sir does he this? [Sidenote: doos a this a doos, what was _I_] He does: what was I about to say? I was about to say somthing: where did I leaue? [Sidenote: By the masse I was]

_Reynol._ At closes in the consequence: At friend, or so, and Gentleman.[10]

[Footnote 1: _1st Q._

I faith not a whit, no not a whit,

As you may bridle it not disparage him a iote.]

[Footnote 2: This may well seem prating inconsistency, but I suppose means that he must not be represented as without moderation in his wickedness.]

[Footnote 3: _Untamed_, as a hawk.]

[Footnote 4: The lines are properly arranged in _Q_.

A sauagenes in vnreclamed blood, Of generall assault.

--that is, 'which assails all.']

[Footnote 5: Here a hesitating pause.]

[Footnote 6: --with the expression of, 'Is that what you would say?']

[Footnote 7: 'a fetch with warrant for it'--a justifiable trick.]

[Footnote 8: Compare _sallied_, 25, both Quartos; _sallets_ 67, 103; and see _soil'd_, next line.]

[Footnote 9: 'Addition,' epithet of courtesy in address.]

[Footnote 10: _Q_. has not this line]

[Page 68]

_Polon._ At closes in the consequence, I marry, He closes with you thus. I know the Gentleman, [Sidenote: He closes thus,] I saw him yesterday, or tother day; [Sidenote: th'other] Or then or then, with such and such; and as you say, [Sidenote: or such,] [Sidenote: 25] There was he gaming, there o'retooke in's Rouse, [Sidenote: was a gaming there, or tooke] There falling out at Tennis; or perchance, I saw him enter such a house of saile; [Sidenote: sale,] _Videlicet_, a Brothell, or so forth. See you now; Your bait of falshood, takes this Cape of truth; [Sidenote: take this carpe] And thus doe we of wisedome and of reach[1] With windlesses,[2] and with assaies of Bias, By indirections finde directions out: So by my former Lecture and aduice Shall you my Sonne; you haue me, haue you not?

_Reynol._ My Lord I haue.

_Polon._ God buy you; fare you well, [Sidenote: ye | ye]

_Reynol._ Good my Lord.

_Polon._ Obserue his inclination in your selfe.[3]

_Reynol._ I shall my Lord.

_Polon._ And let him[4] plye his Musicke.

_Reynol._ Well, my Lord. _Exit_.

_Enter Ophelia_.

_Polon_. Farewell: How now _Ophelia_, what's the matter?

_Ophe_. Alas my Lord, I haue beene so affrighted. [Sidenote: O my Lord, my Lord,]

_Polon_. With what, in the name of Heauen? [Sidenote: i'th name of God?]

_Ophe_. My Lord, as I was sowing in my Chamber, [Sidenote: closset,] Lord _Hamlet_ with his doublet all vnbrac'd,[5] No hat vpon his head, his stockings foul'd, Vngartred, and downe giued[6] to his Anckle, Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, And with a looke so pitious in purport, As if he had been loosed out of hell,

[Footnote 1: of far reaching mind.]

[Footnote 2: The word windlaces is explained in the dictionaries as _shifts, subtleties_--but apparently on the sole authority of this passage. There must be a figure in _windlesses_, as well as in _assaies of Bias_, which is a phrase plain enough to bowlers: the trying of other directions than that of the _jack_, in the endeavour to come at one with the law of the bowl's bias. I find _wanlass_ a term in hunting: it had to do with driving game to a given point--whether in part by getting to windward of it, I cannot tell. The word may come of the verb wind, from its meaning '_to manage by shifts or expedients_': _Barclay_. As he has spoken of fishing, could the _windlesses_ refer to any little instrument such as now used upon a fishing-rod? I do not think it. And how do the words _windlesses_ and _indirections_ come together? Was a windless some contrivance for determining how the wind blew? I bethink me that a thin withered straw is in Scotland called a _windlestrae_: perhaps such straws were thrown up to find out 'by indirection' the direction of the wind.

The press-reader sends me two valuable quotations, through Latham's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, from Dr. H. Hammond (1605-1660), in which _windlass_ is used as a verb:--

'A skilful woodsman, by windlassing, presently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compass, and thereby a commodious stand, he could never have obtained.'

'She is not so much at leasure as to windlace, or use craft, to satisfy them.'

To _windlace_ seems then to mean 'to steal along to leeward;' would it be absurd to suggest that, so-doing, the hunter _laces the wind_? Shakspere, with many another, I fancy, speaks of _threading the night_ or _the darkness_.

Johnson explains the word in the text as 'A handle by which anything is turned.']

[Footnote 3: 'in your selfe.' may mean either 'through the insight afforded by your own feelings'; or 'in respect of yourself,' 'toward yourself.' I do not know which is intended.]

[Footnote 4: 1st Q. 'And bid him'.]

[Footnote 5: loose; _undone_.]

[Footnote 6: His stockings, slipped down in wrinkles round his ankles, suggested the rings of _gyves_ or fetters. The verb _gyve_, of which the passive participle is here used, is rarer.]

[Page 70]

To speake of horrors: he comes before me.

_Polon._ Mad for thy Loue?

_Ophe._ My Lord, I doe not know: but truly I do feare it.[1]

_Polon._ What said he?

_Ophe._[2] He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard; Then goes he to the length of all his arme; And with his other hand thus o're his brow, He fals to such perusall of my face, As he would draw it. Long staid he so, [Sidenote: As a] At last, a little shaking of mine Arme: And thrice his head thus wauing vp and downe; He rais'd a sigh, so pittious and profound, That it did seeme to shatter all his bulke, [Sidenote: As it] And end his being. That done, he lets me goe, And with his head ouer his shoulders turn'd, [Sidenote: shoulder] He seem'd to finde his way without his eyes, For out adores[3] he went without their helpe; [Sidenote: helps,] And to the last, bended their light on me.

_Polon._ Goe with me, I will goe seeke the King, [Sidenote: Come, goe] This is the very extasie of Loue, Whose violent property foredoes[4] it selfe, And leads the will to desperate Vndertakings, As oft as any passion vnder Heauen, [Sidenote: passions] That does afflict our Natures. I am sorrie, What haue you giuen him any hard words of late?

_Ophe_. No my good Lord: but as you did command, [Sidenote: 42, 82] I did repell his Letters, and deny'de His accesse to me.[5]

_Pol_. That hath made him mad. I am sorrie that with better speed and Judgement [Sidenote: better heede] [Sidenote: 83] I had not quoted[6] him. I feare he did but trifle, [Sidenote: coted[6] | fear'd] And meant to wracke thee: but beshrew my iealousie:

[Footnote 1: She would be glad her father should think so.]

[Footnote 2: The detailed description of Hamlet and his behaviour that follows, must be introduced in order that the side mirror of narrative may aid the front mirror of drama, and between them be given a true notion of his condition both mental and bodily. Although weeks have passed since his interview with the Ghost, he is still haunted with the memory of it, still broods over its horrible revelation. That he had, probably soon, begun to feel far from certain of the truth of the apparition, could not make the thoughts and questions it had awaked, cease tormenting his whole being. The stifling smoke of his mother's conduct had in his mind burst into loathsome flame, and through her he has all but lost his faith in humanity. To know his uncle a villain, was to know his uncle a villain; to know his mother false, was to doubt women, doubt the whole world.

In the meantime Ophelia, in obedience to her father, and evidently without reason assigned, has broken off communication with him: he reads her behaviour by the lurid light of his mother's. She too is false! she too is heartless! he can look to her for no help! She has turned against him to curry favour with his mother and his uncle!

Can she be such as his mother! Why should she not be? His mother had seemed as good! He would give his life to know her honest and pure. Might he but believe her what he had believed her, he would yet have a hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest! If he could but know the truth! Alone with her once more but for a moment, he would read her very soul by the might of his! He must see her! He would see her! In the agony of a doubt upon which seemed to hang the bliss or bale of his being, yet not altogether unintimidated by a sense of his intrusion, he walks into the house of Polonius, and into the chamber of Ophelia.

Ever since the night of the apparition, the court, from the behaviour assumed by Hamlet, has believed his mind affected; and when he enters her room, Ophelia, though such is the insight of love that she is able to read in the face of the son the father's purgatorial sufferings, the picture of one 'loosed out of hell, to speak of horrors,' attributes all the strangeness of his appearance and demeanour, such as she describes them to her father, to that supposed fact. But there is, in truth, as little of affected as of actual madness in his behaviour in her presence. When he comes before her pale and trembling, speechless and with staring eyes, it is with no simulated insanity, but in the agonized hope, scarce distinguishable from despair, of finding, in the testimony of her visible presence, an assurance that the doubts ever tearing his spirit and sickening his brain, are but the offspring of his phantasy. There she sits!--and there he stands, vainly endeavouring through her eyes to read her soul! for, alas,

there's no art To find the mind's construction in the face!

--until at length, finding himself utterly baffled, but unable, save by the removal of his person, to take his eyes from her face, he retires speechless as he came. Such is the man whom we are now to see wandering about the halls and corridors of the great castle-palace.

He may by this time have begun to doubt even the reality of the sight he had seen. The moment the pressure of a marvellous presence is removed, it is in the nature of man the same moment to begin to doubt; and instead of having any reason to wish the apparition a true one, he had every reason to desire to believe it an illusion or a lying spirit. Great were his excuse even if he forced likelihoods, and suborned witnesses in the court of his own judgment. To conclude it false was to think his father in heaven, and his mother not an adulteress, not a murderess! At once to kill his uncle would be to seal these horrible things irrevocable, indisputable facts. Strongest reasons he had for not taking immediate action in vengeance; but no smallest incapacity for action had share in his delay. The Poet takes recurrent pains, as if he foresaw hasty conclusions, to show his hero a man of promptitude, with this truest fitness for action, that he would not make unlawful haste. Without sufficing assurance, he would have no part in the fate either of the uncle he disliked or the mother he loved.]

[Footnote 3: _a doors_, like _an end_. 51, 175.]

[Footnote 4: _undoes, frustrates, destroys_.]

[Footnote 5: See quotation from _1st Quarto,_ 43.]

[Footnote 6: _Quoted_ or _coted: observed_; Fr. _coter_, to mark the number. Compare 95.]

[Page 72]

It seemes it is as proper to our Age, [Sidenote: By heauen it is] To cast beyond our selues[1] in our Opinions, As it is common for the yonger sort To lacke discretion.[2] Come, go we to the King, This must be knowne, which being kept close might moue More greefe to hide, then hate to vtter loue.[3] [Sidenote: Come.] _Exeunt._

_SCENA SECUNDA._[4]

_Enter King, Queene, Rosincrane, and Guildensterne Cum alijs. [Sidenote: Florish: Enter King and Queene, Rosencraus and Guyldensterne.[5]]

_King._ Welcome deere _Rosincrance_ and _Guildensterne_. Moreouer,[6] that we much did long to see you, The neede we haue to vse you, did prouoke [Sidenote: 92] Our hastie sending.[7] Something haue you heard Of _Hamlets_ transformation: so I call it, [Sidenote: so call] Since not th'exterior, nor the inward man [Sidenote: Sith nor] Resembles that it was. What it should bee More then his Fathers death, that thus hath put him So much from th'understanding of himselfe, I cannot deeme of.[8] I intreat you both, [Sidenote: dreame] That being of so young dayes[9] brought vp with him: And since so Neighbour'd to[10] his youth,and humour, [Sidenote: And sith | and hauior,] That you vouchsafe your rest heere in our Court Some little time: so by your Companies To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather [Sidenote: 116] So much as from Occasions you may gleane, [Sidenote: occasion] [A] That open'd lies within our remedie.[11]

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

Whether ought to vs vnknowne afflicts him thus,]

[Footnote 1:

'to be overwise--to overreach ourselves' 'ambition, which o'erleaps itself,' --_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 7.]

[Footnote 2: Polonius is a man of faculty. His courtier-life, his self-seeking, his vanity, have made and make him the fool he is.]

[Footnote 3: He hopes now to get his daughter married to the prince.

We have here a curious instance of Shakspere's not unfrequently excessive condensation. Expanded, the clause would be like this: 'which, being kept close, might move more grief by the hiding of love, than to utter love might move hate:' the grief in the one case might be greater than the hate in the other would be. It verges on confusion, and may not be as Shakspere wrote it, though it is like his way.

_1st Q._

Lets to the king, this madnesse may prooue, Though wilde a while, yet more true to thy loue.]

[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]

[Footnote 5: _Q._ has not _Cum alijs._]

[Footnote 6: 'Moreover that &c.': _moreover_ is here used as a preposition, with the rest of the clause for its objective.]

[Footnote 7: Rosincrance and Guildensterne are, from the first and throughout, the creatures of the king.]

[Footnote 8: The king's conscience makes him suspicious of Hamlet's suspicion.]

[Footnote 9: 'from such an early age'.]

[Footnote 10: 'since then so familiar with'.]

[Footnote 11: 'to gather as much as you may glean from opportunities, of that which, when disclosed to us, will lie within our remedial power.' If the line of the Quarto be included, it makes plainer construction. The line beginning with '_So much_,' then becomes parenthetical, and _to gather_ will not immediately govern that line, but the rest of the sentence.]

[Page 74]

_Qu._ Good Gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you, And sure I am, two men there are not liuing, [Sidenote: there is not] To whom he more adheres. If it will please you To shew vs so much Gentrie,[1] and good will, As to expend your time with vs a-while, For the supply and profit of our Hope,[2] Your Visitation shall receiue such thankes As fits a Kings remembrance.

_Rosin._ Both your Maiesties Might by the Soueraigne power you haue of vs, Put your dread pleasures, more into Command Then to Entreatie,

_Guil._ We both[3] obey, [Sidenote: But we] And here giue vp our selues, in the full bent,[4] To lay our Seruices freely at your feete, [Sidenote: seruice] To be commanded.

_King._ Thankes _Rosincrance_, and gentle _Guildensterne_.

_Qu._ Thankes _Guildensterne_ and gentle _Rosincrance_,[5] And I beseech you instantly to visit My too much changed Sonne. Go some of ye, [Sidenote: you] And bring the Gentlemen where _Hamlet_ is, [Sidenote: bring these]

_Guil._ Heauens make our presence and our practises Pleasant and helpfull to him. _Exit_[6]

_Queene._ Amen. [Sidenote: Amen. _Exeunt Ros. and Guyld._]

_Enter Polonius._

[Sidenote: 18] _Pol._ Th'Ambassadors from Norwey, my good Lord, Are ioyfully return'd.

[Footnote 1: gentleness, grace, favour.]

[Footnote 2: Their hope in Hamlet, as their son and heir.]

[Footnote 3: both majesties.]

[Footnote 4: If we put a comma after _bent_, the phrase will mean 'in the full _purpose_ or _design_ to lay our services &c.' Without the comma, the content of the phrase would be general:--'in the devoted force of our faculty.' The latter is more like Shakspere.]

[Footnote 5: Is there not tact intended in the queen's reversal of her husband's arrangement of the two names--that each might have precedence, and neither take offence?]

[Footnote 6: _Not in Quarto._]

[Page 76]

_King._ Thou still hast bin the Father of good Newes.

_Pol._ Haue I, my Lord?[1] Assure you, my good Liege, [Sidenote: I assure my] I hold my dutie, as I hold my Soule, Both to my God, one to my gracious King:[2] [Sidenote: God, and to[2]] And I do thinke, or else this braine of mine Hunts not the traile of Policie, so sure As I haue vs'd to do: that I haue found [Sidenote: it hath vsd] The very cause of _Hamlets_ Lunacie.

_King._ Oh speake of that, that I do long to heare. [Sidenote: doe I long]

_Pol._ Giue first admittance to th'Ambassadors, My Newes shall be the Newes to that great Feast, [Sidenote: the fruite to that]

_King._ Thy selfe do grace to them, and bring them in. He tels me my sweet Queene, that he hath found [Sidenote: my deere Gertrard he] The head[3] and sourse of all your Sonnes distemper.

_Qu._ I doubt it is no other, but the maine, His Fathers death, and our o're-hasty Marriage.[4] [Sidenote: our hastie]

_Enter Polonius, Voltumand, and Cornelius._ [Sidenote: _Enter_ Embassadors.]

_King._ Well, we shall sift him. Welcome good Frends: [Sidenote: my good] Say _Voltumand_, what from our Brother Norwey?

_Volt._ Most faire returne of Greetings, and Desires. Vpon our first,[5] he sent out to suppresse His Nephewes Leuies, which to him appear'd To be a preparation 'gainst the Poleak: [Sidenote: Pollacke,] But better look'd into, he truly found It was against your Highnesse, whereat greeued, That so his Sicknesse, Age, and Impotence Was falsely borne in hand,[6] sends[7] out Arrests On _Fortinbras_, which he (in breefe) obeyes,

[Footnote 1: To be spoken triumphantly, but in the peculiar tone of one thinking, 'You little know what better news I have behind!']

[Footnote 2: I cannot tell which is the right reading; if the _Q.'s_, it means, '_I hold my duty precious as my soul, whether to my God or my king_'; if the _F.'s_, it is a little confused by the attempt of Polonius to make a fine euphuistic speech:--'_I hold my duty as I hold my soul,--both at the command of my God, one at the command of my king_.']

[Footnote 3: the spring; the river-head

'The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood'

_Macbeth,_ act ii. sc. 3.]

[Footnote 4: She goes a step farther than the king in accounting for Hamlet's misery--knows there is more cause of it yet, but hopes he does not know so much cause for misery as he might know.]

[Footnote 5: Either 'first' stands for _first desire_, or it is a noun, and the meaning of the phrase is, 'The instant we mentioned the matter'.]

[Footnote 6: 'borne in hand'--played with, taken advantage of.

'How you were borne in hand, how cross'd,'

_Macbeth,_ act iii. sc. 1.]

[Footnote 7: The nominative pronoun was not _quite_ indispensable to the verb in Shakspere's time.]

[Page 78]

Receiues rebuke from Norwey: and in fine, Makes Vow before his Vnkle, neuer more To giue th'assay of Armes against your Maiestie. Whereon old Norwey, ouercome with ioy, Giues him three thousand Crownes in Annuall Fee, [Sidenote: threescore thousand] And his Commission to imploy those Soldiers So leuied as before, against the Poleak: [Sidenote: Pollacke,] With an intreaty heerein further shewne, [Sidenote: 190] That it might please you to giue quiet passe Through your Dominions, for his Enterprize, [Sidenote: for this] On such regards of safety and allowance, As therein are set downe.

_King_. It likes vs well: And at our more consider'd[1] time wee'l read, Answer, and thinke vpon this Businesse. Meane time we thanke you, for your well-tooke Labour. Go to your rest, at night wee'l Feast together.[2] Most welcome home. _Exit Ambass_. [Sidenote: Exeunt Embassadors]

_Pol_. This businesse is very well ended.[3] [Sidenote: is well] My Liege, and Madam, to expostulate[4] What Maiestie should be, what Dutie is,[5] Why day is day; night, night; and time is time, Were nothing but to waste Night, Day and Time. Therefore, since Breuitie is the Soule of Wit, [Sidenote: Therefore breuitie] And tediousnesse, the limbes and outward flourishes,[6] I will be breefe. Your Noble Sonne is mad: Mad call I it; for to define true Madnesse, What is't, but to be nothing else but mad.[7] But let that go.

