The word craft properly signifies art, ability, dexterity, skill, as well as cunning and dissimulation—and all these qualities have a close relation to discretion.
The pretended madness of Hamlet is therefore illustrative of the theme; just as the real madness of Lear is illustrative of the theme of that play. The dissimulation of Hamlet, however, is not such as to lessen our esteem for his character. Surrounded as he is with spies and enemies, we feel that it is a justifiable stratagem. It is worthy of remark that Edgar employs a similar means of defense in the Play of King Lear; and that as Shakspeare’s love of contrast has led him thus to oppose the assumed madness of Edgar to the real madness of Lear, so here we have the real madness of Ophelia opposed to the assumed madness of Hamlet.
Hamlet displays craft also (but still a justifiable craft,) in his device of the play, “to catch the conscience of the king.” And when he has succeeded, he triumphs in this proof of his own skill, with a very natural vanity. “Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me,) etc., get me a fellowship in a cry of players?” In his interview with his mother, (the picture scene,) he dwells chiefly on her want of discernment; and, at the conclusion of the scene, alluding to his “two schoolfellows,” he boasts that he will “delve one yard below their mines, and blow them at the moon;” a feat which he very fully accomplishes. But after all he feels and acknowledges that he is a mere instrument in the hands of a higher power.
Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us,
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how we will.
And when Horatio endeavors to dissuade him from fencing with Laertes, because he acknowledges a foreboding of evil he replies: “Not a whit, we defy augury; there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all.” These solemn sentiments were a fit prelude to the tragic fate upon which he was rushing.
Polonius frequently boasts of his own discernment. As when he says to the king:
Hath there been such a time (I’d fain know that,)