[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.