_Qu_. More matter, with lesse Art.[8]

_Pol_. Madam, I sweare I vse no Art at all: That he is mad, 'tis true: 'Tis true 'tis pittie, [Sidenote: hee's mad] And pittie it is true; A foolish figure,[9] [Sidenote: pitty tis tis true,]

[Footnote 1: time given up to, or filled with consideration; _or, perhaps_, time chosen for a purpose.]

[Footnote 2: He is always feasting.]

[Footnote 3: Now for _his_ turn! He sets to work at once with his rhetoric.]

[Footnote 4: to lay down beforehand as postulates.]

[Footnote 5: We may suppose a dash and pause after '_Dutie is_'. The meaning is plain enough, though logical form is wanting.]

[Footnote 6: As there is no imagination in Polonius, we cannot look for great aptitude in figure.]

[Footnote 7: The nature of madness also is a postulate.]

[Footnote 8: She is impatient, but wraps her rebuke in a compliment. Art, so-called, in speech, was much favoured in the time of Elizabeth. And as a compliment Polonius takes the form in which she expresses her dislike of his tediousness, and her anxiety after his news: pretending to wave it off, he yet, in his gratification, coming on the top of his excitement with the importance of his fancied discovery, plunges immediately into a very slough of _art_, and becomes absolutely silly.]

[Footnote 9: It is no figure at all. It is hardly even a play with the words.]

[Page 80]

But farewell it: for I will vse no Art. Mad let vs grant him then: and now remaines That we finde out the cause of this effect, Or rather say, the cause of this defect; For this effect defectiue, comes by cause, Thus it remaines, and the remainder thus. Perpend, I haue a daughter: haue, whil'st she is mine, [Sidenote: while] Who in her Dutie and Obedience, marke, Hath giuen me this: now gather, and surmise.

_The Letter_.[1] _To the Celestiall, and my Soules Idoll, the most beautified Ophelia_. That's an ill Phrase, a vilde Phrase, beautified is a vilde Phrase: but you shall heare these in her thus in her excellent white bosome, these.[2] [Sidenote: these, &c]

_Qu_. Came this from _Hamlet_ to her.

_Pol_. Good Madam stay awhile, I will be faithfull. _Doubt thou, the Starres are fire_, [Sidenote: _Letter_] _Doubt, that the Sunne doth moue; Doubt Truth to be a Lier, But neuer Doubt, I loue.[3] O deere Ophelia, I am ill at these Numbers: I haue not Art to reckon my grones; but that I loue thee best, oh most Best beleeue it. Adieu. Thine euermore most deere Lady, whilst this Machine is to him_, Hamlet. This in Obedience hath my daughter shew'd me: [Sidenote: _Pol_. This showne] And more aboue hath his soliciting, [Sidenote: more about solicitings] As they fell out by Time, by Meanes, and Place, All giuen to mine eare.

_King_. But how hath she receiu'd his Loue?

_Pol_. What do you thinke of me?

_King_. As of a man, faithfull and Honourable.

_Pol_. I wold faine proue so. But what might you think?

[Footnote 1: _Not in Quarto._]

[Footnote 2: _Point thus_: 'but you shall heare. _These, in her excellent white bosom, these_:'

Ladies, we are informed, wore a small pocket in front of the bodice;--but to accept the fact as an explanation of this passage, is to cast the passage away. Hamlet _addresses_ his letter, not to Ophelia's pocket, but to Ophelia herself, at her house--that is, in the palace of her bosom, excellent in whiteness. In like manner, signing himself, he makes mention of his body as a machine of which he has the use for a time. So earnest is Hamlet that when he makes love, he is the more a philosopher. But he is more than a philosopher: he is a man of the Universe, not a man of this world only.

We must not allow the fashion of the time in which the play was written, to cause doubt as to the genuine heartiness of Hamlet's love-making.]

[Footnote 3: _1st Q._

Doubt that in earth is fire, Doubt that the starres doe moue, Doubt trueth to be a liar, But doe not doubt I loue.]

[Page 82]

When I had seene this hot loue on the wing, As I perceiued it, I must tell you that Before my Daughter told me, what might you Or my deere Maiestie your Queene heere, think, If I had playd the Deske or Table-booke,[1] Or giuen my heart a winking, mute and dumbe, [Sidenote: working] Or look'd vpon this Loue, with idle sight,[2] What might you thinke? No, I went round to worke, And (my yong Mistris) thus I did bespeake[3] Lord _Hamlet_ is a Prince out of thy Starre,[4] This must not be:[5] and then, I Precepts gaue her, [Sidenote: I prescripts] That she should locke her selfe from his Resort, [Sidenote: from her] [Sidenote: 42[6], 43, 70] Admit no Messengers, receiue no Tokens: Which done, she tooke the Fruites of my Aduice,[7] And he repulsed. A short Tale to make, [Sidenote: repell'd, a] Fell into a Sadnesse, then into a Fast,[8] Thence to a Watch, thence into a Weaknesse, [Sidenote: to a wath,] Thence to a Lightnesse, and by this declension [Sidenote: to lightnes] Into the Madnesse whereon now he raues, [Sidenote: wherein] And all we waile for.[9] [Sidenote: mourne for]

_King_. Do you thinke 'tis this?[10] [Sidenote: thinke this?]

_Qu_. It may be very likely. [Sidenote: like]

_Pol_. Hath there bene such a time, I'de fain know that, [Sidenote: I would] That I haue possitiuely said, 'tis so, When it prou'd otherwise?

_King_. Not that I know.

_Pol_. Take this from this[11]; if this be otherwise, If Circumstances leade me, I will finde Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeede Within the Center.

_King_. How may we try it further?

[Footnote 1: --behaved like a piece of furniture.]

[Footnote 2: The love of talk makes a man use many idle words, foolish expressions, and useless repetitions.]

[Footnote 3: Notwithstanding the parenthesis, I take 'Mistris' to be the objective to 'bespeake'--that is, _address_.]

[Footnote 4: _Star_, mark of sort or quality; brand (45). The _1st Q_. goes on--

An'd one that is vnequall for your loue:

But it may mean, as suggested by my _Reader_, 'outside thy destiny,'--as ruled by the star of nativity--and I think it does.]

[Footnote 5: Here is a change from the impression conveyed in the first act: he attributes his interference to his care for what befitted royalty; whereas, talking to Ophelia (40, 72), he attributes it entirely to his care for her;--so partly in the speech correspondent to the present in _1st Q_.:--

Now since which time, seeing his loue thus cross'd, Which I tooke to be idle, and but sport, He straitway grew into a melancholy,]

[Footnote 6: See also passage in note from _1st Q_.]

[Footnote 7: She obeyed him. The 'fruits' of his advice were her conformed actions.]

[Footnote 8: When the appetite goes, and the sleep follows, doubtless the man is on the steep slope of madness. But as to Hamlet, and how matters were with him, what Polonius says is worth nothing.]

[Footnote 9: '_wherein_ now he raves, and _wherefor_ all we wail.']

[Footnote 10: _To the queen_.]

[Footnote 11: head from shoulders.]

[Page 84]

_Pol_. You know sometimes He walkes foure houres together, heere[1] In the Lobby.

_Qu_. So he ha's indeed. [Sidenote: he dooes indeede]

[Sidenote: 118] _Pol_. At such a time Ile loose my Daughter to him, Be you and I behinde an Arras then, Marke the encounter: If he loue her not, And be not from his reason falne thereon; Let me be no Assistant for a State, And keepe a Farme and Carters. [Sidenote: But keepe]

_King_. We will try it.

_Enter Hamlet reading on a Booke._[2]

_Qu_. But looke where sadly the poore wretch Comes reading.[3]

_Pol_. Away I do beseech you, both away, He boord[4] him presently. _Exit King & Queen_[5] Oh giue me leaue.[6] How does my good Lord _Hamlet_?

_Ham_. Well, God-a-mercy.

_Pol_. Do you know me, my Lord?

[Sidenote: 180] _Ham_. Excellent, excellent well: y'are a Fish-monger.[7] [Sidenote: Excellent well, you are]

_Pol_. Not I my Lord.

_Ham_. Then I would you were so honest a man.

_Pol_. Honest, my Lord?

_Ham_. I sir, to be honest as this world goes, is to bee one man pick'd out of two thousand. [Sidenote: tenne thousand[8]]

_Pol_. That's very true, my Lord.

_Ham_.[9] For if the Sun breed Magots in a dead dogge, being a good kissing Carrion--[10] [Sidenote: carrion. Have] Haue you a daughter?[11]

_Pol_. I haue my Lord.

[Footnote 1: _1st Q_.

The Princes walke is here in the galery, There let _Ofelia_, walke vntill hee comes: Your selfe and I will stand close in the study,]

[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto_.]

[Footnote 3: _1st Q_.--

_King_. See where hee comes poring vppon a booke.]

[Footnote 4: The same as accost, both meaning originally _go to the side of_.]

[Footnote 5: _A line back in the Quarto_.]

[Footnote 6: 'Please you to go away.' 89, 203. Here should come the preceding stage-direction.]

[Footnote 7: Now first the Play shows us Hamlet in his affected madness. He has a great dislike to the selfish, time-serving courtier, who, like his mother, has forsaken the memory of his father--and a great distrust of him as well. The two men are moral antipodes. Each is given to moralizing--but compare their reflections: those of Polonius reveal a lover of himself, those of Hamlet a lover of his kind; Polonius is interested in success; Hamlet in humanity.]

[Footnote 8: So also in _1st Q_.]

[Footnote 9: --reading, or pretending to read, the words from the book he carries.]

[Footnote 10: When the passion for emendation takes possession of a man, his opportunities are endless--so many seeming emendations offer themselves which are in themselves not bad, letters and words affording as much play as the keys of a piano. 'Being a god kissing carrion,' is in itself good enough; but Shakspere meant what stands in both Quarto and Folio: _the dead dog being a carrion good at kissing_. The arbitrary changes of the editors are amazing.]

[Footnote 11: He cannot help his mind constantly turning upon women; and if his thoughts of them are often cruelly false, it is not Hamlet but his mother who is to blame: her conduct has hurled him from the peak of optimism into the bottomless pool of pessimistic doubt, above the foul waters of which he keeps struggling to lift his head.]

[Page 86]

_Ham_. Let her not walke i'th'Sunne: Conception[1] is a blessing, but not as your daughter may [Sidenote: but as your] conceiue. Friend looke too't.

[Sidenote: 100] _Pol_.[2] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said [Sidenote: a sayd I] I was a Fishmonger: he is farre gone, farre gone: [Sidenote: Fishmonger, a is farre gone, and truly] and truly in my youth, I suffred much extreamity and truly for loue: very neere this. Ile speake to him againe.

What do you read my Lord?

_Ham_. Words, words, words.

_Pol_. What is the matter, my Lord?

_Ham_. Betweene who?[3]

_Pol_. I meane the matter you meane, my [Sidenote: matter that you reade my] Lord.

_Ham_. Slanders Sir: for the Satyricall slaue [Sidenote: satericall rogue sayes] saies here, that old men haue gray Beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thicke Amber, or Plum-Tree Gumme: and that they haue [Sidenote: Amber, and] a plentifull locke of Wit, together with weake [Sidenote: lacke | with most weake] Hammes. All which Sir, though I most powerfully, and potently beleeue; yet I holde it not Honestie[4] to haue it thus set downe: For you [Sidenote: for your selfe sir shall grow old as I am:] your selfe Sir, should be old as I am, if like a Crab you could go backward.

_Pol_.[5] Though this be madnesse, Yet there is Method in't: will you walke Out of the ayre[6] my Lord?

_Ham_. Into my Graue?

_Pol_. Indeed that is out o'th'Ayre: [Sidenote: that's out of the ayre;] How pregnant (sometimes) his Replies are? A happinesse, That often Madnesse hits on, Which Reason and Sanitie could not [Sidenote: sanctity] So prosperously be deliuer'd of.

[Footnote 1: One of the meanings of the word, and more in use then than now, is _understanding_.]

[Footnote 2: (_aside_).]

[Footnote 3: --pretending to take him to mean by _matter_, the _point of quarrel_.]

[Footnote 4: Propriety.]

[Footnote 5: (_aside_).]

[Footnote 6: the draught.]

[Page 88]

[A] I will leaue him, And sodainely contriue the meanes of meeting Betweene him,[1] and my daughter. My Honourable Lord, I will most humbly Take my leaue of you.

_Ham_. You cannot Sir take from[2] me any thing, that I will more willingly part withall, except my [Sidenote: will not more | my life, except my] life, my life.[3] [Sidenote: _Enter Guyldersterne, and Rosencrans_.]

_Polon_. Fare you well my Lord.

_Ham_. These tedious old fooles.

_Polon_. You goe to seeke my Lord _Hamlet_; [Sidenote: the Lord] there hee is.

_Enter Rosincran and Guildensterne_.[4]

_Rosin_. God saue you Sir.

_Guild_. Mine honour'd Lord?

_Rosin_. My most deare Lord?

_Ham_. My excellent good friends? How do'st [Sidenote: My extent good] thou _Guildensterne_? Oh, _Rosincrane_; good Lads: [Sidenote: A Rosencraus] How doe ye both? [Sidenote: you]

_Rosin_. As the indifferent Children of the earth.

_Guild_. Happy, in that we are not ouer-happy: [Sidenote: euer happy on] on Fortunes Cap, we are not the very Button. [Sidenote: Fortunes lap,]

_Ham_. Nor the Soales of her Shoo?

_Rosin_. Neither my Lord.

_Ham_. Then you liue about her waste, or in the middle of her fauour? [Sidenote: fauors.]

_Guil_. Faith, her priuates, we.

_Ham_. In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh, most true: she is a Strumpet.[5] What's the newes? [Sidenote: What newes?]

_Rosin_. None my Lord; but that the World's [Sidenote: but the] growne honest.

_Ham_. Then is Doomesday neere: But your

[Footnote A: _In the Quarto, the speech ends thus_:--I will leaue him and my daughter.[6] My Lord, I will take my leaue of you.]

[Footnote 1: From 'And sodainely' _to_ 'betweene him,' _not in Quarto_.]

[Footnote 2: It is well here to recall the modes of the word _leave_: '_Give me leave_,' Polonius says with proper politeness to the king and queen when he wants _them_ to go--that is, 'Grant me your _departure_'; but he would, going himself, _take_ his leave, his departure, _of_ or _from_ them--by their permission to go. Hamlet means, 'You cannot take from me anything I will more willingly part with than your leave, or, my permission to you to go.' 85, 203. See the play on the two meanings of the word in _Twelfth Night_, act ii. sc. 4:

_Duke_. Give me now leave to leave thee;

though I suspect it ought to be--

_Duke_. Give me now leave.

_Clown_. To leave thee!--Now, the melancholy &c.]

[Footnote 3: It is a relief to him to speak the truth under the cloak of madness--ravingly. He has no one to whom to open his heart: what lies there he feels too terrible for even the eye of Horatio. He has not apparently told him as yet more than the tale of his father's murder.]

[Footnote 4: _Above, in Quarto_.]

[Footnote 5: In this and all like utterances of Hamlet, we see what worm it is that lies gnawing at his heart.]

[Footnote 6: This is a slip in the _Quarto_--rectified in the _Folio_: his daughter was not present.]

[Page 90]

newes is not true.[1] [2] Let me question more in particular: what haue you my good friends, deserued at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to Prison hither?

_Guil_. Prison, my Lord?

_Ham_. Denmark's a Prison.

_Rosin_. Then is the World one.

_Ham_. A goodly one, in which there are many Confines, Wards, and Dungeons; _Denmarke_ being one o'th'worst.

_Rosin_. We thinke not so my Lord.

_Ham_. Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so[3]: to me it is a prison.

_Rosin_. Why then your Ambition makes it one: 'tis too narrow for your minde.[4]

_Ham_. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count my selfe a King of infinite space; were it not that I haue bad dreames.

_Guil_. Which dreames indeed are Ambition: for the very substance[5] of the Ambitious, is meerely the shadow of a Dreame.

_Ham_. A dreame it selfe is but a shadow.

_Rosin_. Truely, and I hold Ambition of so ayry and light a quality, that it is but a shadowes shadow.

_Ham_. Then are our Beggers bodies; and our Monarchs and out-stretcht Heroes the Beggers Shadowes: shall wee to th'Court: for, by my fey[6] I cannot reason?[7]

_Both_. Wee'l wait vpon you.

_Ham_. No such matter.[8] I will not sort you with the rest of my seruants: for to speake to you like an honest man: I am most dreadfully attended;[9] but in the beaten way of friendship,[10] [Sidenote: But in]

What make you at _Elsonower_?

[Footnote 1: 'it is not true that the world is grown honest': he doubts themselves. His eye is sharper because his heart is sorer since he left Wittenberg. He proceeds to examine them.]

[Footnote 2: This passage, beginning with 'Let me question,' and ending with 'dreadfully attended,' is not in the _Quarto_.

Who inserted in the Folio this and other passages? Was it or was it not Shakspere? Beyond a doubt they are Shakspere's all. Then who omitted those omitted? Was Shakspere incapable of refusing any of his own work? Or would these editors, who profess to have all opportunity, and who, belonging to the theatre, must have had the best of opportunities, have desired or dared to omit what far more painstaking editors have since presumed, though out of reverence, to restore?]

[Footnote 3: 'but it is thinking that makes it so:']

[Footnote 4: --feeling after the cause of Hamlet's strangeness, and following the readiest suggestion, that of chagrin at missing the succession.]

[Footnote 5: objects and aims.]

[Footnote 6: _foi_.]

[Footnote 7: Does he choose beggars as the representatives of substance because they lack ambition--that being shadow? Or does he take them as the shadows of humanity, that, following Rosincrance, he may get their shadows, the shadows therefore of shadows, to parallel _monarchs_ and _heroes_? But he is not satisfied with his own analogue--therefore will to the court, where good logic is not wanted--where indeed he knows a hellish lack of reason.]

[Footnote 8: 'On no account.']

[Footnote 9: 'I have very bad servants.' Perhaps he judges his servants spies upon him. Or might he mean that he was _haunted with bad thoughts_? Or again, is it a stroke of his pretence of madness--suggesting imaginary followers?]

[Footnote: 10: 'to speak plainly, as old friends.']

[Page 92]

_Rosin_. To visit you my Lord, no other occasion.

_Ham_. Begger that I am, I am euen poore in [Sidenote: am ever poore] thankes; but I thanke you: and sure deare friends my thanks are too deare a halfepeny[1]; were you [Sidenote: 72] not sent for? Is it your owne inclining? Is it a free visitation?[2] Come, deale iustly with me: come, come; nay speake. [Sidenote: come, come,]

_Guil_. What should we say my Lord?[3]

_Ham_. Why any thing. But to the purpose; [Sidenote: Any thing but to'th purpose:] you were sent for; and there is a kinde confession [Sidenote: kind of confession] in your lookes; which your modesties haue not craft enough to color, I know the good King and [Sidenote: 72] Queene haue sent for you.

