SCENA SECUNDA[3]
Enter Claudius King of Denmarke. Gertrude the
Queene, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, and his Sister
Ophelia, Lords Attendant.[4]
[Sidenote: Florish. Enter Claudius, King of Denmarke,
Gertrad the Queene, Counsaile: as Polonius, and his
sonne Laertes, Hamelt Cum Abijs.]
King. Though yet of Hamlet our deere Brothers death
[Sidenote: Claud.]
The memory be greene: and that it vs befitted
To beare our hearts in greefe, and our whole Kingdome
To be contracted in one brow of woe:
Yet so farre hath Discretion fought with Nature,
That we with wisest sorrow thinke on him,
[Footnote 1: Does it mean—carries off any child, leaving a changeling? or does it mean—affect with evil, as a disease might infect or take?]
[Footnote 2: 1st Q. 'hie mountaine top,']
[Footnote 3: In neither Q.]
[Footnote 4: The first court after the marriage.]
[Page 16]
Together with remembrance of our selues.
Therefore our sometimes Sister, now our Queen,
Th'Imperiall Ioyntresse of this warlike State, [Sidenote: to this]
Haue we, as 'twere, with a defeated ioy,
With one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye,
[Sidenote: an auspitious and a]
With mirth in Funerall, and with Dirge in Marriage,
In equall Scale weighing Delight and Dole[1]
Taken to Wife; nor haue we heerein barr'd[2]
Your better Wisedomes, which haue freely gone
With this affaire along, for all our Thankes.
[Sidenote: 8] Now followes, that you know young Fortinbras,[3]
Holding a weake supposall of our worth;
Or thinking by our late deere Brothers death,
Our State to be disioynt, and out of Frame,
Colleagued with the dreame of his Aduantage;[4] [Sidenote: this dreame]
He hath not fayl'd to pester vs with Message,
Importing the surrender of those Lands
Lost by his Father: with all Bonds of Law [Sidenote: bands]
To our most valiant Brother. So much for him.
Enter Voltemand and Cornelius.[5]
Now for our selfe, and for this time of meeting
Thus much the businesse is. We haue heere writ
To Norway, Vncle of young Fortinbras,
Who Impotent and Bedrid, scarsely heares
Of this his Nephewes purpose, to suppresse
His further gate[6] heerein. In that the Leuies,
The Lists, and full proportions are all made
Out of his subiect: and we heere dispatch
You good Cornelius, and you Voltemand,
For bearing of this greeting to old Norway, [Sidenote: bearers]
Giuing to you no further personall power
To businesse with the King, more then the scope
Of these dilated Articles allow:[7] [Sidenote: delated[8]
Farewell and let your hast commend your duty.[9]
[Footnote 1: weighing out an equal quantity of each.]
[Footnote 2: Like crossed.]
[Footnote 3: 'Now follows—that (which) you know—young
Fortinbras:—']
[Footnote 4: Colleagued agrees with supposall. The preceding two lines may be regarded as somewhat parenthetical. Dream of advantage—hope of gain.]
[Footnote 5: Not in Q.]
[Footnote 6: going; advance. Note in Norway also, as well as in
Denmark, the succession of the brother.]
[Footnote 7: (giving them papers).]
[Footnote 8: Which of these is right, I cannot tell. Dilated means expanded, and would refer to _the scope; delated means committed—to them, to limit them.]
[Footnote 9: idea of duty.]
[Page 18]
Volt. In that, and all things, will we shew our duty.
King. We doubt it nothing, heartily farewell.
[Sidenote: 74] [1]Exit Voltemand and Cornelius.
And now Laertes, what's the newes with you?
You told vs of some suite. What is't Laertes?
You cannot speake of Reason to the Dane,
And loose your voyce. What would'st thou beg Laertes,
That shall not be my Offer, not thy Asking?[2]
The Head is not more Natiue to the Heart,
The Hand more Instrumentall to the Mouth,
Then is the Throne of Denmarke to thy Father.[3]
What would'st thou haue Laertes?
Laer. Dread my Lord, [Sidenote: My dread]
Your leaue and fauour to returne to France,
From whence, though willingly I came to Denmarke
To shew my duty in your Coronation,
Yet now I must confesse, that duty done,
[Sidenote: 22] My thoughts and wishes bend againe towards toward
France,[4]
And bow them to your gracious leaue and pardon.
King. Haue you your Fathers leaue? What sayes Pollonius?
[A] Pol. He hath my Lord:
I do beseech you giue him leaue to go.
King. Take thy faire houre Laertes, time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will: But now my Cosin Hamlet, and my Sonne?
[Footnote A: In the Quarto:—
Polo. Hath[5] my Lord wroung from me my slowe leaue
By laboursome petition, and at last
Vpon his will I seald my hard consent,[6]
I doe beseech you giue him leaue to goe.]
[Footnote 1: Not in Q.]
[Footnote 2: 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.'—Isaiah, lxv. 24.]
[Footnote 3: The villain king courts his courtiers.]
[Footnote 4: He had been educated there. Compare 23. But it would seem rather to the court than the university he desired to return. See his father's instructions, 38.]
[Footnote 5: H'ath—a contraction for He hath.]
[Footnote 6: A play upon the act of sealing a will with wax.]
[Page 20]
Ham. A little more then kin, and lesse then kinde.[1]
King. How is it that the Clouds still hang on you?
Ham. Not so my Lord, I am too much i'th'Sun.[2]
[Sidenote: so much my … in the sonne.]
Queen. Good Hamlet cast thy nightly colour off,[4]
[Sidenote: nighted[3]
And let thine eye looke like a Friend on Denmarke.
Do not for euer with thy veyled[5] lids [Sidenote: vailed]
Seeke for thy Noble Father in the dust;
Thou know'st 'tis common, all that liues must dye,
Passing through Nature, to Eternity.
Ham. I Madam, it is common.[6]
Queen. If it be; Why seemes it so particular with thee.
