SUMMARY OF ACT I. (continued 3)

Heaven's face doth glow (blush) O'er this solidity and compound mass,

(the earth, solid, material, composite, a corporeal mass in confrontment with the spirit-like etherial, simple, uncompounded heaven leaning over it)

With tristful (or heated, as the reader may choose) visage: as against the doom,

(as in the presence, or in anticipation of the revealing judgment)

Is thought sick at the act.

(thought is sick at the act of the queen)

My difficulties as to the Folio reading are—why the earth should be so described without immediate contrast with the sky; and—how the earth could be showing a tristful visage, and the sickness of its thought. I think, if the Poet indeed made the alterations and they are not mere blunders, he must have made them hurriedly, and without due attention. I would not forget, however, that there may be something present but too good for me to find, which would make the passage plain as it stands.

Compare As you like it, act i. sc. 3.

For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale, Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.]

[Footnote 11: In Q. the rest of this speech is Hamlet's; his long speech begins here, taking up the queen's word.]

[Footnote 12: She still stands out.]

[Footnote 13: 'thunders in the very indication or mention of it.' But by 'the Index' may be intended the influx or table of contents of a book, at the beginning of it.]

[Page 170]

Ham. Looke heere vpon this Picture, and on this, The counterfet presentment of two Brothers:[1] See what a grace was seated on his Brow, [Sidenote: on this] [Sidenote: 151] Hyperions curies, the front of Ioue himselfe, An eye like Mars, to threaten or command [Sidenote: threaten and] A Station, like the Herald Mercurie New lighted on a heauen kissing hill: [Sidenote: on a heaue, a kissing] A Combination, and a forme indeed, Where euery God did seeme to set his Seale, To giue the world assurance of a man.[2] This was your Husband. Looke you now what followes. Heere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare Blasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes? [Sidenote: wholsome brother,] Could you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed, And batten on this Moore?[3] Ha? Haue you eyes? You cannot call it Loue: For at your age, The hey-day[4] in the blood is tame, it's humble, And waites vpon the Judgement: and what Iudgement Would step from this, to this? [A] What diuell was't, That thus hath cousend you at hoodman-blinde?[5] [Sidenote: hodman] [B] O Shame! where is thy Blush? Rebellious Hell, If thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones,

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

sence sure youe haue Els could you not haue motion, but sure that sence Is appoplext, for madnesse would not erre Nor sence to extacie[6] was nere so thral'd But it reseru'd some quantity of choise[7] To serue in such[8] a difference,]

[Footnote B: Here in the Quarto:—

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight. Eares without hands, or eyes, smelling sance[9] all, Or but a sickly part of one true sence Could not so mope:[10]]

[Footnote 1: He points to the portraits of the two brothers, side by side on the wall.]

[Footnote 2: See Julius Caesar, act v. sc. 5,—speech of Antony at the end.]

[Footnote 3: —perhaps an allusion as well to the complexion of Claudius, both moral and physical.]

[Footnote 4: —perhaps allied to the German heida, and possibly the English hoyden and hoity-toity. Or is it merely high-day—noontide?]

[Footnote 5: 'played tricks with you while hooded in the game of blind-man's-bluff?' The omitted passage of the Quarto enlarges the figure.

1st Q. 'hob-man blinde.']

[Footnote 6: madness.]

[Footnote 7: Attributing soul to sense, he calls its distinguishment choice.]

[Footnote 8: —emphasis on such.]

[Footnote 9: This spelling seems to show how the English word sans should be pronounced.]

[Footnote 10: —'be so dull.']

[Page 172]

To flaming youth, let Vertue be as waxe, And melt in her owne fire. Proclaime no shame, When the compulsiue Ardure giues the charge, Since Frost it selfe,[1] as actiuely doth burne, As Reason panders Will. [Sidenote: And reason pardons will.]

Qu. O Hamlet, speake no more.[2] [Sidenote: Ger.] Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soule, [Sidenote: my very eyes into my soule,] And there I see such blacke and grained[3] spots, [Sidenote: greeued spots] As will not leaue their Tinct.[4] [Sidenote: will leaue there their]

Ham. Nay, but to liue[5] In the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed, [Sidenote: inseemed] Stew'd in Corruption; honying and making loue [Sidenote: 34] Ouer the nasty Stye.[6]

Qu. Oh speake to me, no more, [Sidenote: Ger.] [Sidenote: 158] These words like Daggers enter in mine eares. [Sidenote: my] No more sweet Hamlet.