_Rosin_. To what end my Lord?

_Ham_. That you must teach me: but let mee coniure[4] you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth,[5] by the Obligation of our euer-preserued loue, and by what more deare, a better proposer could charge you withall; [Sidenote: can] be euen and direct with me, whether you were sent for or no.

_Rosin_. What say you?[6]

_Ham_. Nay then I haue an eye of you[7]: if you loue me hold not off.[8]

[Sidenote: 72] _Guil_. My Lord, we were sent for.

_Ham_. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation preuent your discouery of your secricie to [Sidenote: discovery, and your secrecie to the King and Queene moult no feather,[10]] the King and Queene[9] moult no feather, I haue [Sidenote: 116] of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custome of exercise; and indeed, [Sidenote: exercises;] it goes so heauenly with my disposition; that this [Sidenote: heauily] goodly frame the Earth, seemes to me a sterrill Promontory; this most excellent Canopy the Ayre, look you, this braue ore-hanging, this Maiesticall [Sidenote: orehanging firmament,] Roofe, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeares no [Sidenote: appeareth]

[Footnote 1: --because they were by no means hearty thanks.]

[Footnote 2: He wants to know whether they are in his uncle's employment and favour; whether they pay court to himself for his uncle's ends.]

[Footnote 3: He has no answer ready.]

[Footnote 4: He will not cast them from him without trying a direct appeal to their old friendship for plain dealing. This must be remembered in relation to his treatment of them afterwards. He affords them every chance of acting truly--conjuring them to honesty--giving them a push towards repentance.]

[Footnote 5: Either, 'the harmony of our young days,' or, 'the sympathies of our present youth.']

[Footnote 6: --_to Guildenstern_.]

[Footnote 7: (_aside_) 'I will keep an eye upon you;'.]

[Footnote 8: 'do not hold back.']

[Footnote 9: The _Quarto_ seems here to have the right reading.]

[Footnote 10: 'your promise of secrecy remain intact;'.]

[Page 94]

other thing to mee, then a foule and pestilent congregation [Sidenote: nothing to me but a] of vapours. What a piece of worke is [Sidenote: what peece] a man! how Noble in Reason? how infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and [Sidenote: faculties,] admirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension, how like a God? the beauty of the world, the Parragon of Animals; and yet to me, what is this Quintessence of Dust? Man delights not me;[1] no, nor Woman neither; though by your [Sidenote: not me, nor women] smiling you seeme to say so.[2]

_Rosin._ My Lord, there was no such stuffe in my thoughts.

_Ham._ Why did you laugh, when I said, Man [Sidenote: yee laugh then, when] delights not me?

_Rosin._ To thinke, my Lord, if you delight not in Man, what Lenton entertainment the Players shall receiue from you:[3] wee coated them[4] on the way, and hither are they comming to offer you Seruice.

_Ham._[5] He that playes the King shall be welcome; his Maiesty shall haue Tribute of mee: [Sidenote: on me,] the aduenturous Knight shal vse his Foyle and Target: the Louer shall not sigh _gratis_, the humorous man[6] shall end his part in peace: [7] the Clowne shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled a'th' sere:[8] and the Lady shall say her minde freely; or the blanke Verse shall halt for't[9]: [Sidenote: black verse] what Players are they?

_Rosin._ Euen those you Were wont to take [Sidenote: take such delight] delight in the Tragedians of the City.

_Ham._ How chances it they trauaile? their residence both in reputation and profit was better both wayes.

_Rosin._ I thinke their Inhibition comes by the meanes of the late Innouation?[10]

[Footnote 1: A genuine description, so far as it goes, of the state of Hamlet's mind. But he does not reveal the operating cause--his loss of faith in women, which has taken the whole poetic element out of heaven, earth, and humanity: he would have his uncle's spies attribute his condition to mere melancholy.]

[Footnote 2: --said angrily, I think.]

[Footnote 3: --a ready-witted subterfuge.]

[Footnote 4: came alongside of them; got up with them; apparently rather from Fr. _côté_ than _coter_; like _accost_. Compare 71. But I suspect it only means _noted_, _observed_, and is from _coter_.]

[Footnote 5: --_with humorous imitation, perhaps, of each of the characters_.]

[Footnote 6: --the man with a whim.]

[Footnote 7: This part of the speech--from [7] to [8], is not in the _Quarto_.]

[Footnote 8: Halliwell gives a quotation in which the touch-hole of a pistol is called the _sere_: the _sere_, then, of the lungs would mean the opening of the lungs--the part with which we laugh: those 'whose lungs are tickled a' th' sere,' are such as are ready to laugh on the least provocation: _tickled_--_irritable, ticklish_--ready to laugh, as another might be to cough. 'Tickled o' the sere' was a common phrase, signifying, thus, _propense_.

_1st Q._ The clowne shall make them laugh That are tickled in the lungs,]

[Footnote 9: Does this refer to the pause that expresses the unutterable? or to the ruin of the measure of the verse by an incompetent heroine?]

[Footnote 10: Does this mean, 'I think their prohibition comes through the late innovation,'--of the children's acting; or, 'I think they are prevented from staying at home by the late new measures,'--such, namely, as came of the puritan opposition to stage-plays? This had grown so strong, that, in 1600, the Privy Council issued an order restricting the number of theatres in London to two: by such an _innovation_ a number of players might well be driven to the country.]

[Page 96]

_Ham_. Doe they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the City? Are they so follow'd?

_Rosin_. No indeed, they are not. [Sidenote: are they not.]

[1]_Ham_. How comes it? doe they grow rusty?

_Rosin_. Nay, their indeauour keepes in the wonted pace; But there is Sir an ayrie of Children,[2] little Yases,[3] that crye out[4] on the top of question;[5] and are most tyrannically clap't for't: these are now the fashion, and so be-ratled the common Stages[6] (so they call them) that many wearing Rapiers,[7] are affraide of Goose-quils, and dare scarse come thither.[8]

_Ham_. What are they Children? Who maintains 'em? How are they escoted?[9] Will they pursue the Quality[10] no longer then they can sing?[11] Will they not say afterwards if they should grow themselues to common Players (as it is like most[12] if their meanes are no better) their Writers[13] do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their owne Succession.[14]

_Rosin_. Faith there ha's bene much to do on both sides: and the Nation holds it no sinne, to tarre them[15] to Controuersie. There was for a while, no mony bid for argument, vnlesse the Poet and the Player went to Cuffes in the Question.[16]

_Ham_. Is't possible?

_Guild_. Oh there ha's beene much throwing about of Braines.

_Ham_. Do the Boyes carry it away?[17]

_Rosin_. I that they do my Lord, _Hercules_ and his load too.[18]

_Ham_. It is not strange: for mine Vnckle is [Sidenote: not very strange, | my] King of Denmarke, and those that would make mowes at him while my Father liued; giue twenty, [Sidenote: make mouths]

[Footnote 1: The whole of the following passage, beginning with 'How comes it,' and ending with 'Hercules and his load too,' belongs to the _Folio_ alone--is not in the _Quarto_.

In the _1st Quarto_ we find the germ of the passage--unrepresented in the _2nd_, developed in the _Folio_.

_Ham_. Players, what Players be they?

_Ross_. My Lord, the Tragedians of the Citty, Those that you tooke delight to see so often.

_Ham_. How comes it that they trauell? Do they grow restie?

_Gil_. No my Lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.

_Ham_. How then?

_Gil_. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away, For the principall publike audience that Came to them, are turned to priuate playes,[19] And to the humour[20] of children.

_Ham_. I doe not greatly wonder of it, For those that would make mops and moes At my vncle, when my father liued, &c.]

[Footnote 2: _a nest of children_. The acting of the children of two or three of the chief choirs had become the rage.]

[Footnote 3: _Eyases_--unfledged hawks.]

[Footnote 4: Children _cry out_ rather than _speak_ on the stage.]

[Footnote 5: 'cry out beyond dispute'--_unquestionably_; 'cry out and no mistake.' 'He does not top his part.' _The Rehearsal_, iii. 1.--'_He is not up to it_.' But perhaps here is intended _above reason_: 'they cry out excessively, excruciatingly.' 103.

This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,--_A Lover's Complaint_.]

[Footnote 6: I presume it should be the present tense, _beratle_--except the _are_ of the preceding member be understood: 'and so beratled _are_ the common stages.' If the _present_, then the children 'so abuse the grown players,'--in the pieces they acted, particularly in the new _arguments_, written for them--whence the reference to _goose-quills_.]

[Footnote 7: --of the play-going public.]

[Footnote 8: --for dread of sharing in the ridicule.]

[Footnote 9: _paid_--from the French _escot_, a shot or reckoning: _Dr. Johnson_.]

[Footnote 10: --the quality of players; the profession of the stage.]

[Footnote 11: 'Will they cease playing when their voices change?']

[Footnote 12: Either _will_ should follow here, or _like_ and _most_ must change places.]

[Footnote 13: 'those that write for them'.]

[Footnote 14: --what they had had to come to themselves.]

[Footnote 15: 'to incite the children and the grown players to controversy': _to tarre them on like dogs_: see _King John_, iv. 1.]

[Footnote 16: 'No stage-manager would buy a new argument, or prologue, to a play, unless the dramatist and one of the actors were therein represented as falling out on the question of the relative claims of the children and adult actors.']

[Footnote 17: 'Have the boys the best of it?']

[Footnote 18: 'That they have, out and away.' Steevens suggests that allusion is here made to the sign of the Globe Theatre--Hercules bearing the world for Atlas.]

[Footnote 19: amateur-plays.]

[Footnote 20: whimsical fashion.]

[Page 98]

forty, an hundred Ducates a peece, for his picture[1] [Sidenote: fortie, fifty, a hundred] in Little.[2] There is something in this more then [Sidenote: little, s'bloud there is] Naturall, if Philosophic could finde it out.

_Flourish for tke Players_.[3] [Sidenote: _A Florish_.]

_Guil_. There are the Players.

_Ham_. Gentlemen, you are welcom to _Elsonower_: your hands, come: The appurtenance of [Sidenote: come then, th'] Welcome, is Fashion and Ceremony. Let me [Sidenote: 260] comply with you in the Garbe,[4] lest my extent[5] to [Sidenote: in this garb: let me extent] the Players (which I tell you must shew fairely outward) should more appeare like entertainment[6] [Sidenote: outwards,] then yours.[7] You are welcome: but my Vnckle Father, and Aunt Mother are deceiu'd.

_Guil_. In what my deere Lord?

_Ham_. I am but mad North, North-West: when the Winde is Southerly, I know a Hawke from a Handsaw.[8]

_Enter Polonius_.

_Pol_. Well[9] be with you Gentlemen.

_Ham_. Hearke you _Guildensterne_, and you too: at each eare a hearer: that great Baby you see there, is not yet out of his swathing clouts. [Sidenote: swadling clouts.]

_Rosin_. Happily he's the second time come to [Sidenote: he is] them: for they say, an old man is twice a childe.

_Ham_. I will Prophesie. Hee comes to tell me of the Players. Mark it, you say right Sir: for a [Sidenote: sir, a Monday] Monday morning 'twas so indeed.[10] [Sidenote: t'was then indeede.]

_Pol_. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you.

_Ham_. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you. When _Rossius_ an Actor in Rome----[11] [Sidenote: _Rossius_ was an]

_Pol_. The Actors are come hither my Lord.

_Ham_. Buzze, buzze.[12]

_Pol_. Vpon mine Honor.[13] [Sidenote: my]

_Ham_. Then can each Actor on his Asse---- [Sidenote: came each]

[Footnote 1: If there be any logical link here, except that, after the instance adduced, no change in social fashion--nothing at all indeed, is to be wondered at, I fail to see it. Perhaps the speech is intended to belong to the simulation. The last sentence of it appears meant to convey the impression that he suspects nothing--is only bewildered by the course of things.]

[Footnote 2: his miniature.]

[Footnote 3: --to indicate their approach.]

[Footnote 4: _com'ply_--accent on first syllable--'pass compliments with you' (260)--_in the garb_, either 'in appearance,' or 'in the fashion of the hour.']

[Footnote 5: 'the amount of courteous reception I extend'--'my advances to the players.']

[Footnote 6: reception, welcome.]

[Footnote 7: He seems to desire that they shall no more be on the footing of fellow-students, and thus to rid himself of the old relation. Perhaps he hints that they are players too. From any further show of friendliness he takes refuge in convention--and professed convention--supplying a reason in order to escape a dangerous interpretation of his sudden formality--'lest you should suppose me more cordial to the players than to you.' The speech is full of inwoven irony, doubtful, and refusing to be ravelled out. With what merely half-shown, yet scathing satire it should be spoken and accompanied!]

[Footnote 8: A proverb of the time comically corrupted--_handsaw for hernshaw_--a heron, the quarry of the hawk. He denies his madness as madmen do--and in terms themselves not unbefitting madness--so making it seem the more genuine. Yet every now and then, urged by the commotion of his being, he treads perilously on the border of self-betrayal.]

[Footnote 9: used as a noun.]

[Footnote 10: _Point thus_: 'Mark it.--You say right, sir; &c.' He takes up a speech that means nothing, and might mean anything, to turn aside the suspicion their whispering might suggest to Polonius that they had been talking about him--so better to lay his trap for him.]

[Footnote 11: He mentions the _actor_ to lead Polonius so that his prophecy of him shall come true.]

[Footnote 12: An interjection of mockery: he had made a fool of him.]

[Footnote 13: Polonius thinks he is refusing to believe him.]

[Page 100]

_Polon_. The best Actors in the world, either for Tragedie, Comedie, Historic, Pastorall: Pastoricall- Comicall-Historicall-Pastorall: [1] Tragicall-Historicall: Tragicall-Comicall--Historicall-Pastorall[1]: Scene indiuible,[2] or Poem vnlimited.[3] _Seneca_ cannot [Sidenote: scene indeuidible,[2]] be too heauy, nor _Plautus_ too light, for the law of Writ, and the Liberty. These are the onely men.[4]

_Ham_. O _Iephta_ Iudge of Israel, what a Treasure had'st thou?

_Pol_. What a Treasure had he, my Lord?[5]

_Ham_. Why one faire Daughter, and no more,[6] The which he loued passing well.[6]

[Sidenote: 86] _Pol_. Still on my Daughter.

_Ham_. Am I not i'th'right old _Iephta_?

_Polon_. If you call me _Iephta_ my Lord, I haue a daughter that I loue passing well.

_Ham_. Nay that followes not.[7]

_Polon_. What followes then, my Lord?

_Ham_. Why, As by lot, God wot:[6] and then you know, It came to passe, as most like it was:[6] The first rowe of the _Pons[8] Chanson_ will shew you more, [Sidenote: pious chanson] For looke where my Abridgements[9] come. [Sidenote: abridgment[9] comes]

_Enter foure or fiue Players._ [Sidenote: _Enter the Players._]

Y'are welcome Masters, welcome all. I am glad [Sidenote: You are] to see thee well: Welcome good Friends. O my [Sidenote: oh old friend, why thy face is valanct[10]] olde Friend? Thy face is valiant[10] since I saw thee last: Com'st thou to beard me in Denmarke? What, my yong Lady and Mistris?[11] Byrlady [Sidenote: by lady] your Ladiship is neerer Heauen then when I saw [Sidenote: nerer to] you last, by the altitude of a Choppine.[12] Pray God your voice like a peece of vncurrant Gold be not crack'd within the ring.[13] Masters, you are all welcome: wee'l e'ne to't like French Faulconers,[14] [Sidenote: like friendly Fankner] flie at any thing we see: wee'l haue a Speech

[Footnote 1: From [1] to [1] is not in the _Quarto_.]

[Footnote 2: Does this phrase mean _all in one scene_?]

[Footnote 3: A poem to be recited only--one not _limited_, or _divided_ into speeches.]

[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'too light. For the law of Writ, and the Liberty, these are the onely men':--_either for written plays_, that is, _or for those in which the players extemporized their speeches_.

_1st Q_. 'For the law hath writ those are the onely men.']

[Footnote 5: Polonius would lead him on to talk of his daughter.]

[Footnote 6: These are lines of the first stanza of an old ballad still in existence. Does Hamlet suggest that as Jephthah so Polonius had sacrificed his daughter? Or is he only desirous of making him talk about her?]

[Footnote 7: 'That is not as the ballad goes.']

[Footnote 8: That this is a corruption of the _pious_ in the _Quarto_, is made clearer from the _1st Quarto_: 'the first verse of the godly Ballet wil tel you all.']

[Footnote 9: _abridgment_--that which _abridges_, or cuts short. His 'Abridgements' were the Players.]

[Footnote 10: _1st Q_. 'Vallanced'--_with a beard_, that is. Both readings may be correct.]

[Footnote 11: A boy of course: no women had yet appeared on the stage.]

[Footnote 12: A Venetian boot, stilted, sometimes very high.]

[Footnote 13: --because then it would be unfit for a woman-part. A piece of gold so worn that it had a crack reaching within the inner circle was no longer current. _1st Q_. 'in the ring:'--was a pun intended?]

[Footnote 14: --like French sportsmen of the present day too.]

[Page 102]

straight. Come giue vs a tast of your quality: come, a passionate speech.

_1. Play._ What speech, my Lord? [Sidenote: my good Lord?]

_Ham._ I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was neuer Acted: or if it was, not aboue once, for the Play I remember pleas'd not the Million, 'twas _Cauiarie_ to the Generall[1]: but it was (as I receiu'd it, and others, whose iudgement in such matters, cried in the top of mine)[2] an excellent Play; well digested in the Scoenes, set downe with as much modestie, as cunning.[3] I remember one said there was no Sallets[4] in the lines, to make the [Sidenote: were] matter sauoury; nor no matter in the phrase,[5] that might indite the Author of affectation, but cal'd it [Sidenote: affection,] an honest method[A]. One cheefe Speech in it, I [Sidenote: one speech in't I] cheefely lou'd, 'twas _Æneas_ Tale to _Dido_, and [Sidenote: _Aeneas_ talke to] thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of [Sidenote: when] _Priams_[6] slaughter. If it liue in your memory, begin at this Line, let me see, let me see: The rugged _Pyrrhus_ like th'_Hyrcanian_ Beast.[7] It is [Sidenote: tis not] not so: it begins[8] with _Pyrrhus_.[9]

[10] The rugged _Pyrrhus_, he whose Sable Armes[11] Blacke as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in the Ominous[12] Horse, Hath now this dread and blacke Complexion smear'd With Heraldry more dismall: Head to foote Now is he to take Geulles,[13] horridly Trick'd [Sidenote: is he totall Gules [18]] With blood of Fathers, Mothers, Daughters, Sonnes, [14] Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrannous, and damned light [Sidenote: and a damned]

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:_-- as wholesome as sweete, and by very much, more handsome then fine:]

[Footnote 1: The salted roe of the sturgeon is a delicacy disliked by most people.]

[Footnote 2: 'were superior to mine.'

The _1st Quarto_ has,

'Cried in the toppe of their iudgements, an excellent play,'--that is, _pronounced it, to the best of their judgments, an excellent play_.

Note the difference between 'the top of _my_ judgment', and 'the top of _their_ judgments'. 97.]