Ham. Seemes Madam? Nay, it is: I know not Seemes:[7]
'Tis not alone my Inky Cloake (good Mother)
[Sidenote: cloake coold mother [8]
Nor Customary suites of solemne Blacke,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitfull Riuer in the Eye,
Nor the deiected hauiour of the Visage,
Together with all Formes, Moods, shewes of Griefe,
[Sidenote: moodes, chapes of]
That can denote me truly. These indeed Seeme,[9] [Sidenote: deuote]
For they are actions that a man might[10] play:
But I haue that Within, which passeth show; [Sidenote: passes]
These, but the Trappings, and the Suites of woe.
King. 'Tis sweet and commendable
In your Nature Hamlet,
To giue these mourning duties to your Father:[11]
But you must know, your Father lost a Father,
That Father lost, lost his, and the Suruiuer bound
In filiall Obligation, for some terme
To do obsequious[12] Sorrow. But to perseuer
In obstinate Condolement, is a course
[Footnote 1: An aside. Hamlet's first utterance is of dislike to his uncle. He is more than kin through his unwelcome marriage—less than kind by the difference in their natures. To be kind is to behave as one kinned or related. But the word here is the noun, and means nature, or sort by birth.]
[Footnote 2: A word-play may be here intended between sun and son: a little more than kin—too much i' th' Son. So George Herbert:
For when he sees my ways, I die;
But I have got his Son, and he hath none;
and Dr. Donne:
at my death thy Son Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore.]
[Footnote 3: 'Wintred garments'—As You Like It, iii. 2.]
[Footnote 4: He is the only one who has not for the wedding put off his mourning.]
[Footnote 5: lowered, or cast down: Fr. avaler, to lower.]
[Footnote 6: 'Plainly you treat it as a common matter—a thing of no significance!' I is constantly used for ay, yes.]
[Footnote 7: He pounces on the word seems.]
[Footnote 8: Not unfrequently the type would appear to have been set up from dictation.]
[Footnote 9: They are things of the outside, and must seem, for they are capable of being imitated; they are the natural shows of grief. But he has that in him which cannot show or seem, because nothing can represent it. These are 'the Trappings and the Suites of woe;' they fitly represent woe, but they cannot shadow forth that which is within him—a something different from woe, far beyond it and worse, passing all reach of embodiment and manifestation. What this something is, comes out the moment he is left by himself.]
[Footnote 10: The emphasis is on might.]
[Footnote 11: Both his uncle and his mother decline to understand him. They will have it he mourns the death of his father, though they must at least suspect another cause for his grief. Note the intellectual mastery of the hypocrite—which accounts for his success.]
[Footnote 12: belonging to obsequies.]
[Page 22]
Of impious stubbornnesse. Tis vnmanly greefe,
It shewes a will most incorrect to Heauen,
A Heart vnfortified, a Minde impatient, [Sidenote: or minde]
An Vnderstanding simple, and vnschool'd:
For, what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sence,
Why should we in our peeuish Opposition
Take it to heart? Fye, 'tis a fault to Heauen,
A fault against the Dead, a fault to Nature,
To Reason most absurd, whose common Theame
Is death of Fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first Coarse,[1] till he that dyed to day, [Sidenote: course]
This must be so. We pray you throw to earth
This vnpreuayling woe, and thinke of vs
As of a Father; For let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our Throne,[2]
And with no lesse Nobility of Loue,
Then that which deerest Father beares his Sonne,
Do I impart towards you. For your intent [Sidenote: toward]
[Sidenote: 18] In going backe to Schoole in Wittenberg,[3]
It is most retrograde to our desire: [Sidenote: retrogard]
And we beseech you, bend you to remaine
Heere in the cheere and comfort of our eye,
Our cheefest Courtier Cosin, and our Sonne.
Qu. Let not thy Mother lose her Prayers Hamlet: [Sidenote: loose] I prythee stay with vs, go not to Wittenberg. [Sidenote: pray thee]
Ham. I shall in all my best Obey you Madam.[4]
King. Why 'tis a louing, and a faire Reply,
Be as our selfe in Denmarke. Madam come,
This gentle and vnforc'd accord of Hamlet[5]
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No iocond health that Denmarke drinkes to day,
[Sidenote: 44] But the great Cannon to the Clowds shall tell,
[Footnote 1: Corpse.]
[Footnote 2: —seeking to propitiate him with the hope that his succession had been but postponed by his uncle's election.]
[Footnote 3: Note that Hamlet was educated in Germany—at Wittenberg, the university where in 1508 Luther was appointed professor of Philosophy. Compare 19. There was love of study as well as disgust with home in his desire to return to Schoole: this from what we know of him afterwards.]
[Footnote 4: Emphasis on obey. A light on the character of Hamlet.]
[Footnote 5: He takes it, or pretends to take it, for far more than it was. He desires friendly relations with Hamlet.]
[Page 24]
And the Kings Rouce,[1] the Heauens shall bruite againe, Respeaking earthly Thunder. Come away. Exeunt [Sidenote: Florish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.]
Manet Hamlet.
[2]Ham. Oh that this too too solid Flesh, would melt,
[Sidenote: sallied flesh[3]
Thaw, and resolue it selfe into a Dew:
[Sidenote: 125,247,260] Or that the Euerlasting had not fixt
[Sidenote: 121 bis] His Cannon 'gainst Selfe-slaughter. O God, O God!
[Sidenote: seale slaughter, o God, God,]
How weary, stale, flat, and vnprofitable [Sidenote: wary]
Seemes to me all the vses of this world? [Sidenote: seeme]
Fie on't? Oh fie, fie, 'tis an vnweeded Garden [Sidenote: ah fie,]
That growes to Seed: Things rank, and grosse in Nature
Possesse it meerely. That it should come to this:
[Sidenote: meerely that it should come thus]
But two months dead[4]: Nay, not so much; not two,
So excellent a King, that was to this
Hiperion to a Satyre: so louing to my Mother,
That he might not beteene the windes of heauen [Sidenote: beteeme[5]
Visit her face too roughly. Heauen and Earth
Must I remember: why she would hang on him, [Sidenote: should]
As if encrease of Appetite had growne
By what it fed on; and yet within a month?