Ham. A Murderer, and a Villaine: A Slaue, that is not twentieth part the tythe [Sidenote: part the kyth] Of your precedent Lord. A vice[7] of Kings, A Cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule. That from a shelfe, the precious Diadem stole, And put it in his Pocket.

Qu. No more.[8] [Sidenote: Ger.]

Enter Ghost.[9]

Ham. A King of shreds and patches. [Sidenote: 44] Saue me; and houer o're me with your wings[10] You heauenly Guards. What would you gracious figure? [Sidenote: your gracious]

Qu. Alas he's mad.[11] [Sidenote: Ger.]

Ham. Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide, That laps't in Time and Passion, lets go by[12] Th'important acting of your dread command? Oh say.[13]

[Footnote 1: —his mother's matronly age.]

[Footnote 2: She gives way at last.]

[Footnote 3: —spots whose blackness has sunk into the grain, or final particles of the substance.]

[Footnote 4: —transition form of tint:—'will never give up their colour;' 'will never be cleansed.']

[Footnote 5: He persists.]

[Footnote 6: —Claudius himself—his body no 'temple of the Holy Ghost,' but a pig-sty. 3.]

[Footnote 7: The clown of the old Moral Play.]

[Footnote 8: She seems neither surprised nor indignant at any point in the accusation: her consciousness of her own guiit has overwhelmed her.]

[Footnote 9: The 1st Q. has Enter the ghost in his night gowne. It was then from the first intended that he should not at this point appear in armour—in which, indeed, the epithet gracious figure could hardly be applied to him, though it might well enough in one of the costumes in which Hamlet was accustomed to see him—as this dressing-gown of the 1st Q. A ghost would appear in the costume in which he naturally imagined himself, and in his wife's room would not show himself clothed as when walking among the fortifications of the castle. But by the words lower down (174)—

My Father in his habite, as he liued,

the Poet indicates, not his dressing-gown, but his usual habit, i.e. attire.]

[Footnote 10: —almost the same invocation as when first he saw the apparition.]

[Footnote 11: The queen cannot see the Ghost. Her conduct has built such a wall between her and her husband that I doubt whether, were she a ghost also, she could see him. Her heart had left him, so they are no more together in the sphere of mutual vision. Neither does the Ghost wish to show himself to her. As his presence is not corporeal, a ghost may be present to but one of a company.]

[Footnote 12: 1. 'Who, lapsed (fallen, guilty), lets action slip in delay and suffering.' 2. 'Who, lapsed in (fallen in, overwhelmed by) delay and suffering, omits' &c. 3. 'lapsed in respect of time, and because of passion'—the meaning of the preposition in, common to both, reacted upon by the word it governs. 4. 'faulty both in delaying, and in yielding to suffering, when action is required.' 5. 'lapsed through having too much time and great suffering.' 6. 'allowing himself to be swept along by time and grief.'

Surely there is not another writer whose words would so often admit of such multiform and varied interpretation—each form good, and true, and suitable to the context! He seems to see at once all the relations of a thing, and to try to convey them at once, in an utterance single as the thing itself. He would condense the infinite soul of the meaning into the trembling, overtaxed body of the phrase!]

[Footnote 13: In the renewed presence of the Ghost, all its former influence and all the former conviction of its truth, return upon him. He knows also how his behaviour must appear to the Ghost, and sees himself as the Ghost sees him. Confronted with the gracious figure, how should he think of self-justification! So far from being able to explain things, he even forgets the doubt that had held him back—it has vanished from the noble presence! He is now in the world of belief; the world of doubt is nowhere!—Note the masterly opposition of moods.]

[Page 174]

Ghost. Do not forget: this Visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.[1] But looke, Amazement on thy Mother sits;[2] [Sidenote: 30, 54] O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule,[3] [Sidenote: 198] Conceit[4] in weakest bodies, strongest workes. Speake to her Hamlet.[5]

Ham. How is it with you Lady?[6]

Qu. Alas, how is't with you? [Sidenote: Ger.] That you bend your eye on vacancie, [Sidenote: you do bend] And with their corporall ayre do hold discourse. [Sidenote: with th'incorporall ayre] Forth at your eyes, your spirits wildely peepe, And as the sleeping Soldiours in th'Alarme, Your bedded haire, like life in excrements,[7] Start vp, and stand an end.[8] Oh gentle Sonne, Vpon the heate and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle coole patience. Whereon do you looke?[9]

Ham. On him, on him: look you how pale he glares, His forme and cause conioyn'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capeable.[10] Do not looke vpon me,[11] Least with this pitteous action you conuert My sterne effects: then what I haue to do,[12] [Sidenote: 111] Will want true colour; teares perchance for blood.[13]

Qu. To who do you speake this? [Sidenote: Ger. To whom]

Ham. Do you see nothing there?