[Footnote 3: skill.]

[Footnote 4: coarse jests. 25, 67.]

[Footnote 5: _style_.]

[Footnote 6: _1st Q_. 'Princes slaughter.']

[Footnote 7: _1st Q_. 'th'arganian beast:' 'the Hyrcan tiger,' Macbeth, iii. 4.]

[Footnote 8: 'it _begins_': emphasis on begins.]

[Footnote 9: A pause; then having recollected, he starts afresh.]

[Footnote 10: These passages are Shakspere's own, not quotations: the Quartos differ. But when he wrote them he had in his mind a phantom of Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_. I find Steevens has made a similar conjecture, and quotes from Marlowe two of the passages I had marked as being like passages here.]

[Footnote 11: The poetry is admirable in its kind--intentionally _charged_, to raise it to the second stage-level, above the blank verse, that is, of the drama in which it is set, as that blank verse is raised above the ordinary level of speech. 143.

The correspondent passage in _1st Q_. runs nearly parallel for a few lines.]

[Footnote 12:--like _portentous_.]

[Footnote 13: 'all red', _1st Q_. 'totall guise.']

[Footnote 14: Here the _1st Quarto_ has:--

Back't and imparched in calagulate gore, Rifted in earth and fire, olde grandsire _Pryam_ seekes: So goe on.]

[Page 104]

To their vilde Murthers, roasted in wrath and fire, [Sidenote: their Lords murther,] And thus o're-sized with coagulate gore, With eyes like Carbuncles, the hellish _Pyrrhus_ Old Grandsire _Priam_ seekes.[1] [Sidenote: seekes; so proceede you.[2]]

_Pol_. Fore God, my Lord, well spoken, with good accent, and good discretion.[3]

_1. Player_. Anon he findes him, [Sidenote: _Play_] Striking too short at Greekes.[4] His anticke Sword, Rebellious to his Arme, lyes where it falles Repugnant to command[4]: vnequall match, [Sidenote: matcht,] _Pyrrhus_ at _Priam_ driues, in Rage strikes wide: But with the whiffe and winde of his fell Sword, Th'vnnerued Father fals.[5] Then senselesse Illium,[6] Seeming to feele his blow, with flaming top [Sidenote: seele[7] this blowe,] Stoopes to his Bace, and with a hideous crash Takes Prisoner _Pyrrhus_ eare. For loe, his Sword Which was declining on the Milkie head Of Reuerend _Priam_, seem'd i'th'Ayre to sticke: So as a painted Tyrant _Pyrrhus_ stood,[8] [Sidenote: stood Like] And like a Newtrall to his will and matter,[9] did nothing.[10] [11] But as we often see against some storme, A silence in the Heauens, the Racke stand still, The bold windes speechlesse, and the Orbe below As hush as death: Anon the dreadfull Thunder [Sidenote: 110] Doth rend the Region.[11] So after _Pyrrhus_ pause, Arowsed Vengeance sets him new a-worke, And neuer did the Cyclops hammers fall On Mars his Armours, forg'd for proofe Eterne, [Sidenote: _Marses_ Armor] With lesse remorse then _Pyrrhus_ bleeding sword Now falles on _Priam_. [12] Out, out, thou Strumpet-Fortune, all you Gods, In generall Synod take away her power: Breake all the Spokes and Fallies from her wheele, [Sidenote: follies]

[Footnote 1: This, though horrid enough, is in degree below the description in _Dido_.]

[Footnote 2: He is directing the player to take up the speech there where he leaves it. See last quotation from _1st Q_.]

[Footnote 3: _judgment_.]

[Footnote 4: --with an old man's under-reaching blows--till his arm is so jarred by a missed blow, that he cannot raise his sword again.]

[Footnote 5:

Whereat he lifted up his bedrid limbs, And would have grappled with Achilles' son,

* * * * *

Which he, disdaining, whisk'd his sword about, And with the wound[13] thereof the king fell down.

Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.]

[Footnote 6: The _Quarto_ has omitted '_Then senselesse Illium_,' or something else.]

[Footnote 7: Printed with the long f[symbol for archaic long s].]

[Footnote 8: --motionless as a tyrant in a picture.]

[Footnote 9: 'standing between his will and its object as if he had no relation to either.']

[Footnote 10:

And then in triumph ran into the streets, Through which he could not pass for slaughtered men; So, leaning on his sword, he stood stone still, Viewing the fire wherewith rich Ilion burnt.

Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.]

[Footnote 11: Who does not feel this passage, down to 'Region,' thoroughly Shaksperean!]

[Footnote 12: Is not the rest of this speech very plainly Shakspere's?]

[Footnote 13: _wind_, I think it should be.]

[Page 106]

And boule the round Naue downe the hill of Heauen, As low as to the Fiends.

_Pol_. This is too long.

_Ham_. It shall to'th Barbars, with your beard. [Sidenote: to the] Prythee say on: He's for a Iigge, or a tale of Baudry, or hee sleepes. Say on; come to _Hecuba_.

_1. Play_. But who, O who, had seen the inobled[1] Queen. [Sidenote: But who, a woe, had | mobled[1]]

_Ham_. The inobled[1] Queene? [Sidenote: mobled]

_Pol_. That's good: Inobled[1] Queene is good.[2]

_1. Play_. Run bare-foot vp and downe, Threatning the flame [Sidenote: flames] With Bisson Rheume:[3] A clout about that head, [Sidenote: clout vppon] Where late the Diadem stood, and for a Robe About her lanke and all ore-teamed Loines,[4] A blanket in th'Alarum of feare caught vp. [Sidenote: the alarme] Who this had seene, with tongue in Venome steep'd, 'Gainst Fortunes State, would Treason haue pronounc'd?[5] But if the Gods themselues did see her then, When she saw _Pyrrhus_ make malicious sport In mincing with his Sword her Husbands limbes,[6] [Sidenote: husband] The instant Burst of Clamour that she made (Vnlesse things mortall moue them not at all) Would haue made milche[7] the Burning eyes of Heauen, And passion in the Gods.[8]

_Pol_. Looke where[9] he ha's not turn'd his colour, and ha's teares in's eyes. Pray you no more. [Sidenote: prethee]

_Ham_. 'Tis well, He haue thee speake out the rest, soone. Good my Lord, will you see the [Sidenote: rest of this] Players wel bestow'd. Do ye heare, let them be [Sidenote: you] well vs'd: for they are the Abstracts and breefe [Sidenote: abstract] Chronicles of the time. After your death, you

[Footnote 1: '_mobled_'--also in _1st Q_.--may be the word: _muffled_ seems a corruption of it: compare _mob-cap_, and

'The moon does mobble up herself'

--_Shirley_, quoted by _Farmer_;

but I incline to '_inobled_,' thrice in the _Folio_--once with a capital: I take it to stand for _'ignobled,' degraded_.]

[Footnote 2: 'Inobled Queene is good.' _Not in Quarto_.]

[Footnote 3: --threatening to put the flames out with blind tears: '_bisen,' blind_--Ang. Sax.]

[Footnote 4: --she had had so many children.]

[Footnote 5: There should of course be no point of interrogation here.]

[Footnote 6:

This butcher, whilst his hands were yet held up, Treading upon his breast, struck off his hands.

Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.]

[Footnote 7: '_milche_'--capable of giving milk: here _capable of tears_, which the burning eyes of the gods were not before.]

[Footnote 8: 'And would have made passion in the Gods.']

[Footnote 9: 'whether'.]

[Page 108]

were better haue a bad Epitaph, then their ill report while you liued.[1] [Sidenote: live]

_Pol_. My Lord, I will vse them according to their desart.

_Ham_. Gods bodykins man, better. Vse euerie [Sidenote: bodkin man, much better,] man after his desart, and who should scape whipping: [Sidenote: shall] vse them after your own Honor and Dignity. The lesse they deserue, the more merit is in your bountie. Take them in.

_Pol_. Come sirs. _Exit Polon_.[2]

_Ham_. Follow him Friends: wee'l heare a play to morrow.[3] Dost thou heare me old Friend, can you play the murther of _Gonzago_?

_Play_. I my Lord.

_Ham_. Wee'l ha't to morrow night. You could for a need[4] study[5] a speech of some dosen or sixteene [Sidenote: for neede | dosen lines, or] lines, which I would set downe, and insert in't? Could ye not?[6] [Sidenote: you]

_Play_. I my Lord.

_Ham_. Very well. Follow that Lord, and looke you mock him not.[7] My good Friends, Ile leaue you til night you are welcome to _Elsonower_? [Sidenote: _Exeuent Pol. and Players_.]

_Rosin_. Good my Lord. _Exeunt_.

_Manet Hamlet_.[8]

_Ham_. I so, God buy'ye[9]: Now I am alone. [Sidenote: buy to you,[9]] Oh what a Rogue and Pesant slaue am I?[10] Is it not monstrous that this Player heere,[11] But in a Fixion, in a dreame of Passion, Could force his soule so to his whole conceit,[12] [Sidenote: his own conceit] That from her working, all his visage warm'd; [Sidenote: all the visage wand,] Teares in his eyes, distraction in's Aspect, [Sidenote: in his] A broken voyce, and his whole Function suiting [Sidenote: an his] With Formes, to his Conceit?[13] And all for nothing?

[Footnote 1: Why do the editors choose the present tense of the _Quarto_? Hamlet does not mean, 'It is worse to have the ill report of the Players while you live, than a bad epitaph after your death.' The order of the sentence has provided against that meaning. What he means is, that their ill report in life will be more against your reputation after death than a bad epitaph.]

[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto_.]

[Footnote 3: He detains their leader.]

[Footnote 4: 'for a special reason'.]

[Footnote 5: _Study_ is still the Player's word for _commit to memory_.]

[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's quick resolve, made clearer towards the end of the following soliloquy.]

[Footnote 7: Polonius is waiting at the door: this is intended for his hearing.]

[Footnote 8: _Not in Q_.]

[Footnote 9: Note the varying forms of _God be with you_.]

[Footnote 10: _1st Q_.

Why what a dunghill idiote slaue am I? Why these Players here draw water from eyes: For Hecuba, why what is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?]

[Footnote 11: Everything rings on the one hard, fixed idea that possesses him; but this one idea has many sides. Of late he has been thinking more upon the woman-side of it; but the Player with his speech has brought his father to his memory, and he feels he has been forgetting him: the rage of the actor recalls his own 'cue for passion.' Always more ready to blame than justify himself, he feels as if he ought to have done more, and so falls to abusing himself.]

[Footnote 12: _imagination_.]

[Footnote 13: 'his whole operative nature providing fit forms for the embodiment of his imagined idea'--of which forms he has already mentioned his _warmed visage_, his _tears_, his _distracted look_, his _broken voice_.

In this passage we have the true idea of the operation of the genuine _acting faculty_. Actor as well as dramatist, the Poet gives us here his own notion of his second calling.]

[Page 110]

For _Hecuba_? What's _Hecuba_ to him, or he to _Hecuba_,[1] [Sidenote: or he to her,] That he should weepe for her? What would he doe, Had he the Motiue and the Cue[2] for passion [Sidenote: , and that for] That I haue? He would drowne the Stage with teares, And cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech: Make mad the guilty, and apale[3] the free,[4] Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed, The very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I, [Sidenote: faculties] A dull and muddy-metled[5] Rascall, peake Like Iohn a-dreames, vnpregnant of my cause,[6] And can say nothing: No, not for a King, Vpon whose property,[7] and most deere life, A damn'd defeate[8] was made. Am I a Coward?[9] Who calles me Villaine? breakes my pate a-crosse? Pluckes off my Beard, and blowes it in my face? Tweakes me by'th'Nose?[10] giues me the Lye i'th' Throate, [Sidenote: by the] As deepe as to the Lungs? Who does me this? Ha? Why I should take it: for it cannot be, [Sidenote: Hah, s'wounds I] But I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke Gall[11] To make Oppression bitter, or ere this, [Sidenote: 104] I should haue fatted all the Region Kites [Sidenote: should a fatted] With this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine, [Sidenote: bloody, baudy] Remorselesse,[12] Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles[13] villaine! Oh Vengeance![14] Who? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue, [Sidenote: Why what an Asse am I, this] That I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered, [Sidenote: a deere] Prompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell, Must (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with words, And fall a Cursing like a very Drab,[15] A Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine.[16] [Sidenote: a stallyon, | braines; hum,]

[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1st _Q_.

What would he do and if he had my losse? His father murdred, and a Crowne bereft him, [Sidenote: 174] He would turne all his teares to droppes of blood, Amaze the standers by with his laments,

&c. &c.]

[Footnote 2: Speaking of the Player, he uses the player-word.]

[Footnote 3: _make pale_--appal.]

[Footnote 4: _the innocent_.]

[Footnote 5: _Mettle_ is spirit--rather in the sense of _animal-spirit_: _mettlesome_--spirited, _as a horse_.]

[Footnote 6: '_unpossessed by_ my cause'.]

[Footnote 7: _personality, proper person_.]

[Footnote 8: _undoing, destruction_--from French _défaire_.]

[Footnote 9: In this mood he no more understands, and altogether doubts himself, as he has previously come to doubt the world.]

[Footnote 10: _1st Q_. 'or twites my nose.']

[Footnote 11: It was supposed that pigeons had no gall--I presume from their livers not tasting bitter like those of perhaps most birds.]

[Footnote 12: _pitiless_.]

[Footnote 13: _unnatural_.]

[Footnote 14: This line is not in the _Quarto_.]

[Footnote 15: Here in _Q._ the line runs on to include _Foh_. The next line ends with _heard_.]

[Footnote 16: _Point thus_: 'About! my brain.' He apostrophizes his brain, telling it to set to work.]

[Page 112]

I haue heard, that guilty Creatures sitting at a Play, Haue by the very cunning of the Scoene,[1] Bene strooke so to the soule, that presently They haue proclaim'd their Malefactions. For Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speake With most myraculous Organ.[2] Ile haue these Players, Play something like the murder of my Father, Before mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes, [Sidenote: 137] Ile tent him to the quicke: If he but blench[3] [Sidenote: if a doe blench] I know my course. The Spirit that I haue seene [Sidenote: 48] May[4] be the Diuell, and the Diuel hath power [Sidenote: May be a deale, and the deale] T'assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhaps Out of my Weaknesse, and my Melancholly,[5] As he is very potent with such Spirits,[6] [Sidenote: 46] Abuses me to damne me.[7] Ile haue grounds More Relatiue then this: The Play's the thing, Wherein Ile catch the Conscience of the King. _Exit._

* * * * *

SUMMARY.

The division between the second and third acts is by common consent placed here. The third act occupies the afternoon, evening, and night of the same day with the second.

This soliloquy is Hamlet's first, and perhaps we may find it correct to say _only_ outbreak of self-accusation. He charges himself with lack of feeling, spirit, and courage, in that he has not yet taken vengeance on his uncle. But unless we are prepared to accept and justify to the full his own hardest words against himself, and grant him a muddy-mettled, pigeon-livered rascal, we must examine and understand him, so as to account for his conduct better than he could himself. If we allow that perhaps he accuses himself too much, we may find on reflection that he accuses himself altogether wrongfully. If a man is content to think the worst of Hamlet, I care to hold no argument with that man.

We must not look for _expressed_ logical sequence in a soliloquy, which is a vocal mind. The mind is seldom conscious of the links or transitions of a yet perfectly logical process developed in it. This remark, however, is more necessary in regard to the famous soliloquy to follow.

In Hamlet, misery has partly choked even vengeance; and although sure in his heart that his uncle is guilty, in his brain he is not sure. Bitterly accusing himself in an access of wretchedness and rage and credence, he forgets the doubt that has restrained him, with all besides which he might so well urge in righteous defence, not excuse, of his delay. But ungenerous criticism has, by all but universal consent, accepted his own verdict against himself. So in common life there are thousands on thousands who, upon the sad confession of a man immeasurably greater than themselves, and showing his greatness in the humility whose absence makes admission impossible to them, immediately pounce upon him with vituperation, as if he were one of the vile, and they infinitely better. Such should be indignant with St. Paul and say--if he was the chief of sinners, what insolence to lecture _them_! and certainly the more justified publican would never by them have been allowed to touch the robe of the less justified Pharisee. Such critics surely take little or no pains to understand the object of their contempt: because Hamlet is troubled and blames himself, they without hesitation condemn him--and there where he is most commendable. It is the righteous man who is most ready to accuse himself; the unrighteous is least ready. Who is able when in deep trouble, rightly to analyze his feelings? Delay in action is not necessarily abandonment of duty; in Hamlet's case it is a due recognition of duty, which condemns precipitancy--and action in the face of doubt, so long as it is nowise compelled, is precipitancy. The first thing is _to be sure_: Hamlet has never been sure; he spies at length a chance of making himself sure; he seizes upon it; and while his sudden resolve to make use of the players, like the equally sudden resolve to shroud himself in pretended madness, manifests him fertile in expedient, the carrying out of both manifests him right capable and diligent in execution--_a man of action in every true sense of the word_.

The self-accusation of Hamlet has its ground in the lapse of weeks during which nothing has been done towards punishing the king. Suddenly roused to a keen sense of the fact, he feels as if surely he might have done something. The first act ends with a burning vow of righteous vengeance; the second shows him wandering about the palace in profoundest melancholy--such as makes it more than easy for him to assume the forms of madness the moment he marks any curious eye bent upon him. Let him who has never loved and revered a mother, call such melancholy weakness. He has indeed done nothing towards the fulfilment of his vow; but the way in which he made the vow, the terms in which he exacted from his companions their promise of silence, and his scheme for eluding suspicion, combine to show that from the first he perceived its fulfilment would be hard, saw the obstacles in his way, and knew it would require both time and caution. That even in the first rush of his wrath he should thus be aware of difficulty, indicates moral symmetry; but the full weight of what lay in his path could appear to him only upon reflection. Partly in the light of passages yet to come, I will imagine the further course of his thoughts, which the closing couplet of the first act shows as having already begun to apale 'the native hue of resolution.'

'But how shall I take vengeance on my uncle? Shall I publicly accuse him, or slay him at once? In the one case what answer can I make to his denial? in the other, what justification can I offer? If I say the spirit of my father accuses him, what proof can I bring? My companions only saw the apparition--heard no word from him; and my uncle's party will assert, with absolute likelihood to the minds of those who do not know me--and who here knows me but my mother!--that charge is a mere coinage of jealous disappointment, working upon the melancholy I have not cared to hide. (174-6.) When I act, it must be to kill him, and to what misconstruction shall I not expose myself! (272) If the thing must so be, I must brave all; but I could never present myself thereafter as successor to the crown of one whom I had first slain and then vilified on the accusation of an apparition whom no one heard but myself! I must find _proof_--such proof as will satisfy others as well as myself. My immediate duty is _evidence_, not vengeance.'