Let me not thinke on't: Frailty, thy name is woman.[6]
A little Month, or ere those shooes were old,
With which she followed my poore Fathers body
Like Niobe, all teares. Why she, euen she.[7]
(O Heauen! A beast that wants discourse[8] of Reason [Sidenote: O God]
Would haue mourn'd longer) married with mine Vnkle, [Sidenote: my]
[Footnote 1: German Rausch, drunkenness. 44, 68]
[Footnote 2: A soliloquy is as the drawing called a section of a thing: it shows the inside of the man. Soliloquy is only rare, not unnatural, and in art serves to reveal more of nature. In the drama it is the lifting of a veil through which dialogue passes. The scene is for the moment shifted into the lonely spiritual world, and here we begin to know Hamlet. Such is his wretchedness, both in mind and circumstance, that he could well wish to vanish from the world. The suggestion of suicide, however, he dismisses at once—with a momentary regret, it is true—but he dismisses it—as against the will of God to whom he appeals in his misery. The cause of his misery is now made plain to us—his trouble that passes show, deprives life of its interest, and renders the world a disgust to him. There is no lamentation over his father's death, so dwelt upon by the king; for loving grief does not crush. Far less could his uncle's sharp practice, in scheming for his own election during Hamlet's absence, have wrought in a philosopher like him such an effect. The one makes him sorrowful, the other might well annoy him, but neither could render him unhappy: his misery lies at his mother's door; it is her conduct that has put out the light of her son's life. She who had been to him the type of all excellence, she whom his father had idolized, has within a month of his death married his uncle, and is living in habitual incest—for as such, a marriage of the kind was then unanimously regarded. To Hamlet's condition and behaviour, his mother, her past and her present, is the only and sufficing key. His very idea of unity had been rent in twain.]
[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'too much grieu'd and sallied flesh.' Sallied, sullied: compare sallets, 67, 103. I have a strong suspicion that sallied and not solid is the true word. It comes nearer the depth of Hamlet's mood.]
[Footnote 4: Two months at the present moment.]
[Footnote 5: This is the word all the editors take: which is right, I do not know; I doubt if either is. The word in A Midsummer Night's Dream, act i. sc. 1—
Belike for want of rain; which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes—
I cannot believe the same word. The latter means produce for, as from the place of origin. The word, in the sense necessary to this passage, is not, so far as I know, to be found anywhere else. I have no suggestion to make.]
[Footnote 6: From his mother he generalizes to woman. After having believed in such a mother, it may well be hard for a man to believe in any woman.]
[Footnote 7: Q. omits 'euen she.']
[Footnote 8: the going abroad among things.]
[Page 26]
My Fathers Brother: but no more like my Father,
Then I to Hercules. Within a Moneth?
Ere yet the salt of most vnrighteous Teares
Had left the flushing of her gauled eyes, [Sidenote: in her]
She married. O most wicked speed, to post[1]
With such dexterity to Incestuous sheets:
It is not, nor it cannot come to good,
But breake my heart, for I must hold my tongue.[2]
Enter Horatio, Barnard, and Marcellus.
[Sidenote: Marcellus, and Bernardo.]
Hor. Haile to your Lordship.[3]
Ham. I am glad to see you well: Horatio, or I do forget my selfe.
Hor. The same my Lord, And your poore Seruant euer.
[Sidenote: 134] Ham. [4]Sir my good friend,
Ile change that name with you:[5]
And what make you from Wittenberg Horatio?[6]
Marcellus.[7]
Mar. My good Lord.
Ham. I am very glad to see you: good euen Sir.[8] But what in faith make you from Wittemberge?
Hor. A truant disposition, good my Lord.[9]
Ham. I would not haue your Enemy say so;[10] [Sidenote: not heare]
Nor shall you doe mine eare that violence,[11] [Sidenote: my eare]
[Sidenote: 134] To make it truster of your owne report
Against your selfe. I know you are no Truant:
But what is your affaire in Elsenour?
Wee'l teach you to drinke deepe, ere you depart.[12]
[Sidenote: you for to drinke ere]
Hor. My Lord, I came to see your Fathers Funerall.
Ham. I pray thee doe not mock me (fellow Student) [Sidenote: pre thee] I thinke it was to see my Mothers Wedding. [Sidenote: was to my]
[Footnote 1: I suggest the pointing:
speed! To post … sheets!]
[Footnote 2: Fit moment for the entrance of his father's messengers.]
[Footnote 3: They do not seem to have been intimate before, though we know from Hamlet's speech (134) that he had had the greatest respect for Horatio. The small degree of doubt in Hamlet's recognition of his friend is due to the darkness, and the unexpectedness of his appearance.]
[Footnote 4: 1st Q. 'O my good friend, I change, &c.' This would leave it doubtful whether he wished to exchange servant or friend; but 'Sir, my good friend,' correcting Horatio, makes his intent plain.]
[Footnote 5: Emphasis on that: 'I will exchange the name of friend with you.']
[Footnote 6: 'What are you doing from—out of, away from—Wittenberg?']
[Footnote 7: In recognition: the word belongs to Hamlet's speech.]
[Footnote 8: Point thus: 'you.—Good even, sir.'—to Barnardo, whom he does not know.]
[Footnote 9: An ungrammatical reply. He does not wish to give the real, painful answer, and so replies confusedly, as if he had been asked, 'What makes you?' instead of, 'What do you make?']
[Footnote 10: '—I should know how to answer him.']
[Footnote 11: Emphasis on you.]
[Footnote 12: Said with contempt for his surroundings.]
[Page 28]
Hor. Indeed my Lord, it followed hard vpon.
Ham. Thrift, thrift Horatio: the Funerall Bakt-meats
Did coldly furnish forth the Marriage Tables;
Would I had met my dearest foe in heauen,[1]
Ere I had euer seerie that day Horatio.[2] [Sidenote: Or ever I had]
My father, me thinkes I see my father.
Hor. Oh where my Lord? [Sidenote: Where my]
Ham. In my minds eye (Horatio)[3]
Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly King. [Sidenote: once, a was]
Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all: [Sidenote: A was a man] I shall not look vpon his like againe.