Qu. Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.[14] [Sidenote: Ger.]

Ham. Nor did you nothing heare?

Qu. No, nothing but our selues. [Sidenote: Ger.]

Ham. Why look you there: looke how it steals away: [Sidenote: 173] My Father in his habite, as he liued, Looke where he goes euen now out at the Portall. Exit. [Sidenote: Exit Ghost.]

[Sidenote: 114] Qu. This is the very coynage of your Braine, [Sidenote: Ger.]

[Footnote 1: The Ghost here judges, as alone is possible to him, from what he knows—from the fact that his brother Claudius has not yet made his appearance in the ghost-world. Not understanding Hamlet's difficulties, he mistakes Hamlet himself.]

[Footnote 2: He mistakes also, through his tenderness, the condition of his wife—imagining, it would seem, that she feels his presence, though she cannot see him, or recognize the source of the influence which he supposes to be moving her conscience: she is only perturbed by Hamlet's behaviour.]

[Footnote 3: —fighting within itself, as the sea in a storm may be said to fight.

He is careful as ever over the wife he had loved and loves still; careful no less of the behaviour of the son to his mother.

In the 1st Q. we have:—

But I perceiue by thy distracted lookes, Thy mother's fearefull, and she stands amazde: Speake to her Hamlet, for her sex is weake, Comfort thy mother, Hamlet, thinke on me.]

[Footnote 4: —not used here for bare imagination, but imagination with its concomitant feeling:—conception. 198.]

[Footnote 5: His last word ere he vanishes utterly, concerns his queen; he is tender and gracious still to her who sent him to hell. This attitude of the Ghost towards his faithless wife, is one of the profoundest things in the play. All the time she is not thinking of him any more than seeing him—for 'is he not dead!'—is looking straight at where he stands, but is all unaware of him.]

[Footnote 6: I understand him to speak this with a kind of lost, mechanical obedience. The description his mother gives of him makes it seem as if the Ghost were drawing his ghost out to himself, and turning his body thereby half dead.]

[Footnote 7: 'as if there were life in excrements.' The nails and hair were 'excrements'—things growing out.]

[Footnote 8: Note the form an end—not on end. 51, 71.]

[Footnote 9: —all spoken coaxingly, as to one in a mad fit. She regards his perturbation as a sudden assault of his ever present malady. One who sees what others cannot see they are always ready to count mad.]

[Footnote 10: able to take, that is, to understand.]

[Footnote 11: —to the Ghost.]

[Footnote 12: 'what is in my power to do.']

[Footnote 13: Note antithesis here: 'your piteous action;' 'my stern effects'—the things, that is, 'which I have to effect.' 'Lest your piteous show convert—change—my stern doing; then what I do will lack true colour; the result may be tears instead of blood; I shall weep instead of striking.']

[Footnote 14: It is one of the constantly recurring delusions of humanity that we see all there is.]

[Page 176]

[Sidenote: 114] This bodilesse Creation extasie[1] is very cunning in.[2]

Ham. Extasie?[3] My Pulse as yours doth temperately keepe time, And makes as healthfull Musicke.[4] It is not madnesse That I haue vttered; bring me to the Test And I the matter will re-word: which madnesse [Sidenote: And the] Would gamboll from. Mother, for loue of Grace, Lay not a flattering Vnction to your soule, [Sidenote: not that flattering] That not your trespasse, but my madnesse speakes: [Sidenote: 182] It will but skin and filme the Vlcerous place, Whil'st ranke Corruption mining all within, [Sidenote: whiles] Infects vnseene, Confesse your selfe to Heauen, Repent what's past, auoyd what is to come, And do not spred the Compost or the Weedes, [Sidenote: compost on the] To make them ranke. Forgiue me this my Vertue, [Sidenote: ranker,] For in the fatnesse of this pursie[5] times, [Sidenote: these] Vertue it selfe, of Vice must pardon begge, Yea courb,[6] and woe, for leaue to do him good. [Sidenote: curbe and wooe]

Qu. Oh Hamlet, [Sidenote: Ger.] Thou hast cleft my heart in twaine.