We have seen besides, that, when informed of the haunting presence of the Ghost, he expected the apparition with not a little doubt as to its authenticity--a doubt which, even when he saw it, did not immediately vanish: is it any wonder that when the apparition was gone, the doubt should return? Return it did, in accordance with the reaction which waits upon all high-strung experience. If he did not believe in the person who performed it, would any man long believe in any miracle? Hamlet soon begins to question whether he can with confidence accept the appearance for that which it appeared and asserted itself to be. He steps over to the stand-point of his judges, and doubts the only testimony he has to produce. Far more:--was he not bound in common humanity, not to say _filialness_, to doubt it? To doubt the Ghost, was to doubt a testimony which to accept was to believe his father in horrible suffering, his uncle a murderer, his mother at least an adulteress; to kill his uncle was to set his seal to the whole, and, besides, to bring his mother into frightful suspicion of complicity in his father's murder. Ought not the faintest shadow of a doubt, assuaging ever so little the glare of the hell-sun of such crime, to be welcome to the tortured heart? Wretched wife and woman as his mother had shown herself, the Ghost would have him think her far worse--perhaps, even accessory to her husband's murder! For action he _must_ have proof!

At the same time, what every one knew of his mother, coupled now with the mere idea of the Ghost's accusation, wrought in him such misery, roused in him so many torturing and unanswerable questions, so blotted the face of the universe and withered the heart of hope, that he could not but doubt whether, in such a world of rogues and false women, it was worth his while to slay one villain out of the swarm.

Ophelia's behaviour to him, in obedience to her father, of which she gives him no explanation, has added 'the pangs of disprized love,' and increased his doubts of woman-kind. 120.

But when his imagination, presenting afresh the awful interview, brings him more immediately under the influence of the apparition and its behest, he is for the moment delivered both from the stunning effect of its communication and his doubt of its truth; forgetting then the considerations that have wrought in him, he accuses himself of remissness, blames himself grievously for his delay. Soon, however, his senses resume their influence, and he doubts again. So goes the mill-round of his thoughts, with the revolving of many wheels.

His whole conscious nature is frightfully shaken: he would be the poor creature most of his critics would make of him, were it otherwise; it is because of his greatness that he suffers so terribly, and doubts so much. A mother's crime is far more paralyzing than a father's murder is stimulating; and either he has not set himself in thorough earnest to find the proof he needs, or he has as yet been unable to think of any serviceable means to the end, when the half real, half simulated emotion of the Player yet again rouses in him the sense of remissness, leads him to accuse himself of forgotten obligation and heartlessness, and simultaneously suggests a device for putting the Ghost and his words to the test. Instantly he seizes the chance: when a thing has to be done, and can be done, Hamlet is _never_ wanting--shows himself the very promptest of men.

In the last passage of this act I do not take it that he is expressing an idea then first occurring to him: that the whole thing may be a snare of the devil is a doubt with which during weeks he has been familiar.

The delay through which, in utter failure to comprehend his character, he has been so miserably misjudged, falls really between the first and second acts, although it seems in the regard of most readers to underlie and protract the whole play. Its duration is measured by the journey of the ambassadors to and from the neighbouring kingdom of Norway.

It is notably odd, by the way, that those who accuse Hamlet of inaction, are mostly the same who believe his madness a reality! In truth, however, his affected madness is one of the strongest signs of his activity, and his delay one of the strongest proofs of his sanity.

This second act, the third act, and a part always given to the fourth, but which really belongs to the third, occupy in all only one day.

[Footnote 1: Here follows in _1st Q._

confest a murder Committed long before. This spirit that I haue seene may be the Diuell, And out of my weakenesse and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such men, Doth seeke to damne me, I will haue sounder proofes, The play's the thing, &c.]

[Footnote 2:

'Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;' &c.

_Macbeth_, iii. 4.]

[Footnote 3: In the _1st Q._ Hamlet, speaking to Horatio (l 37), says,

And if he doe not bleach, and change at that,--

_Bleach_ is radically the same word as _blench_:--to bleach, to blanch, to blench--_to grow white_.]

[Footnote 4: Emphasis on _May_, as resuming previous doubtful thought and suspicion.]

[Footnote 5: --caused from the first by his mother's behaviour, not constitutional.]

[Footnote 6: --'such conditions of the spirits'.]

[Footnote 7: Here is one element in the very existence of the preceding act: doubt as to the facts of the case has been throughout operating to restrain him; and here first he reveals, perhaps first recognizes its influence. Subject to change of feeling with the wavering of conviction, he now for a moment regards his uncertainty as involving unnatural distrust of a being in whose presence he cannot help _feeling_ him his father. He was familiar with the lore of the supernatural, and knew the doubt he expresses to be not without support.--His companions as well had all been in suspense as to the identity of the apparition with the late king.]

[Page 116]

_Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance, Guildenstern, and Lords._[1] [Sidenote: Guyldensterne, Lords.]

[Sidenote: 72] _King._ And can you by no drift of circumstance [Sidenote: An can | of conference] Get from him why he puts on[2] this Confusion: Grating so harshly all his dayes of quiet With turbulent and dangerous Lunacy.

_Rosin._ He does confesse he feeles himselfe distracted, [Sidenote: 92] But from what cause he will by no meanes speake. [Sidenote: a will]

_Guil._ Nor do we finde him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty Madnesse[3] keepes aloofe: When we would bring him on to some Confession Of his true state.

_Qu._ Did he receiue you well?

_Rosin._ Most like a Gentleman.

_Guild._ But with much forcing of his disposition.[4]

_Rosin._ Niggard of question, but of our demands Most free in his reply.[5]

_Qu._ Did you assay him to any pastime?

_Rosin._ Madam, it so fell out, that certaine Players We ore-wrought on the way: of these we told him, [Sidenote: ore-raught[6]] And there did seeme in him a kinde of ioy To heare of it: They are about the Court, [Sidenote: are heere about] And (as I thinke) they haue already order This night to play before him.

_Pol._ 'Tis most true; And he beseech'd me to intreate your Majesties To heare, and see the matter.

_King._ With all my heart, and it doth much content me To heare him so inclin'd. Good Gentlemen,

[Footnote 1: This may be regarded as the commencement of the Third Act.]

[Footnote 2: The phrase seems to imply a doubt of the genuineness of the lunacy.]

[Footnote 3: _Nominative pronoun omitted here._]

[Footnote 4: He has noted, without understanding them, the signs of Hamlet's suspicion of themselves.]

[Footnote 5: Compare the seemingly opposite statements of the two: Hamlet had bewildered them.]

[Foonote 6: _over-reached_--came up with, caught up, overtook.]

[Page 118]

Giue him a further edge,[1] and driue his purpose on [Sidenote: purpose into these] To these delights.

_Rosin._ We shall my Lord. _Exeunt._ [Sidenote: _Exeunt Ros. & Guyl._]

_King._ Sweet Gertrude leaue vs too, [Sidenote: Gertrard | two] For we haue closely sent for _Hamlet_ hither, [Sidenote: 84] That he, as 'twere by accident, may there [Sidenote: heere] Affront[2] _Ophelia_. Her Father, and my selfe[3] (lawful espials)[4] Will so bestow our selues, that seeing vnseene We may of their encounter frankely iudge, And gather by him, as he is behaued, If't be th'affliction of his loue, or no, That thus he suffers for.

_Qu._ I shall obey you, And for your part _Ophelia_,[5] I do wish That your good Beauties be the happy cause Of _Hamlets_ wildenesse: so shall I hope your Vertues [Sidenote: 240] Will bring him to his wonted way againe, To both your Honors.[6]

_Ophe._ Madam, I wish it may.

_Pol. Ophelia_, walke you heere. Gracious so please ye[7] [Sidenote: you,] We will bestow our selues: Reade on this booke,[8] That shew of such an exercise may colour Your lonelinesse.[9] We are oft too blame in this,[10] [Sidenote: lowlines:] 'Tis too much prou'd, that with Deuotions visage, And pious Action, we do surge o're [Sidenote: sugar] The diuell himselfe.

[Sidenote: 161] _King._ Oh 'tis true: [Sidenote: tis too true] How smart a lash that speech doth giue my Conscience? The Harlots Cheeke beautied with plaist'ring Art Is not more vgly to the thing that helpes it,[11] Then is my deede, to my most painted word.[12] Oh heauie burthen![13]

[Footnote 1: '_edge_ him on'--somehow corrupted into _egg_.]

[Footnote 2: _confront_.]

[Footnote 3: _Clause in parenthesis not in Q._]

[Footnote 4: --apologetic to the queen.]

[Footnote 5: --_going up to Ophelia_--I would say, who stands at a little distance, and has not heard what has been passing between them.]

[Footnote 6: The queen encourages Ophelia in hoping to marry Hamlet, and may so have a share in causing a certain turn her madness takes.]

[Footnote 7: --_aside to the king_.]

[Footnote 8: --_to Ophelia:_ her prayer-book. 122.]

[Footnote 9: _1st Q._

And here _Ofelia_, reade you on this booke, And walke aloofe, the King shal be vnseene.]

[Footnote 10: --_aside to the king._ I insert these _asides_, and suggest the queen's going up to Ophelia, to show how we may easily hold Ophelia ignorant of their plot. Poor creature as she was, I would believe Shakspere did not mean her to lie to Hamlet. This may be why he omitted that part of her father's speech in the _1st Q._ given in the note immediately above, telling her the king is going to hide. Still, it would be excuse enough for _her_, that she thought his madness justified the deception.]

[Footnote 11: --ugly to the paint that helps by hiding it--to which it lies so close, and from which it has no secrets. Or, 'ugly to' may mean, 'ugly _compared with_.']

[Footnote 12: 'most painted'--_very much painted_. His painted word is the paint to the deed. _Painted_ may be taken for _full of paint_.]

[Footnote 13: This speech of the king is the first _assurance_ we have of his guilt.]

[Page 120]

_Pol._ I heare him comming, let's withdraw my Lord. [Sidenote: comming, with-draw] _Exeunt._[1]

_Enter Hamlet._[2]

_Ham._ To be, or not to be, that is the Question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune, [Sidenote: 200,250] Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,[3] And by opposing end them:[4] to dye, to sleepe No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation Deuoutly to be wish'd.[5] To dye to sleepe, To sleepe, perchance to Dreame;[6] I, there's the rub, For in that sleepe of death, what[7] dreames may come,[8] When we haue shuffle'd off this mortall coile, [Sidenote: 186] Must giue vs pawse.[9] There's the respect That makes Calamity of so long life:[10] For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely, [Sidenote: proude mans] [Sidenote: 114] The pangs of dispriz'd Loue,[11] the Lawes delay, [Sidenote: despiz'd] The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes That patient merit of the vnworthy takes, [Sidenote: th'] When he himselfe might his _Quietus_ make [Sidenote: 194,252-3] With a bare Bodkin?[12] Who would these Fardles beare[13] [Sidenote: would fardels] To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life, [Sidenote: 194] But that the dread of something after death,[14] The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne No Traueller returnes,[15] Puzels the will, And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue, Then flye to others that we know not of. Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,[16] [Sidenote: 30] And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution[17] Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,[18] [Sidenote: sickled]

[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._--They go behind the tapestry, where it hangs over the recess of the doorway. Ophelia thinks they have left the room.]

[Footnote 2: _In Q. before last speech._]

[Footnote 3: Perhaps to a Danish or Dutch critic, or one from the eastern coast of England, this simile would not seem so unfit as it does to some.]

[Footnote 4: To print this so as I would have it read, I would complete this line from here with points, and commence the next with points. At the other breaks of the soliloquy, as indicated below, I would do the same--thus:

And by opposing end them.... ....To die--to sleep,]

[Footnote 5: _Break_.]

[Footnote 6: _Break_.]

[Footnote 7: Emphasis on _what_.]

[Footnote 8: Such dreams as the poor Ghost's.]

[Footnote 9: _Break._ --'_pawse_' is the noun, and from its use at page 186, we may judge it means here 'pause for reflection.']

[Footnote 10: 'makes calamity so long-lived.']

[Footnote 11: --not necessarily disprized by the _lady_; the disprizer in Hamlet's case was the worldly and suspicious father--and that in part, and seemingly to Hamlet altogether, for the king's sake.]

[Footnote 12: _small sword_. If there be here any allusion to suicide, it is on the general question, and with no special application to himself. 24. But it is the king and the bare bodkin his thought associates. How could he even glance at the things he has just mentioned, as each, a reason for suicide? It were a cowardly country indeed where the question might be asked, 'Who would not commit suicide because of any one of these things, except on account of what may follow after death?'! One might well, however, be tempted to destroy an oppressor, _and risk his life in that._]

[Footnote 13: _Fardel_, burden: the old French for _fardeau_, I am informed.]

[Footnote 14: --a dread caused by conscience.]

[Footnote 15: The Ghost could not be imagined as having _returned_.]

[Footnote 16: 'of us all' _not in Q._ It is not the fear of evil that makes us cowards, but the fear of _deserved_ evil. The Poet may intend that conscience alone is the cause of fear in man. '_Coward_' does not here involve contempt: it should be spoken with a grim smile. But Hamlet would hardly call turning from _suicide_ cowardice in any sense. 24.]

[Footnote 17: --such as was his when he vowed vengeance.]

[Footnote 18: --such as immediately followed on that The _native_ hue of resolution--that which is natural to man till interruption comes--is ruddy; the hue of thought is pale. I suspect the '_pale cast_' of an allusion to whitening with _rough-cast_.]

[Page 122]

And enterprizes of great pith and moment,[1] [Sidenote: pitch [1]] With this regard their Currants turne away, [Sidenote: awry] And loose the name of Action.[2] Soft you now, [Sidenote: 119] The faire _Ophelia_? Nimph, in thy Orizons[3] Be all my sinnes remembred.[4]

_Ophe._ Good my Lord, How does your Honor for this many a day?

_Ham._ I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.[5]

_Ophe._ My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours, That I haue longed long to re-deliuer. I pray you now, receiue them.

_Ham._ No, no, I neuer gaue you ought.[6] [Sidenote: No, not I, I never]

_Ophe._ My honor'd Lord, I know right well you did, [Sidenote: you know] And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd, As made the things more rich, then perfume left: [Sidenote: these things | their perfume lost.[7]] Take these againe, for to the Noble minde Rich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde. There my Lord.[8]

_Ham._ Ha, ha: Are you honest?[9]

_Ophe._ My Lord.

_Ham._ Are you faire?

_Ophe._ What meanes your Lordship?

_Ham._ That if you be honest and faire, your [Sidenote: faire, you should admit] Honesty[10] should admit no discourse to your Beautie.

_Ophe._ Could Beautie my Lord, haue better Comerce[11] then your Honestie?[12] [Sidenote: Then with honestie?[11]]

_Ham._ I trulie: for the power of Beautie, will sooner transforme Honestie from what it is, to a Bawd, then the force of Honestie can translate Beautie into his likenesse. This was sometime a Paradox, but now the time giues it proofe. I did loue you once.[13]

_Ophe._ Indeed my Lord, you made me beleeue so.

[Footnote 1: How could _suicide_ be styled _an enterprise of great pith_? Yet less could it be called _of great pitch_.]

[Footnote 2: I allow this to be a general reflection, but surely it serves to show that _conscience_ must at least be one of Hamlet's restraints.]

[Footnote 3: --by way of intercession.]

[Footnote 4: Note the entire change of mood from that of the last soliloquy. The right understanding of this soliloquy is indispensable to the right understanding of Hamlet. But we are terribly trammelled and hindered, as in the understanding of Hamlet throughout, so here in the understanding of his meditation, by traditional assumption. I was roused to think in the right direction concerning it, by the honoured friend and relative to whom I have feebly acknowledged my obligation by dedicating to him this book. I could not at first see it as he saw it: 'Think about it, and you will,' he said. I did think, and by degrees--not very quickly--my prejudgments thinned, faded, and almost vanished. I trust I see it now as a whole, and in its true relations, internal and external--its relations to itself, to the play, and to the Hamlet, of Shakspere.

Neither in its first verse, then, nor in it anywhere else, do I find even an allusion to suicide. What Hamlet is referring to in the said first verse, it is not possible with certainty to determine, for it is but the vanishing ripple of a preceding ocean of thought, from which he is just stepping out upon the shore of the articulate. He may have been plunged in some profound depth of the metaphysics of existence, or he may have been occupied with the one practical question, that of the slaying of his uncle, which has, now in one form, now in another, haunted his spirit for weeks. Perhaps, from the message he has just received, he expects to meet the king, and conscience, confronting temptation, has been urging the necessity of proof; perhaps a righteous consideration of consequences, which sometimes have share in the primary duty, has been making him shrink afresh from the shedding of blood, for every thoughtful mind recoils from the irrevocable, and that is an awful form of the irrevocable. But whatever thought, general or special, this first verse may be dismissing, we come at once thereafter into the light of a definite question: 'Which is nobler--to endure evil fortune, or to oppose it _à outrance_; to bear in passivity, or to resist where resistance is hopeless--resist to the last--to the death which is its unavoidable end?'

Then comes a pause, during which he is thinking--we will not say 'too precisely on the event,' but taking his account with consequences: the result appears in the uttered conviction that the extreme possible consequence, death, is a good and not an evil. Throughout, observe, how here, as always, he generalizes, himself being to himself but the type of his race.

Then follows another pause, during which he seems prosecuting the thought, for he has already commenced further remark in similar strain, when suddenly a new and awful element introduces itself:

....To die--to sleep.-- --To _sleep_! perchance to _dream_!

He had been thinking of death only as the passing away of the present with its troubles; here comes the recollection that death has its own troubles--its own thoughts, its own consciousness: if it be a sleep, it has its dreams. '_What dreams may come_' means, 'the sort of dreams that may come'; the emphasis is on the _what_, not on the _may_; there is no question whether dreams will come, but there is question of the character of the dreams. This consideration is what makes calamity so long-lived! 'For who would bear the multiform ills of life'--he alludes to his own wrongs, but mingles, in his generalizing way, others of those most common to humanity, and refers to the special cure for some of his own which was close to his hand--'who would bear these things if he could, as I can, make his quietus with a bare bodkin'--that is, by slaying his enemy--'who would then bear them, but that he fears the future, and the divine judgment upon his life and actions--that conscience makes a coward of him!'[14]

To run, not the risk of death, but the risks that attend upon and follow death, Hamlet must be certain of what he is about; he must be sure it is a right thing he does, or he will leave it undone. Compare his speech, 250, 'Does it not, &c.':--by the time he speaks this speech, he has had perfect proof, and asserts the righteousness of taking vengeance in almost an agony of appeal to Horatio.

The more continuous and the more formally logical a soliloquy, the less natural it is. The logic should be all there, but latent; the bones of it should not show: they do not show here.]

[Footnote 5: _One_ 'well' _only in Q._]

[Footnote 6: He does not want to take them back, and so sever even that weak bond between them. He has not given her up.]

[Footnote 7: The _Q._ reading seems best. The perfume of his gifts was the sweet words with which they were given; those words having lost their savour, the mere gifts were worth nothing.]

[Footnote 8: Released from the commands her father had laid upon her, and emboldened by the queen's approval of more than the old relation between them, she would timidly draw Hamlet back to the past--to love and a sound mind.]