Hor. My Lord, I thinke I saw him yesternight.
Ham. Saw? Who?[4]
Hor. My Lord, the King your Father.
Ham. The King my Father?[5]
Hor. Season[6] your admiration for a while
With an attent eare;[7] till I may deliuer
Vpon the witnesse of these Gentlemen,
This maruell to you.
Ham. For Heauens loue let me heare. [Sidenote: God's love]
Hor. Two nights together, had these Gentlemen
(Marcellus and Barnardo) on their Watch
In the dead wast and middle of the night[8]
Beene thus encountred. A figure like your Father,[9]
Arm'd at all points exactly, Cap a Pe,[10] [Sidenote: Armed at poynt]
Appeares before them, and with sollemne march
Goes slow and stately: By them thrice he walkt,
[Sidenote: stately by them; thrice]
By their opprest and feare-surprized eyes,
Within his Truncheons length; whilst they bestil'd
[Sidenote: they distill'd[11]
Almost to Ielly with the Act of feare,[12]
Stand dumbe and speake not to him. This to me
In dreadfull[13] secrecie impart they did,
And I with them the third Night kept the Watch,
Whereas[14] they had deliuer'd both in time,
[Footnote 1: Dear is not unfrequently used as an intensive; but 'my dearest foe' is not 'the man who hates me most,' but 'the man whom most I regard as my foe.']
[Footnote 2: Note Hamlet's trouble: the marriage, not the death, nor the supplantation.]
[Footnote 3: —with a little surprise at Horatio's question.]
[Footnote 4: Said as if he must have misheard. Astonishment comes only with the next speech.]
[Footnote 5: 1st Q. 'Ha, ha, the King my father ke you.']
[Footnote 6: Qualify.]
[Footnote 7: 1st Q. 'an attentiue eare,'.]
[Footnote 8: Possibly, dead vast, as in 1st Q.; but waste as good, leaving also room to suppose a play in the word.]
[Footnote 9: Note the careful uncertainty.]
[Footnote 10: 1st Q. 'Capapea.']
[Footnote 11: Either word would do: the distilling off of the animal spirits would leave the man a jelly; the cold of fear would bestil them and him to a jelly. 1st Q. distilled. But I judge bestil'd the better, as the truer to the operation of fear. Compare The Winter's Tale, act v. sc. 3:—
There's magic in thy majesty, which has
From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
Standing like stone with thee.]
[Footnote 12: Act: present influence.]
[Footnote 13: a secrecy more than solemn.]
[Footnote 14: 'Where, as'.]
[Page 30]
Forme of the thing; each word made true and good,
The Apparition comes. I knew your Father:
These hands are not more like.
Ham. But where was this?
Mar. My Lord, vpon the platforme where we watcht. [Sidenote: watch]
Ham. Did you not speake to it?
Her. My Lord, I did;
But answere made it none: yet once me thought
It lifted vp it head, and did addresse
It selfe to motion, like as it would speake:
But euen then, the Morning Cocke crew lowd;
And at the sound it shrunke in hast away,
And vanisht from our sight.
Ham. Tis very strange.
Hor. As I doe liue my honourd Lord 'tis true; [Sidenote: 14] And we did thinke it writ downe in our duty To let you know of it.
[Sidenote: 32,52] Ham. Indeed, indeed Sirs; but this troubles me.
[Sidenote: Indeede Sirs but]
Hold you the watch to Night?
Both. We doe my Lord. [Sidenote: All.]
Ham. Arm'd, say you?
Both. Arm'd, my Lord. [Sidenote: All.]
Ham. From top to toe?
Both. My Lord, from head to foote. [Sidenote: All.]
Ham. Then saw you not his face?
Hor. O yes, my Lord, he wore his Beauer vp.
Ham. What, lookt he frowningly?
[Sidenote: 54,174] Hor. A countenance more in sorrow then in anger.[1]
[Sidenote: 120] Ham. Pale, or red?
Hor. Nay very pale.
[Footnote 1: The mood of the Ghost thus represented, remains the same towards his wife throughout the play.]
[Page 32]
Ham. And fixt his eyes vpon you?
Hor. Most constantly.
Ham. I would I had beene there.
Hor. It would haue much amaz'd you.
Ham. Very like, very like: staid it long? [Sidenote: Very like, stayd]
Hor. While one with moderate hast might tell a hundred. [Sidenote: hundreth]
All. Longer, longer. [Sidenote: Both.]
Hor. Not when I saw't.
Ham. His Beard was grisly?[1] no. [Sidenote: grissl'd]
Hor. It was, as I haue seene it in his life, [Sidenote: 138] A Sable[2] Siluer'd.
Ham. Ile watch to Night; perchance 'twill wake againe.
[Sidenote: walke againe.]
Hor. I warrant you it will. [Sidenote: warn't it]
[Sidenote: 44] Ham. If it assume my noble Fathers person,[3]
Ile speake to it, though Hell it selfe should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you haue hitherto conceald this sight;
Let it bee treble[5] in your silence still: [Sidenote: be tenable in[4]
And whatsoeuer els shall hap to night, [Sidenote: what someuer els]
Giue it an vnderstanding but no tongue;
I will requite your loues; so, fare ye well: [Sidenote: farre you]
Vpon the Platforme twixt eleuen and twelue,
[Sidenote: a leauen and twelfe]
Ile visit you.
All. Our duty to your Honour. Exeunt.
Ham. Your loue, as mine to you: farewell. [Sidenote: loves,] My Fathers Spirit in Armes?[6] All is not well: [Sidenote: 30,52] I doubt some foule play: would the Night were come; Till then sit still my soule; foule deeds will rise, [Sidenote: fonde deedes] Though all the earth orewhelm them to mens eies. Exit.
[Footnote 1: grisly—gray; grissl'd—turned gray;—mixed with white.]
[Footnote 2: The colour of sable-fur, I think.]
[Footnote 3: Hamlet does not accept the Appearance as his father; he thinks it may be he, but seems to take a usurpation of his form for very possible.]
