[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]