[Footnote 9: I do not here suppose a noise or movement of the arras, or think that the talk from this point bears the mark of the madness he would have assumed on the least suspicion of espial. His distrust of Ophelia comes from a far deeper source--suspicion of all women, grown doubtful to him through his mother. Hopeless for her, he would give his life to know that Ophelia was not like her. Hence the cruel things he says to her here and elsewhere; they are the brood of a heart haunted with horrible, alas! too excusable phantoms of distrust. A man wretched as Hamlet must be forgiven for being rude; it is love suppressed, love that can neither breathe nor burn, that makes him rude. His horrid insinuations are a hungry challenge to indignant rejection. He would sting Ophelia to defence of herself and her sex. But, either from her love, or from gentleness to his supposed madness, as afterwards in the play-scene, or from the poverty and weakness of a nature so fathered and so brothered, she hears, and says nothing. 139.]

[Footnote 10: Honesty is here figured as a porter,--just after, as a porter that may be corrupted.]

[Footnote 11: If the _Folio_ reading is right, _commerce_ means _companionship_; if the _Quarto_ reading, then it means _intercourse_. Note _then_ constantly for our _than_.]

[Footnote 12: I imagine Ophelia here giving Hamlet a loving look--which hardens him. But I do not think she lays emphasis on _your_; the word is here, I take it, used (as so often then) impersonally.]

[Footnote 13: '--proof in you and me: _I_ loved _you_ once, but my honesty did not translate your beauty into its likeness.']

[Footnote 14: That the Great Judgement was here in Shakspere's thought, will be plain to those who take light from the corresponding passage in the _1st Quarto_. As it makes an excellent specimen of that issue in the character I am most inclined to attribute to it--that of original sketch and continuous line of notes, with more or less finished passages in place among the notes--I will here quote it, recommending it to my student's attention. If it be what I suggest, it is clear that Shakspere had not at first altogether determined how he would carry the soliloquy--what line he was going to follow in it: here hope and fear contend for the place of motive to patience. The changes from it in the text are well worth noting: the religion is lessened: the hope disappears: were they too much of pearls to cast before 'barren spectators'? The manuscript could never have been meant for any eye but his own, seeing it was possible to print from it such a chaos--over which yet broods the presence of the formative spirit of the Poet.

_Ham._ To be, or not to be, I there's the point, To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all: No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes, For in that dreame of death, when wee awake, [Sidenote: 24, 247, 260] And borne before an euerlasting Iudge, From whence no passenger euer retur'nd, The vndiscouered country, at whose sight The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd. But for this, the ioyfull hope of this, Whol'd beare the scornes and flattery of the world, Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore? The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd, The taste of hunger, or a tirants raigne, And thousand more calamities besides, To grunt and sweate vnder this weary life, When that he may his full _Quietus_ make, With a bare bodkin, who would this indure, But for a hope of something after death? Which pulses the braine, and doth confound the sence, Which makes vs rather beare those euilles we haue, Than flie to others that we know not of. I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of vs all, Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembred.]

[Page 126]

_Ham._ You should not haue beleeued me. For vertue cannot so innocculate[1] our old stocke,[2] but we shall rellish of it.[3] I loued you not.[4]

_Ophe._ I was the more deceiued.

_Ham._ Get thee to a Nunnerie. Why would'st [Sidenote: thee a] thou be a breeder of Sinners? I am my selfe indifferent[5] [Sidenote: 132] honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things,[6] that it were better my Mother had [Sidenote: 62] not borne me,[7] I am very prowd, reuengefull, Ambitious, with more offences at my becke, then I haue thoughts to put them in imagination, to giue them shape, or time to acte them in. What should such Fellowes as I do, crawling betweene Heauen [Sidenote: earth and heauen] and Earth.[8] We are arrant Knaues all[10], beleeue none of vs.[9] Goe thy wayes to a Nunnery. Where's your Father?[11]

_Ophe._ At home, my Lord.[12]

_Ham._ Let the doores be shut vpon him, that he may play the Foole no way, but in's owne house.[13] [Sidenote: no where but] Farewell.[14]

_Ophe._ O helpe him, you sweet Heauens.

_Ham._[15] If thou doest Marry, Ile giue thee this Plague for thy Dowrie. Be thou as chast as Ice, as pure as Snow, thou shalt not escape Calumny.[16] Get thee to a Nunnery. Go,[17] Farewell.[18] Or if thou wilt needs Marry, marry a fool: for Wise men know well enough, what monsters[19] you make of them. To a Nunnery go, and quickly too. Farwell.[20]

_Ophe._ O[21] heauenly Powers, restore him.

_Ham._[22] I haue heard of your pratlings[23] too wel [Sidenote: your paintings well] enough. God has giuen you one pace,[23] and you [Sidenote: hath | one face,] make your selfe another: you gidge, you amble, [Sidenote: selfes | you gig and amble, and] and you lispe, and nickname Gods creatures, and [Sidenote: you list you nickname] make your Wantonnesse, your[24] Ignorance.[25] Go

[Footnote 1: 'inoculate'--_bud_, in the horticultural use.]

[Footnote 2: _trunk_ or _stem_ of the family tree.]

[Footnote 3: Emphasis on _relish_--'keep something of the old flavour of the stock.']

[Footnote 4: He tries her now with denying his love--perhaps moved in part by a feeling, taught by his mother's, of how imperfect it was.]

[Footnote 5: tolerably.]

[Footnote 6: He turns from baiting woman in her to condemn himself. Is it not the case with every noble nature, that the knowledge of wrong in another arouses in it the consciousness of its own faults and sins, of its own evil possibilities? Hurled from the heights of ideal humanity, Hamlet not only recognizes in himself every evil tendency of his race, but almost feels himself individually guilty of every transgression. 'God, God, forgive us all!' exclaims the doctor who has just witnessed the misery of Lady Macbeth, unveiling her guilt.

This whole speech of Hamlet is profoundly sane--looking therefore altogether insane to the shallow mind, on which the impression of its insanity is deepened by its coming from him so freely. The common nature disappointed rails at humanity; Hamlet, his earthly ideal destroyed, would tear his individual human self to pieces.]

[Footnote 7: This we may suppose uttered with an expression as startling to Ophelia as impenetrable.]

[Footnote 8: He is disgusted with himself, with his own nature and consciousness--]

[Footnote 9: --and this reacts on his kind.]

[Footnote 10: 'all' _not in Q._]

[Footnote 11: Here, perhaps, he grows suspicious--asks himself why he is allowed this prolonged _tête à tête_.]

[Footnote 12: I am willing to believe she thinks so.]

[Footnote 13: Whether he trusts Ophelia or not, he does not take her statement for correct, and says this in the hope that Polonius is not too far off to hear it. The speech is for him, not for Ophelia, and will seem to her to come only from his madness.]

[Footnote 14: _Exit_.]

[Footnote 15: (_re-entering_)]

[Footnote 16: 'So many are bad, that your virtue will not be believed in.']

[Footnote 17: 'Go' _not in Q._]

[Footnote 18: _Exit, and re-enter._]

[Footnote 19: _Cornuti._]

[Footnote 20: _Exit._]

[Footnote 21: 'O' _not in Q._]

[Footnote 22: (_re-entering_)]

[Footnote 23: I suspect _pratlings_ to be a corruption, not of the printed _paintings_, but of some word substituted for it by the Poet, perhaps _prancings_, and _pace_ to be correct.]

[Footnote 24: 'your' _not in Q._]

[Footnote 25: As the present type to him of womankind, he assails her with such charges of lightness as are commonly brought against women. He does not go farther: she is not his mother, and he hopes she is innocent. But he cannot make her speak!]

[Page 128]

too, Ile no more on't, it hath made me mad. I say, we will haue no more Marriages.[1] Those that are [Sidenote: no mo marriage,] married already,[2] all but one shall liue, the rest shall keep as they are. To a Nunnery, go.

_Exit Hamlet_. [Sidenote: _Exit_]

[3]_Ophe._ O what a Noble minde is heere o're-throwne? The Courtiers, Soldiers, Schollers: Eye, tongue, sword, Th'expectansie and Rose[4] of the faire State, [Sidenote: Th' expectation,] The glasse of Fashion,[5] and the mould of Forme,[6] Th'obseru'd of all Obseruers, quite, quite downe. Haue I of Ladies most deiect and wretched, [Sidenote: And I of] That suck'd the Honie of his Musicke Vowes: [Sidenote: musickt] Now see that Noble, and most Soueraigne Reason, [Sidenote: see what] Like sweet Bels iangled out of tune, and harsh,[7] [Sidenote: out of time] That vnmatch'd Forme and Feature of blowne youth,[8] [Sidenote: and stature of] Blasted with extasie.[9] Oh woe is me, T'haue scene what I haue scene: see what I see.[10] [Sidenote: _Exit_.]

_Enter King, and Polonius_.

_King_. Loue? His affections do not that way tend, Nor what he spake, though it lack'd Forme a little, [Sidenote: Not] Was not like Madnesse.[11] There's something in his soule? O're which his Melancholly sits on brood, And I do doubt the hatch, and the disclose[12] Will be some danger,[11] which to preuent [Sidenote: which for to] I haue in quicke determination [Sidenote: 138, 180] Thus set it downe. He shall with speed to England For the demand of our neglected Tribute: Haply the Seas and Countries different

[Footnote 1: 'The thing must be put a stop to! the world must cease! it is not fit to go on.']

[Footnote 2: 'already--(_aside_) all but one--shall live.']

[Footnote 3: _1st Q_.

_Ofe._ Great God of heauen, what a quicke change is this? The Courtier, Scholler, Souldier, all in him, All dasht and splinterd thence, O woe is me, To a seene what I haue seene, see what I see. _Exit_.

To his cruel words Ophelia is impenetrable--from the conviction that not he but his madness speaks.

The moment he leaves her, she breaks out in such phrase as a young girl would hardly have used had she known that the king and her father were listening. I grant, however, the speech may be taken as a soliloquy audible to the spectators only, who to the persons of a play are _but_ the spiritual presences.]

[Footnote 4: 'The hope and flower'--The _rose_ is not unfrequently used in English literature as the type of perfection.]

[Footnote 5: 'he by whom Fashion dressed herself'--_he who set the fashion_. His great and small virtues taken together, Hamlet makes us think of Sir Philip Sidney--ten years older than Shakspere, and dead sixteen years before _Hamlet_ was written.]

[Footnote 6: 'he after whose ways, or modes of behaviour, men shaped theirs'--therefore the mould in which their forms were cast;--_the object of universal imitation_.]

[Footnote 7: I do not know whether this means--the peal rung without regard to tune or time--or--the single bell so handled that the tongue checks and jars the vibration. In some country places, I understand, they go about ringing a set of hand-bells.]

[Footnote 8: youth in full blossom.]

[Footnote 9: madness 177.]

[Footnote 10: 'to see now such a change from what I saw then.']

[Footnote 11: The king's conscience makes him keen. He is, all through, doubtful of the madness.]

[Footnote 12: --of the fact- or fancy-egg on which his melancholy sits brooding]

[Page 130]

With variable Obiects, shall expell This something setled matter[1] in his heart Whereon his Braines still beating, puts him thus From[2] fashion of himselfe. What thinke you on't?

_Pol_. It shall do well. But yet do I beleeue The Origin and Commencement of this greefe [Sidenote: his greefe,] Sprung from neglected loue.[3] How now _Ophelia_? You neede not tell vs, what Lord _Hamlet_ saide, We heard it all.[4] My Lord, do as you please, But if you hold it fit after the Play, Let his Queene Mother all alone intreat him To shew his Greefes: let her be round with him, [Sidenote: griefe,] And Ile be plac'd so, please you in the eare Of all their Conference. If she finde him not,[5] To England send him: Or confine him where Your wisedome best shall thinke.

_King_. It shall be so: Madnesse in great Ones, must not vnwatch'd go.[6] [Sidenote: unmatched] _Exeunt_.

_Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players_. [Sidenote: _and three_]

_Ham_.[7] Speake the Speech I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you trippingly[8] on the Tongue: But if you mouth it, as many of your Players do, [Sidenote: of our Players] I had as liue[9] the Town-Cryer had spoke my [Sidenote: cryer spoke] Lines:[10] Nor do not saw the Ayre too much your [Sidenote: much with] hand thus, but vse all gently; for in the verie Torrent, Tempest, and (as I may say) the Whirlewinde [Sidenote: say, whirlwind] of Passion, you must acquire and beget a [Sidenote: of your] Temperance that may giue it Smoothnesse.[11] O it offends mee to the Soule, to see a robustious Perywig-pated [Sidenote: to heare a] Fellow, teare a Passion to tatters, to [Sidenote: totters,] verie ragges, to split the eares of the Groundlings:[12] [Sidenote: spleet] who (for the most part) are capeable[13] of nothing, but inexplicable dumbe shewes,[14] and noise:[15] I could haue such a Fellow whipt for o're-doing [Sidenote: would]

[Footnote 1: 'something of settled matter'--_idée fixe_.]

[Footnote 2: '_away from_ his own true likeness'; 'makes him so unlike himself.']

[Footnote 3: Polonius is crestfallen, but positive.]

[Footnote 4: This supports the notion of Ophelia's ignorance of the espial. Polonius thinks she is about to disclose what has passed, and _informs_ her of its needlessness. But it _might_ well enough be taken as only an assurance of the success of their listening--that they had heard without difficulty.]

[Footnote 5: 'If she do not find him out': a comparable phrase, common at the time, was, _Take me with you_, meaning, _Let me understand you_.

Polonius, for his daughter's sake, and his own in her, begs for him another chance.]

[Footnote 6: 'in the insignificant, madness may roam the country, but in the great it must be watched.' The _unmatcht_ of the _Quarto_ might bear the meaning of _countermatched_.]

[Footnote 7: I should suggest this exhortation to the Players introduced with the express purpose of showing how absolutely sane Hamlet was, could I believe that Shakspere saw the least danger of Hamlet's pretence being mistaken for reality.]

[Footnote 8: He would have neither blundering nor emphasis such as might rouse too soon the king's suspicion, or turn it into certainty.]

[Footnote 9: 'liue'--_lief_]

[Footnote 10: 1st Q.:--

I'de rather heare a towne bull bellow, Then such a fellow speake my lines.

_Lines_ is a player-word still.]

[Footnote 11: --smoothness such as belongs to the domain of Art, and will both save from absurdity, and allow the relations with surroundings to manifest themselves;--harmoniousness, which is the possibility of co-existence.]

[Footnote 12: those on the ground--that is, in the pit; there was no gallery then.]

[Footnote 13: _receptive_.]

[Footnote 14: --gestures extravagant and unintelligible as those of a dumb show that could not by the beholder be interpreted; gestures incorrespondent to the words.

A _dumb show_ was a stage-action without words.]

[Footnote 15: Speech that is little but rant, and scarce related to the sense, is hardly better than a noise; it might, for the purposes of art, as well be a sound inarticulate.]

[Page 132]

Termagant[1]: it out-Herod's Herod[2] Pray you auoid it.

_Player._ I warrant your Honor.

_Ham._ Be not too tame neyther: but let your owne Discretion be your Tutor. Sute the Action to the Word, the Word to the Action, with this speciall obseruance: That you ore-stop not the [Sidenote: ore-steppe] modestie of Nature; for any thing so ouer-done, [Sidenote ore-doone] is fro[3] the purpose of Playing, whose end both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twer the Mirrour vp to Nature; to shew Vertue her owne [Sidenote: her feature;] Feature, Scorne[4] her owne Image, and the verie Age and Bodie of the Time, his forme and pressure.[5] Now, this ouer-done, or come tardie off,[6] though it make the vnskilfull laugh, cannot but make the [Sidenote: it makes] Iudicious greeue; The censure of the which One,[7] [Sidenote: of which one] must in your allowance[8] o're-way a whole Theater of Others. Oh, there bee Players that I haue scene Play, and heard others praise, and that highly [Sidenote: praysd,] (not to speake it prophanely) that neyther hauing the accent of Christians, nor the gate of Christian, Pagan, or Norman, haue so strutted and bellowed, [Sidenote: Pagan, nor man, haue] that I haue thought some of Natures Iouerney-men had made men, and not made them well, they imitated Humanity so abhominably.[9]

[Sidenote: 126] _Play._ I hope we haue reform'd that indifferently[10] with vs, Sir.

_Ham._ O reforme it altogether. And let those that play your Clownes, speake no more then is set downe for them.[12] For there be of them, that will themselues laugh, to set on some quantitie of barren Spectators to laugh too, though in the meane time, some necessary Question of the Play be then to be considered:[12] that's Villanous, and shewes a most pittifull Ambition in the Fool that vses it.[13] Go make you readie. _Exit Players_

[Footnote 1: 'An imaginary God of the Mahometans, represented as a most violent character in the old Miracle-plays and Moralities.'--_Sh. Lex._]

[Footnote 2: 'represented as a swaggering tyrant in the old dramatic performances.'--_Sh. Lex._]

[Footnote 3: _away from_: inconsistent with.]

[Footnote 4: --that which is deserving of scorn.]

[Footnote 5: _impression_, as on wax. Some would persuade us that Shakspere's own plays do not do this; but such critics take the _accidents_ or circumstances of a time for the _body_ of it--the clothes for the person. _Human_ nature is 'Nature,' however _dressed_.

There should be a comma after 'Age.']

[Footnote 6: 'laggingly represented'--A word belonging to _time_ is substituted for a word belonging to _space_:--'this over-done, or inadequately effected'; 'this over-done, or under-done.']

[Footnote 7: 'and the judgment of such a one.' '_the which_' seems equivalent to _and--such_.]

[Footnote 8: 'must, you will grant.']

[Footnote 9: Shakspere may here be playing with a false derivation, as I was myself when the true was pointed out to me--fancying _abominable_ derived from _ab_ and _homo_. If so, then he means by the phrase: 'they imitated humanity so from the nature of man, so _inhumanly_.']

[Footnote 10: tolerably.]

[Footnote 11: 'Sir' _not in Q._]

[Footnote 12: Shakspere must have himself suffered from such clowns: Coleridge thinks some of their _gag_ has crept into his print.]

[Footnote 13: Here follow in the _1st Q._ several specimens of such a clown's foolish jests and behaviour.]

[Page 134]

_Enter Polonius, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne_.[1] [Sidenote: _Guyldensterne, & Rosencraus_.]

How now my Lord, Will the King heare this peece of Worke?

_Pol_. And the Queene too, and that presently.[2]

_Ham_. Bid the Players make hast.

_Exit Polonius_.[3]

Will you two helpe to hasten them?[4]

_Both_. We will my Lord. _Exeunt_. [Sidenote: _Ros_. I my Lord. _Exeunt they two_.]

_Enter Horatio_[5]

_Ham_. What hoa, _Horatio_? [Sidenote: What howe,]

_Hora_. Heere sweet Lord, at your Seruice.

[Sidenote: 26] _Ham_.[7] _Horatio_, thou art eene as iust a man As ere my Conversation coap'd withall.