[Footnote 4: 1st Q. 'tenible']
[Footnote 5: If treble be the right word, the actor in uttering it must point to each of the three, with distinct yet rapid motion. The phrase would be a strange one, but not unlike Shakspere. Compare Cymbeline, act v. sc. 5: 'And your three motives to the battle,' meaning 'the motives of you three.' Perhaps, however, it is only the adjective for the adverb: 'having concealed it hitherto, conceal it trebly now.' But tenible may be the word: 'let it be a thing to be kept in your silence still.']
[Footnote 6: Alone, he does not dispute the idea of its being his father.]
[Page 34]
SCENA TERTIA[1]
Enter Laertes and Ophelia. [Sidenote: Ophelia his Sister.]
Laer. My necessaries are imbark't; Farewell: [Sidenote: inbarckt,]
And Sister, as the Winds giue Benefit,
And Conuoy is assistant: doe not sleepe,
[Sidenote: conuay, in assistant doe]
But let me heare from you.
Ophel. Doe you doubt that?
Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his fauours,
[Sidenote: favour,]
Hold it a fashion and a toy in Bloud;
A Violet in the youth of Primy Nature;
Froward,[2] not permanent; sweet not lasting
The suppliance of a minute? No more.[3]
[Sidenote: The perfume and suppliance]
Ophel. No more but so.[4]
Laer. Thinke it no more.
For nature cressant does not grow alone,
[Sidenote: 172] In thewes[5] and Bulke: but as his Temple waxes,[6]
[Sidenote: bulkes, but as this]
The inward seruice of the Minde and Soule
Growes wide withall. Perhaps he loues you now,[7]
And now no soyle nor cautell[8] doth besmerch
The vertue of his feare: but you must feare
[Sidenote: of his will, but]
His greatnesse weigh'd, his will is not his owne;[9] [Sidenote: wayd]
For hee himselfe is subiect to his Birth:[10]
Hee may not, as vnuallued persons doe,
Carue for himselfe; for, on his choyce depends
The sanctity and health of the weole State.
[Sidenote: The safty and | this whole]
And therefore must his choyce be circumscrib'd[11]
Vnto the voyce and yeelding[12] of that Body,
Whereof he is the Head. Then if he sayes he loues you,
It fits your wisedome so farre to beleeue it;
As he in his peculiar Sect and force[13]
[Sidenote: his particuler act and place]
May giue his saying deed: which is no further,
[Footnote 1: Not in Quarto.]
[Footnote 2: Same as forward.]
[Footnote 3: 'No more' makes a new line in the Quarto.]
[Footnote 4: I think this speech should end with a point of interrogation.]
[Footnote 5: muscles.]
[Footnote 6: The body is the temple, in which the mind and soul are the worshippers: their service grows with the temple—wide, changing and increasing its objects. The degraded use of the grand image is after the character of him who makes it.]
[Footnote 7: The studied contrast between Laertes and Hamlet begins already to appear: the dishonest man, honestly judging after his own dishonesty, warns his sister against the honest man.]
[Footnote 8: deceit.]
[Footnote 9: 'You have cause to fear when you consider his greatness: his will &c.' 'You must fear, his greatness being weighed; for because of that greatness, his will is not his own.']
[Footnote 10: This line not in Quarto.]
[Footnote 11: limited.]
[Footnote 12: allowance.]
[Footnote 13: This change from the Quarto seems to me to bear the mark of Shakspere's hand. The meaning is the same, but the words are more individual and choice: the sect, the head in relation to the body, is more pregnant than place; and force, that is power, is a fuller word than act, or even action, for which it plainly appears to stand.]
[Page 36]
Then the maine voyce of Denmarke goes withall.
Then weigh what losse your Honour may sustaine,
If with too credent eare you list his Songs;
Or lose your Heart; or your chast Treasure open [Sidenote: Or loose]
To his vnmastred[1] importunity.
Feare it Ophelia, feare it my deare Sister,
And keepe within the reare of your Affection;[2]
[Sidenote: keepe you in the]
Out of the shot and danger of Desire.
The chariest Maid is Prodigall enough, [Sidenote: The]
If she vnmaske her beauty to the Moone:[3]
Vertue it selfe scapes not calumnious stroakes, [Sidenote: Vertue]
The Canker Galls, the Infants of the Spring
[Sidenote: The canker gaules the]
Too oft before the buttons[6] be disclos'd, [Sidenote: their buttons]
And in the Morne and liquid dew of Youth,
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then, best safety lies in feare;
Youth to it selfe rebels, though none else neere.[6]
Ophe. I shall th'effect of this good Lesson keepe,
As watchmen to my heart: but good my Brother [Sidenote: watchman]
Doe not as some vngracious Pastors doe,
Shew me the steepe and thorny way to Heauen;
Whilst like a puft and recklesse Libertine
Himselfe, the Primrose path of dalliance treads,
And reaks not his owne reade.[7][8][9]
Laer. Oh, feare me not.[10]
Enter Polonius.
I stay too long; but here my Father comes:
A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles vpon a second leaue.[11]
Polon. Yet heere Laertes? Aboord, aboord for shame,
The winde sits in the shoulder of your saile,
And you are staid for there: my blessing with you;
[Sidenote: for, there my | with thee]
[Footnote 1: Without a master; lawless.]
[Footnote 2: Do not go so far as inclination would lead you. Keep behind your liking. Do not go to the front with your impulse.]
[Footnote 3: —but to the moon—which can show it so little.]
[Footnote 4: Opened but not closed quotations in the Quarto.]
[Footnote 5: The French bouton is also both button and bud.]
[Footnote 6: 'Inclination is enough to have to deal with, let alone added temptation.' Like his father, Laertes is wise for another—a man of maxims, not behaviour. His morality is in his intellect and for self-ends, not in his will, and for the sake of truth and righteousness.]
[Footnote 7: 1st Q.
But my deere brother, do not you
Like to a cunning Sophister,
Teach me the path and ready way to heauen,
While you forgetting what is said to me,
Your selfe, like to a carelesse libertine
Doth giue his heart, his appetite at ful,
And little recks how that his honour dies.
'The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.'
—Macbeth, ii. 3:
'The flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.'
