In the scene of Ophelia's madness, we hear songs, thoughts, and phrases probably caught up by her from Hamlet. The ideal which man forms of woman, is the moral altitude on which she stands. Now, let the language be called to mind, which Hamlet, before the players' scene, uses towards his beloved!
Ophelia's words: 'Come, my coach [79]' will be understood from the passage in Montaigne above quoted. The meaning of: 'Oh, how the wheel becomes it!' has reference to a thought developed by Montaigne in Essay III. (11), [80] which we cannot render here, as it is opposed to every feeling of decency.
All commentators agree in thinking that the character of Laertes is in direct contrast to that of Hamlet. In the first quarto, the figure of Laertes is but rapidly indicated. Only that scene is worked out where he cries out against the priest who will not follow his sister to the grave:—
A ministering angel shall my sister be.
When thou liest howling.
In the second quarto only, we meet with the most characteristic speeches in which the strong-willed Laertes, [81] unmindful of any future world, calls for revenge with every drop of his indignant blood:—
To Hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devils!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation….
… Both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes …
… to cut his throat i' the church.
That passage, too, is new, in which Ophelia's madness is explained as the consequence of blighted love:—
Nature is fine in love, and where 't is fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
Her own reason, which succumbs to her love, is the precious token.
In the same way, those words are not in the first quarto, in which Laertes gives vent to the oppressed feelings of his heart, on hearing of the death of his sister:—