_Hora_. O my deere Lord.[6]

_Ham_.[7] Nay do not thinke I flatter: For what aduancement may I hope from thee,[8] That no Reuennew hast, but thy good spirits To feed and cloath thee. Why shold the poor be flatter'd? No, let the Candied[9] tongue, like absurd pompe, [Sidenote: licke] And crooke the pregnant Hindges of the knee,[10] Where thrift may follow faining? Dost thou heare, [Sidenote: fauning;] Since my deere Soule was Mistris of my choyse;[11] [Sidenote: her choice,] And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for her selfe. For thou hast bene [Sidenote: S'hath seald] [Sidenote: 272] As one in suffering all, that suffers nothing. A man that Fortunes buffets, and Rewards Hath 'tane with equall Thankes. And blest are those, [Sidenote: Hast] Whose Blood and Iudgement are so well co-mingled, [Sidenote: comedled,[12]] [Sidenote: 26] That they are not a Pipe for Fortunes finger, To sound what stop she please.[13] Giue me that man, That is not Passions Slaue,[14] and I will weare him In my hearts Core: I, in my Heart of heart,[15] As I do thee. Something too much of this.[16]

[Footnote 1: _In Q. at end of speech._]

[Footnote 2: He humours Hamlet as if he were a child.]

[Footnote 3: _Not in Q._]

[Footnote 4: He has sent for Horatio, and is expecting him.]

[Footnote 5: _In Q. after next speech._]

[Footnote 6: --repudiating the praise.]

[Footnote 7: To know a man, there is scarce a readier way than to hear him talk of his friend--why he loves, admires, chooses him. The Poet here gives us a wide window into Hamlet. So genuine is his respect for _being_, so indifferent is he to _having_, that he does not shrink, in argument for his own truth, from reminding his friend to his face that, being a poor man, nothing is to be gained from him--nay, from telling him that it is through his poverty he has learned to admire him, as a man of courage, temper, contentment, and independence, with nothing but his good spirits for an income--a man whose manhood is dominant both over his senses and over his fortune--a true Stoic. He describes an ideal man, then clasps the ideal to his bosom as his own, in the person of his friend. Only a great man could so worship another, choosing him for such qualities; and hereby Shakspere shows us his Hamlet--a brave, noble, wise, pure man, beset by circumstances the most adverse conceivable. That Hamlet had not misapprehended Horatio becomes evident in the last scene of all. 272.]

[Footnote 8: The mother of flattery is self-advantage.]

[Footnote 9: _sugared_. _1st Q._:

Let flattery sit on those time-pleasing tongs; To glose with them that loues to heare their praise; And not with such as thou _Horatio_. There is a play to night, &c.]

[Footnote 10: A pregnant figure and phrase, requiring thought.]

[Footnote 11: 'since my real self asserted its dominion, and began to rule my choice,' making it pure, and withdrawing it from the tyranny of impulse and liking.]

[Footnote 12: The old word _medle_ is synonymous with _mingle._]

[Footnote 13: To Hamlet, the lordship of man over himself, despite of circumstance, is a truth, and therefore a duty.]

[Footnote 14: The man who has chosen his friend thus, is hardly himself one to act without sufficing reason, or take vengeance without certain proof of guilt.]

[Footnote 15: He justifies the phrase, repeating it.]

[Footnote 16: --apologetic for having praised him to his face.]

[Page 136]

There is a Play to night before the King, One Scoene of it comes neere the Circumstance Which I haue told thee, of my Fathers death. I prythee, when thou see'st that Acte a-foot,[1] Euen with the verie Comment of my[2] Soule [Sidenote: thy[2] soule] Obserue mine Vnkle: If his occulted guilt, [Sidenote: my Vncle,] Do not it selfe vnkennell in one speech, [Sidenote: 58] It is a damned Ghost that we haue seene:[3] And my Imaginations are as foule As Vulcans Stythe.[4] Giue him needfull note, [Sidenote: stithy; | heedfull] For I mine eyes will riuet to his Face: And after we will both our iudgements ioyne,[5] To censure of his seeming.[6] [Sidenote: in censure]

_Hora._ Well my Lord. If he steale ought the whil'st this Play is Playing. [Sidenote: if a] And scape detecting, I will pay the Theft.[1] [Sidenote: detected,]

_Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance, Guildensterne, and other Lords attendant with his Guard carrying Torches. Danish March. Sound a Flourish._ [Sidenote: _Enter Trumpets and Kettle Drummes, King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia._]

_Ham._ They are comming to the Play: I must [Sidenote: 60, 156, 178] be idle.[7] Get you a place.

_King._ How fares our Cosin _Hamlet_?

_Ham._ Excellent Ifaith, of the Camelions dish: [Sidenote: 154] I eate the Ayre promise-cramm'd,[8] you cannot feed Capons so.[9]

_King._ I haue nothing with this answer _Hamlet_, these words are not mine.[10]

_Ham._ No, nor mine. Now[11] my Lord, you plaid once i'th'Vniuersity, you say?

_Polon._ That I did my Lord, and was accounted [Sidenote: did I] a good Actor.

[Footnote 1: Here follows in _1st Q._

Marke thou the King, doe but obserue his lookes, For I mine eies will riuet to his face: [Sidenote: 112] And if he doe not bleach, and change at that, It is a damned ghost that we haue seene. _Horatio_, haue a care, obserue him well.

_Hor_. My lord, mine eies shall still be on his face, And not the smallest alteration That shall appeare in him, but I shall note it.]

[Footnote 2: I take 'my' to be right: 'watch my uncle with the comment--the discriminating judgment, that is--of _my_ soul, more intent than thine.']

[Footnote 3: He has then, ere this, taken Horatio into his confidence--so far at least as the Ghost's communication concerning the murder.]

[Footnote 4: a dissyllable: _stithy_, _anvil_; Scotch, _studdy_.

Hamlet's doubt is here very evident: he hopes he may find it a false ghost: what good man, what good son would not? He has clear cause and reason--it is his duty to delay. That the cause and reason and duty are not invariably clear to Hamlet himself--not clear in every mood, is another thing. Wavering conviction, doubt of evidence, the corollaries of assurance, the oppression of misery, a sense of the worthlessness of the world's whole economy--each demanding delay, might yet well, all together, affect the man's feeling as mere causes of rather than reasons for hesitation. The conscientiousness of Hamlet stands out the clearer that, throughout, his dislike to his uncle, predisposing him to believe any ill of him, is more than evident. By his incompetent or prejudiced judges, Hamlet's accusations and justifications of himself are equally placed to the _discredit_ of his account. They seem to think a man could never accuse himself except he were in the wrong; therefore if ever he excuses himself, he is the more certainly in the wrong: whatever point may tell on the other side, it is to be disregarded.]

[Footnote 5: 'bring our two judgments together for comparison.']

[Footnote 6: 'in order to judge of the significance of his looks and behaviour.']

[Footnote 7: Does he mean _foolish_, that is, _lunatic_? or _insouciant_, and _unpreoccupied_?]

[Footnote 8: The king asks Hamlet how he _fares_--that is, how he gets on; Hamlet pretends to think he has asked him about his diet. His talk has at once become wild; ere the king enters he has donned his cloak of madness. Here he confesses to ambition--will favour any notion concerning himself rather than give ground for suspecting the real state of his mind and feeling.

In the _1st Q._ 'the Camelions dish' almost appears to mean the play, not the king's promises.]

[Footnote 9: In some places they push food down the throats of the poultry they want to fatten, which is technically, I believe, called _cramming_ them.]

[Footnote 10: 'You have not taken me with you; I have not laid hold of your meaning; I have nothing by your answer.' 'Your words have not become my property; they have not given themselves to me in their meaning.']

[Footnote 11: _Point thus_: 'No, nor mine now.--My Lord,' &c. '--not mine, now I have uttered them, for so I have given them away.' Or does he mean to disclaim their purport?]

[Page 138]

_Ham._ And[1] what did you enact?

_Pol._ I did enact _Iulius Caesar_, I was kill'd i'th'Capitol: _Brutus_ kill'd me.

_Ham._ It was a bruite part of him, to kill so Capitall a Calfe there.[2] Be the Players ready?

_Rosin._ I my Lord, they stay vpon your patience.

_Qu._ Come hither my good _Hamlet_, sit by me. [Sidenote: my deere]

_Ham._ No good Mother, here's Mettle more attractiue.[3]

_Pol._ Oh ho, do you marke that?[4]

_Ham._ Ladie, shall I lye in your Lap?

_Ophe._ No my Lord.

_Ham._ I meane, my Head vpon your Lap?[5]

_Ophe._ I my Lord.[6]

_Ham._ Do you thinke I meant Country[7] matters?

_Ophe._ I thinke nothing, my Lord.

_Ham._ That's a faire thought to ly between Maids legs.

_Ophe._ What is my Lord?

_Ham._ Nothing.

_Ophe._ You are merrie, my Lord?

_Ham._ Who I?

_Ophe._ I my Lord.[8]

_Ham._ Oh God, your onely Iigge-maker[9]: what should a man do, but be merrie. For looke you how cheerefully my Mother lookes, and my Father dyed within's two Houres.

[Sidenote: 65] _Ophe._ Nay, 'tis twice two moneths, my Lord.[10]

_Ham._ So long? Nay then let the Diuel weare [Sidenote: 32] blacke, for Ile haue a suite of Sables.[11] Oh Heauens! dye two moneths ago, and not forgotten yet?[12] Then there's hope, a great mans Memorie, may out-liue his life halfe a yeare: But byrlady [Sidenote: ber Lady a] he must builde Churches then: or else shall he [Sidenote: shall a]

[Footnote 1: 'And ' _not in Q._]

[Footnote 2: Emphasis on _there_. 'There' is not in _1st Q._ Hamlet means it was a desecration of the Capitol.]

[Footnote 3: He cannot be familiar with his mother, so avoids her--will not sit by her, cannot, indeed, bear to be near her. But he loves and hopes in Ophelia still.]

[Footnote 4: '--Did I not tell you so?']

[Footnote 5: This speech and the next are not in the _Q._, but are shadowed in the _1st Q._]

[Footnote 6: _--consenting_.]

[Footnote 7: In _1st Quarto_, 'contrary.'

Hamlet hints, probing her character--hoping her unable to understand. It is the festering soreness of his feeling concerning his mother, making him doubt with the haunting agony of a loathed possibility, that prompts, urges, forces from him his ugly speeches--nowise to be justified, only to be largely excused in his sickening consciousness of his mother's presence. Such pain as Hamlet's, the ferment of subverted love and reverence, may lightly bear the blame of hideous manners, seeing, they spring from no wantonness, but from the writhing of tortured and helpless Purity. Good manners may be as impossible as out of place in the presence of shameless evil.]

[Footnote 8: Ophelia bears with him for his own and his madness' sake, and is less uneasy because of the presence of his mother. To account _satisfactorily_ for Hamlet's speeches to her, is not easy. The freer custom of the age, freer to an extent hardly credible in this, will not _satisfy_ the lovers of Hamlet, although it must have _some_ weight. The necessity for talking madly, because he is in the presence of his uncle, and perhaps, to that end, for uttering whatever comes to him, without pause for choice, might give us another hair's-weight. Also he may be supposed confident that Ophelia would not understand him, while his uncle would naturally set such worse than improprieties down to wildest madness. But I suspect that here as before (123), Shakepere would show Hamlet's soul full of bitterest, passionate loathing; his mother has compelled him to think of horrors and women together, so turning their preciousness into a disgust; and this feeling, his assumed madhess allows him to indulge and partly relieve by utterance. Could he have provoked Ophelia to rebuke him with the severity he courted, such rebuke would have been joy to him. Perhaps yet a small addition of weight to the scale of his excuse may be found in his excitement about his play, and the necessity for keeping down that excitement. Suggestion is easier than judgment.]

[Footnote 9: 'here's for the jig-maker! he's the right man!' Or perhaps he is claiming the part as his own: 'I am your only jig-maker!']

[Footnote 10: This needs not be taken for the exact time. The statement notwithstanding suggests something like two months between the first and second acts, for in the first, Hamlet says his father has not been dead two months. 24. We are not bound to take it for more than a rough approximation; Ophelia would make the best of things for the queen, who is very kind to her.]

[Footnote 11: the fur of the sable.]

[Footnote 12: _1st Q._

nay then there's some Likelyhood, a gentlemans death may outliue memorie, But by my faith &c.]

[Page 140]

suffer not thinking on, with the Hoby-horsse, whose Epitaph is, For o, For o, the Hoby-horse is forgot.

_Hoboyes play. The dumbe shew enters._ [Sidenote: _The Trumpets sounds. Dumbe show followes._]

_Enter a King and Queene, very louingly; the Queene [Sidenote: _and a Queene, the queen_] embracing him. She kneeles, and makes shew of [Sidenote: _embracing him, and he her, he takes her up, and_] Protestation vnto him. He takes her vp, and declines his head vpon her neck. Layes him downe [Sidenote: _necke, he lyes_] vpon a Banke of Flowers. She seeing him a-sleepe, leaues him. Anon comes in a Fellow, [Sidenote: _anon come in an other man_,] takes off his Crowne, kisses it, and powres poyson [Sidenote: _it, pours_] in the Kings eares, and Exits. The Queene returnes, [Sidenote: _the sleepers eares, and leaues him:_] findes the King dead, and makes passionate [Sidenote: dead, makes] Action. The Poysoner, with some two or [Sidenote: _some three or foure come in againe, seeme to condole_] three Mutes comes in againe, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away: The [Sidenote: _with her, the_] Poysoner Wooes the Queene with Gifts, she [Sidenote: 54] seemes loath and vnwilling awhile, but in the end, [Sidenote: _seemes harsh awhile_,] accepts his loue.[1] _Exeunt[2]_ [Sidenote: _accepts loue._]

_Ophe._ What meanes this, my Lord?

_Ham._ Marry this is Miching _Malicho_[3] that [Sidenote: this munching _Mallico_] meanes Mischeefe.

_Ophe._ Belike this shew imports the Argument of the Play?

_Ham._ We shall know by these Fellowes: [Sidenote: this fellow, _Enter Prologue_] the Players cannot keepe counsell, they'l tell [Sidenote: keepe, they'le] all.[4]

_Ophe._ Will they tell vs what this shew meant? [Sidenote: Will a tell]

_Ham._ I, or any shew that you'l shew him. Bee [Sidenote: you will] not you asham'd to shew, hee'l not shame to tell you what it meanes.

_Ophe._ You are naught,[5] you are naught, Ile marke the Play.

[Footnote 1: The king, not the queen, is aimed at. Hamlet does not forget the injunction of the Ghost to spare his mother. 54.

The king should be represented throughout as struggling not to betray himself.]

[Footnote 2: _Not in Q._]

[Footnote 3: _skulking mischief_: the latter word is Spanish, To _mich_ is to _play truant_.

How tenderly her tender hands betweene In yvorie cage she did the micher bind.

_The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia_, page 84.

My _Reader_ tells me the word is still in use among printers, with the pronunciation _mike_, and the meaning _to skulk_ or _idle_.]

[Footnote 4: --their part being speech, that of the others only dumb show.]

[Footnote 5: _naughty_: persons who do not behave well are treated as if they were not--are made nought of--are set at nought; hence our word naughty.

'Be naught awhile' (_As You Like It_, i. 1)--'take yourself away;' 'be nobody;' 'put yourself in the corner.']

[Page 142]

_Enter[1] Prologue._

_For vs, and for our Tragedie, Heere stooping to your Clemencie: We begge your hearing Patientlie._

_Ham._ Is this a Prologue, or the Poesie[2] of a [Sidenote: posie] Ring?

_Ophe._ 'Tis[3] briefe my Lord.

_Ham._ As Womans loue.

[4] _Enter King and his Queene._ [Sidenote: _and Queene_]

[Sidenote: 234] _King._ Full thirtie times[5] hath Phoebus Cart gon round, Neptunes salt Wash, and _Tellus_ Orbed ground: [Sidenote: orb'd the] And thirtie dozen Moones with borrowed sheene, About the World haue times twelue thirties beene, Since loue our hearts, and _Hymen_ did our hands Vnite comutuall, in most sacred Bands.[6]

_Bap._ So many iournies may the Sunne and Moone [Sidenote: _Quee._] Make vs againe count o're, ere loue be done. But woe is me, you are so sicke of late, So farre from cheere, and from your forme state, [Sidenote: from our former state,] That I distrust you: yet though I distrust, Discomfort you (my Lord) it nothing must: [A] For womens Feare and Loue, holds quantitie, [Sidenote: And womens hold] In neither ought, or in extremity:[7] [Sidenote: Eyther none, in neither] Now what my loue is, proofe hath made you know, [Sidenote: my Lord is proofe] And as my Loue is siz'd, my Feare is so. [Sidenote: ciz'd,] [B]

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

For women feare too much, euen as they loue,]

[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--

Where loue is great, the litlest doubts are feare, Where little feares grow great, great loue growes there.]

[Footnote 1: _Enter_ not in _Q._]

[Footnote 2: Commonly _posy_: a little sentence engraved inside a ring--perhaps originally a tiny couplet, therefore _poesy_, _1st Q._, 'a poesie for a ring?']

[Footnote 3: Emphasis on ''Tis.']

[Footnote 4: Very little blank verse of any kind was written before Shakspere's; the usual form of dramatic verse was long, irregular, rimed lines: the Poet here uses the heroic couplet, which gives a resemblance to the older plays by its rimes, while also by its stately and monotonous movement the play-play is differenced from the play into which it is introduced, and caused to _look_ intrinsically like a play in relation to the rest of the play of which it is part. In other words, it stands off from the surrounding play, slightly elevated both by form and formality. 103.]

[Footnote 5: _1st Q._

_Duke._ Full fortie yeares are past, their date is gone, Since happy time ioyn'd both our hearts as one: And now the blood that fill'd my youthfull veines, Ruunes weakely in their pipes, and all the straines Of musicke, which whilome pleasde mine eare, Is now a burthen that Age cannot beare: And therefore sweete Nature must pay his due, To heauen must I, and leaue the earth with you.]

[Footnote 6: Here Hamlet gives the time his father and mother had been married, and Shakspere points at Hamlet's age. 234. The Poet takes pains to show his hero's years.]

[Footnote 7: This line, whose form in the _Quarto_ is very careless, seems but a careless correction, leaving the sense as well as the construction obscure: 'Women's fear and love keep the scales level; in _neither_ is there ought, or in _both_ there is fulness;' or: 'there is no moderation in their fear and their love; either they have _none_ of either, or they have _excess_ of both.' Perhaps he tried to express both ideas at once. But compression is always in danger of confusion.]

[Page 144]

_King._ Faith I must leaue thee Loue, and shortly too: My operant Powers my Functions leaue to do: [Sidenote: their functions] And thou shall liue in this faire world behinde, Honour'd, belou'd, and haply, one as kinde. For Husband shalt thou----

_Bap._ Oh confound the rest: [Sidenote: _Quee._] Such Loue, must needs be Treason in my brest: In second Husband, let me be accurst, None wed the second, but who kill'd the first.[1]

_Ham._ Wormwood, Wormwood. [Sidenote: _Ham_. That's wormwood[2]]

_Bapt._ The instances[3] that second Marriage moue, Are base respects of Thrift,[4] but none of Loue. A second time, I kill my Husband dead, When second Husband kisses me in Bed.