All's Well, iv. 5.]
[Footnote 8: 'heeds not his own counsel.']
[Footnote 9: Here in Quarto, Enter Polonius.]
[Footnote 10: With the fitting arrogance and impertinence of a libertine brother, he has read his sister a lecture on propriety of behaviour; but when she gently suggests that what is good for her is good for him too,—'Oh, fear me not!—I stay too long.']
[Footnote 11: 'A second leave-taking is a happy chance': the chance, or occasion, because it is happy, smiles. It does not mean that occasion smiles upon a second leave, but that, upon a second leave, occasion smiles. There should be a comma after smiles.]
[Footnote 12: As many of Polonius' aphorismic utterances as are given in the 1st Quarto have there inverted commas; but whether intended as gleanings from books or as fruits of experience, the light they throw on the character of him who speaks them is the same: they show it altogether selfish. He is a man of the world, wise in his generation, his principles the best of their bad sort. Of these his son is a fit recipient and retailer, passing on to his sister their father's grand doctrine of self-protection. But, wise in maxim, Polonius is foolish in practice—not from senility, but from vanity.]
[Page 38]
And these few Precepts in thy memory,[1]
See thou Character.[2] Giue thy thoughts no tongue,
[Sidenote: Looke thou]
Nor any vnproportion'd[3] thought his Act:
Be thou familiar; but by no meanes vulgar:[4]
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tride,[5]
[Sidenote: Those friends]
Grapple them to thy Soule, with hoopes of Steele: [Sidenote: unto]
But doe not dull thy palme, with entertainment
Of each vnhatch't, vnfledg'd Comrade.[6] Beware
[Sidenote: each new hatcht unfledgd courage,]
Of entrance to a quarrell: but being in
Bear't that th'opposed may beware of thee.
Giue euery man thine eare; but few thy voyce: [Sidenote: thy eare,]
Take each mans censure[7]; but reserue thy Judgement;
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy;
But not exprest in fancie; rich, not gawdie:
For the Apparell oft proclaimes the man.
And they in France of the best ranck and station,
Are of a most select and generous[8] cheff in that.[10]
[Sidenote: Or of a generous, chiefe[9]
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; [Sidenote: lender boy,]
For lone oft loses both it selfe and friend: [Sidenote: loue]
And borrowing duls the edge of Husbandry.[11]
[Sidenote: dulleth edge]
This aboue all; to thine owne selfe be true:
And it must follow, as the Night the Day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.[12]
Farewell: my Blessing season[13] this in thee.
Laer. Most humbly doe I take my leaue, my Lord.
Polon. The time inuites you, goe, your seruants tend.
[Sidenote: time inuests]
Laer. Farewell Ophelia, and remember well What I haue said to you.[14]
Ophe. Tis in my memory lockt, And you your selfe shall keepe the key of it,
Laer. Farewell. Exit Laer.
Polon. What ist Ophelia he hath said to you?
[Footnote 1: He hurries him to go, yet immediately begins to prose.]
[Footnote 2: Engrave.]
[Footnote 3: Not settled into its true shape (?) or, out of proportion with its occasions (?)—I cannot say which.]
[Footnote 4: 'Cultivate close relations, but do not lie open to common access.' 'Have choice intimacies, but do not be hail, fellow! well met with everybody.' What follows is an expansion of the lesson.]
[Footnote 5: 'The friends thou hast—and the choice of them justified by trial—'equal to: 'provided their choice be justified &c.']
[Footnote 6: 'Do not make the palm hard, and dull its touch of discrimination, by shaking hands in welcome with every one that turns up.']
[Footnote 7: judgment, opinion.]
[Footnote 8: Generosus, of good breed, a gentleman.]
[Footnote 9: 1st Q. 'generall chiefe.']
[Footnote 10: No doubt the omission of of a gives the right number of syllables to the verse, and makes room for the interpretation which a dash between generous and chief renders clearer: 'Are most select and generous—chief in that,'—'are most choice and well-bred—chief, indeed—at the head or top, in the matter of dress.' But without necessity or authority—one of the two, I would not throw away a word; and suggest therefore that Shakspere had here the French idiom de son chef in his mind, and qualifies the noun in it with adjectives of his own. The Academy Dictionary gives de son propre mouvement as one interpretation of the phrase. The meaning would be, 'they are of a most choice and developed instinct in dress.' Cheff or chief suggests the upper third of the heraldic shield, but I cannot persuade the suggestion to further development. The hypercatalectic syllables of a, swiftly spoken, matter little to the verse, especially as it is dramatic.]
[Footnote 11: Those that borrow, having to pay, lose heart for saving.
'There's husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out.'—Macbeth, ii. 1.]
[Footnote 12: Certainly a man cannot be true to himself without being true to others; neither can he be true to others without being true to himself; but if a man make himself the centre for the birth of action, it will follow, 'as the night the day,' that he will be true neither to himself nor to any other man. In this regard note the history of Laertes, developed in the play.]
[Footnote 13: —as salt, to make the counsel keep.]
[Footnote 14: See note 9, page 37.]
[Page 40]
Ophe. So please you, somthing touching the L. Hamlet.
Polon. Marry, well bethought:
Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Giuen priuate time to you; and you your selfe
Haue of your audience beene most free and bounteous.[1]
If it be so, as so tis put on me;[2]
And that in way of caution: I must tell you,
You doe not vnderstand your selfe so cleerely,
As it behoues my Daughter, and your Honour
What is betweene you, giue me vp the truth?
Ophe. He hath my Lord of late, made many tenders Of his affection to me.
Polon. Affection, puh. You speake like a greene Girle, Vnsifted in such perillous Circumstance. Doe you beleeue his tenders, as you call them?
Ophe. I do not know, my Lord, what I should thinke.
Polon. Marry Ile teach you; thinke your self a Baby,
[Sidenote: I will]
That you haue tane his tenders for true pay, [Sidenote: tane these]
Which are not starling. Tender your selfe more dearly;
[Sidenote: sterling]
Or not to crack the winde of the poore Phrase,
[Sidenote: (not … &c.]