Ham. O throw away the worser part of it, And Liue the purer with the other halfe. [Sidenote: And leaue the] Good night, but go not to mine Vnkles bed, [Sidenote: my] Assume a Vertue, if you haue it not,[7][A] refraine to night [Sidenote: Assune | to refraine night,] And that shall lend a kinde of easinesse

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

[8]That monster custome, who all sence doth eate Of habits deuill,[9] is angell yet in this That to the vse of actions faire and good, He likewise giues a frock or Liuery That aptly is put on]

[Footnote 1: madness 129.]

[Footnote 2: Here is the correspondent speech in the 1st Q. I give it because of the queen's denial of complicity in the murder.

Queene Alas, it is the weakenesse of thy braine. Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy hearts griefe: But as I haue a soule, I sweare by heauen, I neuer knew of this most horride murder: But Hamlet, this is onely fantasie, And for my loue forget these idle fits.

Ham. Idle, no mother, my pulse doth beate like yours, It is not madnesse that possesseth Hamlet.]

[Footnote 3: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 4: —time being a great part of music. Shakspere more than once or twice employs music as a symbol with reference to corporeal condition: see, for instance, As you like it, act i. sc. 2, 'But is there any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking?' where the broken music may be regarded as the antithesis of the healthful music here.]

[Footnote 5: swoln, pampered: an allusion to the purse itself, whether intended or not, is suggested.]

[Footnote 6: bend, bow.]

[Footnote 7: To assume is to take to one: by assume a virtue, Hamlet does not mean pretend—but the very opposite: to pretend is to hold forth, to show; what he means is, 'Adopt a virtue'—that of abstinence—'and act upon it, order your behaviour by it, although you may not feel it. Choose the virtue—take it, make it yours.']

[Footnote 8: This omitted passage is obscure with the special Shaksperean obscurity that comes of over-condensation. He omitted it, I think, because of its obscurity. Its general meaning is plain enough—that custom helps the man who tries to assume a virtue, as well as renders it more and more difficult for him who indulges in vice to leave it. I will paraphrase: 'That monster, Custom, who eats away all sense, the devil of habits, is angel yet in this, that, for the exercise of fair and good actions, he also provides a habit, a suitable frock or livery, that is easily put on.' The play with the two senses of the word habit is more easily seen than set forth. To paraphrase more freely: 'That devil of habits, Custom, who eats away all sense of wrong-doing, has yet an angel-side to him, in that he gives a man a mental dress, a habit, helpful to the doing of the right thing.' The idea of hypocrisy does not come in at all. The advice of Hamlet is: 'Be virtuous in your actions, even if you cannot in your feelings; do not do the wrong thing you would like to do, and custom will render the abstinence easy.']

[Footnote 9: I suspect it should be 'Of habits evil'—the antithesis to angel being monster.]

[Page 178]

To the next abstinence. [A] Once more goodnight, And when you are desirous to be blest, Ile blessing begge of you.[1] For this same Lord, I do repent: but heauen hath pleas'd it so,[2] To punish me with this, and this with me, That I must be their[3] Scourge and Minister. I will bestow him,[4] and will answer well The death I gaue him:[5] so againe, good night. I must be cruell, onely to be kinde;[6] Thus bad begins,[7] and worse remaines behinde.[8] [Sidenote: This bad]

[B]

Qu. What shall I do? [Sidenote: Ger.]

Ham. Not this by no meanes that I bid you do: Let the blunt King tempt you againe to bed, [Sidenote: the blowt King] Pinch Wanton on your cheeke, call you his Mouse, And let him for a paire of reechie[9] kisses, Or padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers, Make you to rauell all this matter out, [Sidenote: rouell] [Sidenote: 60, 136, 156] That I essentially am not in madnesse. But made in craft.[10] 'Twere good you let him know, [Sidenote: mad] For who that's but a Queene, faire, sober, wise, Would from a Paddocke,[11] from a Bat, a Gibbe,[12] Such deere concernings hide, Who would do so, No in despight of Sense and Secrecie, Vnpegge the Basket on the houses top: Let the Birds flye, and like the famous Ape To try Conclusions[13] in the Basket, creepe And breake your owne necke downe.[14]

Qu. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, [Sidenote: Ger.]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto;—

the next more easie:[15] For vse almost can change the stamp of nature, And either[16] the deuill, or throwe him out With wonderous potency:]

[Footnote B: Here in the Quarto:—

One word more good Lady.[17]]

[Footnote 1: In bidding his mother good night, he would naturally, after the custom of the time, have sought her blessing: it would be a farce now: when she seeks the blessing of God, he will beg hers; now, a plain good night must serve.]