_King._ I do beleeue you. Think what now you speak: But what we do determine, oft we breake: Purpose is but the slaue to Memorie,[5] Of violent Birth, but poore validitie:[6] Which now like Fruite vnripe stickes on the Tree, [Sidenote: now the fruite] But fall vnshaken, when they mellow bee.[7] Most necessary[8] 'tis, that we forget To pay our selues, what to our selues is debt: What to our selues in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of other Greefe or Ioy, [Sidenote: eyther,] Their owne ennactors with themselues destroy: [Sidenote: ennactures] Where Ioy most Reuels, Greefe doth most lament; Greefe ioyes, Ioy greeues on slender accident.[9] [Sidenote: Greefe ioy ioy griefes] This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange That euen our Loues should with our Fortunes change. For 'tis a question left vs yet to proue, Whether Loue lead Fortune, or else Fortune Loue.

[Footnote 1: Is this to be supposed in the original play, or inserted by Hamlet, embodying an unuttered and yet more fearful doubt with regard to his mother?]

[Footnote 2: This speech is on the margin in the _Quarto_, and the Queene's speech runs on without break.]

[Footnote 3: the urgencies; the motives.]

[Footnote 4: worldly advantage.]

[Footnote 5: 'Purpose holds but while Memory holds.']

[Footnote 6: 'Purpose is born in haste, but is of poor strength to live.']

[Footnote 7: Here again there is carelessness of construction, as if the Poet had not thought it worth his while to correct this subsidiary portion of the drama. I do not see how to lay the blame on the printer.--'Purpose is a mere fruit, which holds on or falls only as it must. The element of persistency is not in it.']

[Footnote 8: unavoidable--coming of necessity.]

[Footnote 9: 'Grief turns into joy, and joy into grief, on a slight chance.']

[Page 146]

The great man downe, you marke his fauourites flies, [Sidenote: fauourite] The poore aduanc'd, makes Friends of Enemies: And hitherto doth Loue on Fortune tend, For who not needs, shall neuer lacke a Frend: And who in want a hollow Friend doth try, Directly seasons him his Enemie.[1] But orderly to end, where I begun, Our Willes and Fates do so contrary run, That our Deuices still are ouerthrowne, Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our owne.[2] [Sidenote: 246] So thinke thou wilt no second Husband wed. But die thy thoughts, when thy first Lord is dead.

_Bap._ Nor Earth to giue me food, nor Heauen light, [Sidenote: _Quee._] Sport and repose locke from me day and night:[3] [A] Each opposite that blankes the face of ioy, Meet what I would haue well, and it destroy: Both heere, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,[4] If once a Widdow, euer I be Wife.[5] [Sidenote: once I be a | be a wife]

_Ham._ If she should breake it now.[6]

_King._ 'Tis deepely sworne: Sweet, leaue me heere a while, My spirits grow dull, and faine I would beguile The tedious day with sleepe.

_Qu._ Sleepe rocke thy Braine, [Sidenote: Sleepes[7]] And neuer come mischance betweene vs twaine, _Exit_ [Sidenote: _Exeunt._]

_Ham._ Madam, how like you this Play?

_Qu._ The Lady protests to much me thinkes, [Sidenote: doth protest]

_Ham._ Oh but shee'l keepe her word.

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:_--

To desperation turne my trust and hope,[8] And Anchors[9] cheere in prison be my scope]

[Footnote 1: All that is wanted to make a real enemy of an unreal friend is the seasoning of a requested favour.]

[Footnote 2: 'Our thoughts are ours, but what will come of them we cannot tell.']

[Footnote 3: 'May Day and Night lock from me sport and repose.']

[Footnote 4: 'May strife pursue me in the world and out of it.']

[Footnote 5: In all this, there is nothing to reflect on his mother beyond what everybody knew.]

[Footnote 6: _This speech is in the margin of the Quarto._]

[Footnote 7: _Not in Q._]

[Footnote 8: 'May my trust and hope turn to despair.']

[Footnote 9: an anchoret's.]

[Page 148]

_King_. Haue you heard the Argument, is there no Offence in't?[1]

_Ham_. No, no, they do but iest, poyson in iest, no Offence i'th'world.[2]

_King_. What do you call the Play?

_Ham._ The Mouse-trap: Marry how? Tropically:[3] This Play is the Image of a murder done in _Vienna: Gonzago_ is the Dukes name, his wife _Baptista_: you shall see anon: 'tis a knauish peece of worke: But what o'that? Your Maiestie, and [Sidenote: of that?] wee that haue free soules, it touches vs not: let the gall'd iade winch: our withers are vnrung.[4]

_Enter Lucianus._[5]

This is one _Lucianus_ nephew to the King.

_Ophe_. You are a good Chorus, my Lord. [Sidenote: are as good as a Chorus]

_Ham_. I could interpret betweene you and your loue: if I could see the Puppets dallying.[6]

_Ophe_. You are keene my Lord, you are keene.

_Ham_. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge. [Sidenote: mine]

_Ophe_. Still better and worse.

_Ham_. So you mistake Husbands.[7] [Sidenote: mistake your] Begin Murderer. Pox, leaue thy damnable Faces, [Sidenote: murtherer, leave] and begin. Come, the croaking Rauen doth bellow for Reuenge.[8]

_Lucian_. Thoughts blacke, hands apt, Drugges fit, and Time agreeing: Confederate season, else, no Creature seeing:[9] [Sidenote: Considerat] Thou mixture ranke, of Midnight Weeds collected, With Hecats Ban, thrice blasted, thrice infected, [Sidenote: invected] Thy naturall Magicke, and dire propertie, On wholsome life, vsurpe immediately. [Sidenote: vsurps]

_Powres the poyson in his eares_.[10]

_Ham_. He poysons him i'th Garden for's estate: [Sidenote: A poysons | for his]

[Footnote 1: --said, perhaps, to Polonius. Is there a lapse here in the king's self-possession? or is this speech only an outcome of its completeness--a pretence of fearing the play may glance at the queen for marrying him?]

[Footnote 2: 'It is but jest; don't be afraid: there is no reality in it'--as one might say to a child seeing a play.]

[Footnote 3: Figuratively: from _trope_. In the _1st Q._ the passage stands thus:

_Ham_. Mouse-trap: mary how trapically: this play is The image of a murder done in _guyana_,]

[Footnote 4: Here Hamlet endangers himself to force the king to self-betrayal.]

[Footnote 5: _In Q. after next line._]

[Footnote 6: In a puppet-play, if she and her love were the puppets, he could supply the speeches.]

[Footnote 7: Is this a misprint for 'so you _must take_ husbands'--for better and worse, namely? or is it a thrust at his mother--'So you mis-take husbands, going from the better to a worse'? In _1st Q._: 'So you must take your husband, begin.']

[Footnote 8: Probably a mocking parody or burlesque of some well-known exaggeration--such as not a few of Marlowe's lines.]

[Footnote 9: 'none beholding save the accomplice hour:'.]

[Footnote 10: _Not in Q._]

[Page 150]

His name's _Gonzago_: the Story is extant and writ [Sidenote: and written] in choyce Italian. You shall see anon how the [Sidenote: in very choice] Murtherer gets the loue of _Gonzago's_ wife.

_Ophe_. The King rises.[1]

_Ham_. What, frighted with false fire.[2]

_Qu_. How fares my Lord?

_Pol_. Giue o're the Play.

_King_. Giue me some Light. Away.[3]

_All_. Lights, Lights, Lights. _Exeunt_ [Sidenote: _Pol. | Exeunt all but Ham. & Horatio._]

_Manet Hamlet & Horatio._

_Ham_.[4] Why let the strucken Deere go weepe, The Hart vngalled play: For some must watch, while some must sleepe; So runnes the world away. Would not this[5] Sir, and a Forrest of Feathers, if the rest of my Fortunes turne Turke with me; with two Prouinciall Roses[6] on my rac'd[7] Shooes, get me [Sidenote: with prouinciall | raz'd] a Fellowship[8] in a crie[9] of Players sir. [Sidenote: Players?]

_Hor_. Halfe a share.

_Ham_. A whole one I,[10] [11] For thou dost know: Oh Damon deere, This Realme dismantled was of Loue himselfe, And now reignes heere. A verie verie Paiocke.[12]

_Hora_. You might haue Rim'd.[13]

_Ham_. Oh good _Horatio_, Ile take the Ghosts word for a thousand pound. Did'st perceiue?

_Hora_. Verie well my Lord.

_Ham_. Vpon the talke of the poysoning?

_Hora_. I did verie well note him.

_Enter Rosincrance and Guildensterne_.[14]

_Ham_. Oh, ha? Come some Musick.[15] Come the Recorders: [Sidenote: Ah ha,]

[Footnote 1: --in ill suppressed agitation.]

[Footnote 2: _This speech is not in the Quarto_.--Is the 'false fire' what we now call _stage-fire_?--'What! frighted at a mere play?']

[Footnote 3: The stage--the stage-stage, that is--alone is lighted. Does the king stagger out blindly, madly, shaking them from him? I think not--but as if he were taken suddenly ill.]

[Footnote 4: --_singing_--that he may hide his agitation, restrain himself, and be regarded as careless-mad, until all are safely gone.]

[Footnote 5: --his success with the play.]

[Footnote 6: 'Roses of Provins,' we are told--probably artificial.]

[Footnote 7: The meaning is very doubtful. But for the _raz'd_ of the _Quarto_, I should suggest _lac'd_. Could it mean _cut low_?]

[Footnote 8: _a share_, as immediately below.]

[Footnote 9: A _cry_ of hounds is a pack. So in _King Lear_, act v. sc. 3, 'packs and sects of great ones.']

[Footnote 10: _I_ for _ay_--that is, _yes_!--He insists on a whole share.]

[Footnote 11: Again he takes refuge in singing.]

[Footnote 12: The lines are properly measured in the _Quarto_:

For thou doost know oh Damon deere This Realme dismantled was Of _Ioue_ himselfe, and now raignes heere A very very paiock.

By _Jove_, he of course intends _his father_. 170. What 'Paiocke' means, whether _pagan_, or _peacock_, or _bajocco_, matters nothing, since it is intended for nonsense.]

[Footnote 13: To rime with _was_, Horatio naturally expected _ass_ to follow as the end of the last line: in the wanton humour of his excitement, Hamlet disappointed him.]

[Footnote 14: _In Q. after next speech_.]

[Footnote 15: He hears Rosincrance and Guildensterne coming, and changes his behaviour--calling for music to end the play with. Either he wants, under its cover, to finish his talk with Horatio in what is for the moment the safest place, or he would mask himself before his two false friends. Since the departure of the king--I would suggest--he has borne himself with evident apprehension, every now and then glancing about him, as fearful of what may follow his uncle's recognition of the intent of the play. Three times he has burst out singing.

Or might not his whole carriage, with the call for music, be the outcome of a grimly merry satisfaction at the success of his scheme?]

[Page 152]

For if the King like not the Comedie, Why then belike he likes it not perdie.[1] Come some Musicke.

_Guild._ Good my Lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

_Ham._ Sir, a whole History.

_Guild._ The King, sir.

_Ham._ I sir, what of him?

_Guild._ Is in his retyrement, maruellous distemper'd.

_Ham._ With drinke Sir?

_Guild._ No my Lord, rather with choller.[2] [Sidenote: Lord, with]

_Ham._ Your wisedome should shew it selfe more richer, to signifie this to his Doctor: for me to [Sidenote: the Doctor,] put him to his Purgation, would perhaps plundge him into farre more Choller.[2] [Sidenote: into more]

_Guild._ Good my Lord put your discourse into some frame,[3] and start not so wildely from my [Sidenote: stare] affayre.

_Ham._ I am tame Sir, pronounce.

_Guild._ The Queene your Mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

_Ham._ You are welcome.[4]

_Guild._ Nay, good my Lord, this courtesie is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholsome answer, I will doe your Mothers command'ment: if not, your pardon, and my returne shall bee the end of my Businesse. [Sidenote: of busines.]

_Ham._ Sir, I cannot.

_Guild._ What, my Lord?

_Ham._ Make you a wholsome answere: my wits diseas'd. But sir, such answers as I can make, you [Sidenote: answere] shal command: or rather you say, my Mother: [Sidenote: rather as you] therfore no more but to the matter. My Mother you say.

[Footnote 1: These two lines he may be supposed to sing.]

[Footnote 2: Choler means bile, and thence anger. Hamlet in his answer plays on the two meanings:--'to give him the kind of medicine I think fit for him, would perhaps much increase his displeasure.']

[Footnote 3: some logical consistency.]

[Footnote 4: _--with an exaggeration of courtesy_.]

[Page 154]

_Rosin._ Then thus she sayes: your behauior hath stroke her into amazement, and admiration.[1]

_Ham._ Oh wonderfull Sonne, that can so astonish [Sidenote: stonish] a Mother. But is there no sequell at the heeles of this Mothers admiration? [Sidenote: admiration, impart.]

_Rosin._ She desires to speake with you in her Closset, ere you go to bed.

_Ham._ We shall obey, were she ten times our Mother. Haue you any further Trade with vs?

_Rosin._ My Lord, you once did loue me.

_Ham._ So I do still, by these pickers and [Sidenote: And doe still] stealers.[2]

_Rosin._ Good my Lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do freely barre the doore of your [Sidenote: surely barre the door vpon your] owne Libertie, if you deny your greefes to your your Friend.

_Ham._ Sir I lacke Aduancement.

_Rosin._ How can that be, when you haue the [Sidenote: 136] voyce of the King himselfe, for your Succession in Denmarke?

[3]

_Ham._ I, but while the grasse growes,[4] the [Sidenote: I sir,] Prouerbe is something musty.

_Enter one with a Recorder._[5]

O the Recorder. Let me see, to withdraw with, [Sidenote: ô the Recorders, let mee see one, to] you,[6] why do you go about to recouer the winde of mee,[7] as if you would driue me into a toyle?[8]

_Guild._ O my Lord, if my Dutie be too bold, my loue is too vnmannerly.[9]

_Ham._ I do not well vnderstand that.[10] Will you, play vpon this Pipe?

_Guild._ My Lord, I cannot.

_Ham._ I pray you.

_Guild._ Beleeue me, I cannot.

_Ham._ I do beseech you.

[Footnote 1: wonder, astonishment.]

[Footnote 2: He swears an oath that will not hold, being by the hand of a thief.

In the Catechism: 'Keep my hands from picking and stealing.']

[Footnote 3: Here in Quarto, _Enter the Players with Recorders._]

[Footnote 4: '... the colt starves.']

[Footnote 5: _Not in Q._ The stage-direction of the _Folio_ seems doubtful. Hamlet has called for the orchestra: we may either suppose one to precede the others, or that the rest are already scattered; but the _Quarto_ direction and reading seem better.]

[Footnote 6: _--taking Guildensterne aside_.]

[Footnote 7: 'to get to windward of me.']

[Footnote 8: 'Why do you seek to get the advantage of me, as if you would drive me to betray myself?'--Hunters, by sending on the wind their scent to the game, drive it into their toils.]

[Footnote 9: Guildensterne tries euphuism, but hardly succeeds. He intends to plead that any fault in his approach must be laid to the charge of his love. _Duty_ here means _homage_--so used still by the common people.]

[Footnote 10: --said with a smile of gentle contempt.]

[Page 156]

_Guild_. I know no touch of it, my Lord.

_Ham_. Tis as easie as lying: gouerne these [Sidenote: It is] Ventiges with your finger and thumbe, giue it [Sidenote: fingers, & the vmber, giue] breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most [Sidenote: most eloquent] excellent Musicke. Looke you, these are the stoppes.

_Guild_. But these cannot I command to any vtterance of hermony, I haue not the skill.

_Ham_. Why looke you now, how vnworthy a thing you make of me: you would play vpon mee; you would seeme to know my stops: you would pluck out the heart of my Mysterie; you would sound mee from my lowest Note, to the top of my [Sidenote: note to my compasse] Compasse: and there is much Musicke, excellent Voice, in this little Organe, yet cannot you make [Sidenote: it speak, s'hloud do you think I] it. Why do you thinke, that I am easier to bee plaid on, then a Pipe? Call me what Instrument you will, though you can fret[1] me, you cannot [Sidenote: you fret me not,] [Sidenote: 184] play vpon me. God blesse you Sir.[2]

_Enter Polonius_.

_Polon_. My Lord; the Queene would speak with you, and presently.

_Ham_. Do you see that Clowd? that's almost in [Sidenote: yonder clowd] shape like a Camell. [Sidenote: shape of a]

_Polon_. By'th'Misse, and it's like a Camell [Sidenote: masse and tis,] indeed.

_Ham_. Me thinkes it is like a Weazell.

_Polon_. It is back'd like a Weazell.

_Ham_. Or like a Whale?[3]

_Polon_. Verie like a Whale.[4]

_Ham_. Then will I come to my Mother, by and by: [Sidenote: I will] [Sidenote: 60, 136, 178] They foole me to the top of my bent.[5] I will come by and by.

[Footnote 1: --with allusion to the _frets_ or _stop-marks_ of a stringed instrument.]

[Footnote 2: --_to Polonius_.]

[Footnote 3: There is nothing insanely arbitrary in these suggestions of likeness; a cloud might very well be like every one of the three; the camel has a hump, the weasel humps himself, and the whale is a hump.]

[Footnote 4: He humours him in everything, as he would a madman.]

[Footnote 5: Hamlet's cleverness in simulating madness is dwelt upon in the old story. See '_Hystorie of Hamblet, prince of Denmarke_.']

[Page 158]

_Polon_.[1] I will say so. _Exit_.[1]

_Ham_.[1] By and by, is easily said. Leaue me Friends: 'Tis now the verie witching time of night, When Churchyards yawne, and Hell it selfe breaths out [Sidenote: brakes[2]] Contagion to this world.[3] Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter businesse as the day [Sidenote: such busines as the bitter day] Would quake to looke on.[4] Soft now, to my Mother: Oh Heart, loose not thy Nature;[5] let not euer The Soule of _Nero_[6] enter this firme bosome: Let me be cruell, not vnnaturall. [Sidenote: 172] I will speake Daggers[7] to her, but vse none: [Sidenote: dagger] My Tongue and Soule in this be Hypocrites.[8] How in my words someuer she be shent,[9] To giue them Seales,[10] neuer my Soule consent.[4] [Sidenote: _Exit._]

_Enter King, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne_.

_King_. I like him not, nor stands it safe with vs, To let his madnesse range.[11] Therefore prepare you, [Sidenote: 167] I your Commission will forthwith dispatch,[12] [Sidenote: 180] And he to England shall along with you: The termes of our estate, may not endure[13] Hazard so dangerous as doth hourely grow [Sidenote: so neer's as] Out of his Lunacies. [Sidenote: his browes.]

_Guild_. We will our selues prouide: Most holie and Religious feare it is[14] To keepe those many many bodies safe That liue and feede vpon your Maiestie.[15]

_Rosin_. The single And peculiar[16] life is bound With all the strength and Armour of the minde,

[Footnote 1: The _Quarto_, not having _Polon., Exit, or Ham._, and arranging differently, reads thus:--

They foole me to the top of my bent, I will come by and by, Leaue me friends. I will, say so. By and by is easily said, Tis now the very &c.]

[Footnote 2: _belches_.]

[Footnote 3: --thinking of what the Ghost had told him, perhaps: it was the time when awful secrets wander about the world. Compare _Macbeth_,