Roaming it[3] thus, you'l tender me a foole.[4]
[Sidenote: Wrong it thus]
Ophe. My Lord, he hath importun'd me with loue, In honourable fashion.
Polon. I, fashion you may call it, go too, go too.
Ophe. And hath giuen countenance to his speech, My Lord, with all the vowes of Heauen. [Sidenote: with almost all the holy vowes of]
[Footnote 1: There had then been a good deal of intercourse between
Hamlet and Ophelia: she had heartily encouraged him.]
[Footnote 2: 'as so I am informed, and that by way of caution,']
[Footnote 3: —making it, 'the poor phrase' tenders, gallop wildly about—as one might roam a horse; larking it.]
[Footnote 4: 'you will in your own person present me a fool.']
[Page 42]
Polon. I, Springes to catch Woodcocks.[1] I doe know
[Sidenote: springs]
When the Bloud burnes, how Prodigall the Soule[2]
Giues the tongue vowes: these blazes, Daughter, [Sidenote: Lends the]
Giuing more light then heate; extinct in both,[3]
Euen in their promise, as it is a making;
You must not take for fire. For this time Daughter,[4]
[Sidenote: fire, from this]
Be somewhat scanter of your Maiden presence; [Sidenote: something]
Set your entreatments[5] at a higher rate,
Then a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet, [Sidenote: parle;]
Beleeue so much in him, that he is young,
And with a larger tether may he walke, [Sidenote: tider]
Then may be giuen you. In few,[6] Ophelia,
Doe not beleeue his vowes; for they are Broakers,
Not of the eye,[7] which their Inuestments show:
[Sidenote: of that die]
But meere implorators of vnholy Sutes, [Sidenote: imploratators]
Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:[8] [Sidenote: beguide]
I would not, in plaine tearmes, from this time forth,
Haue you so slander any moment leisure,[9]
[Sidenote: 70, 82] As to giue words or talke with the Lord Hamlet:[10]
Looke too't, I charge you; come your wayes.
Ophe. I shall obey my Lord.[11] Exeunt.
Enter Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus. [Sidenote: and Marcellus]
[Sidenote: 2] Ham. [12]The Ayre bites shrewdly: is it very cold?[13]
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager ayre.
Ham. What hower now?
Hor. I thinke it lacks of twelue.
Mar. No, it is strooke.
Hor. Indeed I heard it not: then it drawes neere the season,
[Sidenote: it then]
Wherein the Spirit held his wont to walke.
What does this meane my Lord? [14]
[Sidenote: A flourish of trumpets and 2 peeces goes of.[14]
[Footnote 1: Woodcocks were understood to have no brains.]
[Footnote 2: 1st Q. 'How prodigall the tongue lends the heart vowes.' I was inclined to take Prodigall for a noun, a proper name or epithet given to the soul, as in a moral play: Prodigall, the soul; but I conclude it only an adjective used as an adverb, and the capital P a blunder.]
[Footnote 3: —in both light and heat.]
[Footnote 4: The Quarto has not 'Daughter.']
[Footnote 5: To be entreated is to yield: 'he would nowise be entreated:' entreatments, yieldings: 'you are not to see him just because he chooses to command a parley.']
[Footnote 6: 'In few words'; in brief.]
[Footnote 7: I suspect a misprint in the Folio here—that an e has got in for a d, and that the change from the Quarto should be Not of the dye. Then the line would mean, using the antecedent word brokers in the bad sense, 'Not themselves of the same colour as their garments (investments); his vows are clothed in innocence, but are not innocent; they are mere panders.' The passage is rendered yet more obscure to the modern sense by the accidental propinquity of bonds, brokers, and investments—which have nothing to do with stocks.]
[Footnote 8: 'This means in sum:'.]
[Footnote 9: 'so slander any moment with the name of leisure as to': to call it leisure, if leisure stood for talk with Hamlet, would be to slander the time. We might say, 'so slander any man friend as to expect him to do this or that unworthy thing for you.']
[Footnote 10: 1st Q.
Ofelia, receiue none of his letters,
For louers lines are snares to intrap the heart;
[Sidenote: 82] Refuse his tokens, both of them are keyes
To vnlocke Chastitie vnto Desire;
Come in Ofelia; such men often proue,
Great in their wordes, but little in their loue.
'men often prove such—great &c.'—Compare Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. 4, lines 120, 121, _Globe ed.]
[Footnote 11: Fresh trouble for Hamlet_.]
[Footnote 12: 1st Q.
The ayre bites shrewd; it is an eager and
An nipping winde, what houre i'st?]
[Footnote 13: Again the cold.]
[Footnote 14: The stage-direction of the Q. is necessary here.]
[Page 44]
[Sidenote: 22, 25] Ham. The King doth wake to night, and takes his
rouse,
Keepes wassels and the swaggering vpspring reeles,[1]
[Sidenote: wassell | up-spring]
And as he dreines his draughts of Renish downe,
The kettle Drum and Trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his Pledge.
Horat. Is it a custome?
Ham. I marry ist;
And to my mind, though I am natiue heere, [Sidenote: But to]
And to the manner borne: It is a Custome
More honour'd in the breach, then the obseruance.
[A]
Enter Ghost.
Hor. Looke my Lord, it comes.
[Sidenote: 172] Ham. Angels and Ministers of Grace defend vs:
[Sidenote: 32] Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee ayres from Heauen, or blasts from Hell,[2]
[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—
This heauy headed reueale east and west[3]
Makes vs tradust, and taxed of other nations,
They clip[4] vs drunkards, and with Swinish phrase
Soyle our addition,[5] and indeede it takes
From our atchieuements, though perform'd at height[6]
The pith and marrow of our attribute,
So oft it chaunces in particuler men,[7]
That for some vicious mole[8] of nature in them
As in their birth wherein they are not guilty,[8]
(Since nature cannot choose his origin)
By their ore-grow'th of some complextion[10]
Oft breaking downe the pales and forts of reason
Or by[11] some habit, that too much ore-leauens
The forme of plausiue[12] manners, that[13] these men
Carrying I say the stamp of one defect
Being Natures liuery, or Fortunes starre,[14]
His[15] vertues els[16] be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may vndergoe,[17]
Shall in the generall censure[18] take corruption
From that particuler fault:[19] the dram of eale[20]
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt[21]
To his[22] owne scandle.]
[Footnote 1: Does Hamlet here call his uncle an upspring, an upstart? or is the upspring a dance, the English equivalent of 'the high lavolt' of Troil. and Cress. iv. 4, and governed by reels—'keeps wassels, and reels the swaggering upspring'—a dance that needed all the steadiness as well as agility available, if, as I suspect, it was that in which each gentleman lifted the lady high, and kissed her before setting her down? I cannot answer, I can only put the question. The word swaggering makes me lean to the former interpretation.]
[Footnote 2: Observe again Hamlet's uncertainty. He does not take it for granted that it is his father's spirit, though it is plainly his form.]
[Footnote 3: The Quarto surely came too early for this passage to have been suggested by the shameful habits which invaded the court through the example of Anne of Denmark! Perhaps Shakspere cancelled it both because he would not have it supposed he had meant to reflect on the queen, and because he came to think it too diffuse.]
[Footnote 4: clepe, call.]
[Footnote 5: Same as attribute, two lines lower—the thing imputed to, or added to us—our reputation, our title or epithet.]
[Footnote 6: performed to perfection.]
[Footnote 7: individuals.]
[Footnote 8: A mole on the body, according to the place where it appeared, was regarded as significant of character: in that relation, a vicious mole would be one that indicated some special vice; but here the allusion is to a live mole of constitutional fault, burrowing within, whose presence the mole-heap on the skin indicates.]
[Footnote 9: The order here would be: 'for some vicious mole of nature in them, as by their o'er-growth, in their birth—wherein they are not guilty, since nature cannot choose his origin (or parentage)—their o'ergrowth of (their being overgrown or possessed by) some complexion, &c.']
[Footnote 10: Complexion, as the exponent of the temperament, or masterful tendency of the nature, stands here for temperament—'oft breaking down &c.' Both words have in them the element of mingling—a mingling to certain results.]
[Footnote 11: The connection is:
That for some vicious mole—
As by their o'ergrowth—
Or by some habit, &c.]
[Footnote 12: pleasing.]
[Footnote 13: Repeat from above '—so oft it chaunces,' before 'that these men.']
[Footnote 14: 'whether the thing come by Nature or by Destiny,' Fortune's star: the mark set on a man by fortune to prove her share in him. 83.]
[Footnote 15: A change to the singular.]
[Footnote l6: 'be his virtues besides as pure &c.']
[Footnote 17: walk under; carry.]
[Footnote 18: the judgment of the many.]
[Footnote 19: 'Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.' Eccles. x. 1.]
[Footnote 20: Compare Quarto reading, page 112:
The spirit that I haue scene
May be a deale, and the deale hath power &c.
If deale here stand for devil, then eale may in the same edition be taken to stand for evil. It is hardly necessary to suspect a Scotch printer; evil is often used as a monosyllable, and eale may have been a pronunciation of it half-way towards ill, which is its contraction.]
[Footnote 21: I do not believe there is any corruption in the rest of the passage. 'Doth it of a doubt:' affects it with a doubt, brings it into doubt. The following from Measure for Measure, is like, though not the same.
I have on Angelo imposed the office,
Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home
And yet my nature never in the fight
To do in slander.
'To do my nature in slander'; to affect it with slander; to bring it into slander, 'Angelo may punish in my name, but, not being present, I shall not be accused of cruelty, which would be to slander my nature.']
[Footnote 22: his—the man's; see note 13 above.]
[Page 46]
[Sidenote: 112] Be thy euents wicked or charitable,
[Sidenote: thy intent]
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape[1]
That I will speake to thee. Ile call thee Hamlet,[2]
King, Father, Royall Dane: Oh, oh, answer me,
[Sidenote: Dane, ô answere]
Let me not burst in Ignorance; but tell
Why thy Canoniz'd bones Hearsed in death,[3]
Haue burst their cerments; why the Sepulcher
Wherein we saw thee quietly enurn'd,[4]
[Sidenote: quietly interr'd[3]
Hath op'd his ponderous and Marble iawes,
To cast thee vp againe? What may this meane?
That thou dead Coarse againe in compleat steele,
Reuisits thus the glimpses of the Moone,
Making Night hidious? And we fooles of Nature,[6]
So horridly to shake our disposition,[7]
With thoughts beyond thee; reaches of our Soules,[8]
[Sidenote: the reaches]
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we doe?[9]
Ghost beckens Hamlet.
Hor. It beckons you to goe away with it, [Sidenote: Beckins] As if it some impartment did desire To you alone.
Mar. Looke with what courteous action It wafts you to a more remoued ground: [Sidenote: waues] But doe not goe with it.
Hor. No, by no meanes.
Ham. It will not speake: then will I follow it. [Sidenote: I will]
Hor. Doe not my Lord.
Ham. Why, what should be the feare?
I doe not set my life at a pins fee;
And for my Soule, what can it doe to that?
Being a thing immortall as it selfe:[10]
It waues me forth againe; Ile follow it.
Hor. What if it tempt you toward the Floud my Lord?[11]
[Footnote 1: —that of his father, so moving him to question it. Questionable does not mean doubtful, but fit to be questioned.]
[Footnote 2: 'I'll call thee'—for the nonce.]
[Footnote 3: I think hearse was originally the bier—French herse, a harrow—but came to be applied to the coffin: hearsed in death—coffined in death.]
[Footnote 4: There is no impropriety in the use of the word inurned. It is a figure—a word once-removed in its application: the sepulchre is the urn, the body the ashes. Interred Shakspere had concluded incorrect, for the body was not laid in the earth.]
[Footnote 5: So in 1st Q.]
[Footnote 6: 'fooles of Nature'—fools in the presence of her knowledge—to us no knowledge—of her action, to us inexplicable. A fact that looks unreasonable makes one feel like a fool. See Psalm lxxiii. 22: 'So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast before 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]
* * * * *