[Footnote 2: Note the curious inverted use of pleased. It is here a transitive, not an impersonal verb. The construction of the sentence is, 'pleased it so, in order to punish us, that I must' &c.]

[Footnote 3: The noun to which their is the pronoun is heaven—as if he had written the gods.]

[Footnote 4: 'take him to a place fit for him to lie in.']

[Footnote 5: 'hold my face to it, and justify it.']

[Footnote 6: —omitting or refusing to embrace her.]

[Footnote 7: —looking at Polonius.]

[Footnote 8: Does this mean for himself to do, or for Polonius to endure?]

[Footnote 9: reeky, smoky, fumy.]

[Footnote 10: Hamlet considers his madness the same that he so deliberately assumed. But his idea of himself goes for nothing where the experts conclude him mad! His absolute clarity where he has no occasion to act madness, goes for as little, for 'all madmen have their sane moments'!]

[Footnote 11: a toad; in Scotland, a frog.]

[Footnote 12: an old cat.]

[Footnote 13: Experiments, Steevens says: is it not rather results?]

[Footnote 14: I fancy the story, which so far as I know has not been traced, goes on to say that the basket was emptied from the house-top to send the pigeons flying, and so the ape got his neck broken. The phrase 'breake your owne necke downe' seems strange: it could hardly have been written neck-bone!]

[Footnote 15: This passage would fall in better with the preceding with which it is vitally one—for it would more evenly continue its form—if the preceding devil were, as I propose above, changed to evil. But, precious as is every word in them, both passages are well omitted.]

[Footnote 16: Plainly there is a word left out, if not lost here. There is no authority for the supplied master. I am inclined to propose a pause and a gesture, with perhaps an inarticulation.]

[Footnote 17: —interrogatively perhaps, Hamlet noting her about to speak; but I would prefer it thus: 'One word more:—good lady—' Here he pauses so long that she speaks. Or we might read it thus:

Qu. One word more. Ham. Good lady? Qu. What shall I do?]

[Page 180]

And breath of life: I haue no life to breath What thou hast saide to me.[1]

[Sidenote: 128, 158] Ham. I must to England, you know that?[2]

Qu. Alacke I had forgot: Tis so concluded on. [Sidenote: Ger.]

Ham. [A] This man shall set me packing:[3] Ile lugge the Guts into the Neighbor roome,[4] Mother goodnight. Indeede this Counsellor [Sidenote: night indeed, this] Is now most still, most secret, and most graue, [Sidenote: 84] Who was in life, a foolish prating Knaue. [Sidenote: a most foolish] Come sir, to draw toward an end with you.[5] Good night Mother.

Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius.[6] [Sidenote: Exit.]

[7]

Enter King. [Sidenote: Enter King, and Queene, with Rosencraus and Guyldensterne.]

King. There's matters in these sighes. These profound heaues You must translate; Tis fit we vnderstand them. Where is your Sonne?[8]

Qu. [B] Ah my good Lord, what haue I seene to night? [Sidenote: Ger. | Ah mine owne Lord,]

King. What Gertrude? How do's Hamlet?

Qu. Mad as the Seas, and winde, when both contend [Sidenote: Ger. | sea and] Which is the Mightier, in his lawlesse fit[9]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

[10]Ther's letters seald, and my two Schoolefellowes, Whom I will trust as I will Adders fang'd, They beare the mandat, they must sweep my way And marshall me to knauery[11]: let it worke, For tis the sport to haue the enginer Hoist[12] with his owne petar,[13] an't shall goe hard But I will delue one yard belowe their mines, And blowe them at the Moone: ô tis most sweete When in one line two crafts directly meete,]

[Footnote B: Here in the Quarto:—

Bestow this place on vs a little while.[14]]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q.

O mother, if euer you did my deare father loue, Forbeare the adulterous bed to night, And win your selfe by little as you may, In time it may be you wil lothe him quite: And mother, but assist mee in reuenge, And in his death your infamy shall die.

Queene. Hamlet, I vow by that maiesty, That knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts, I will conceale, consent, and doe my best, What stratagem soe're thou shalt deuise.]

[Footnote 2: The king had spoken of it both before and after the play: Horatio might have heard of it and told Hamlet.]

[Footnote 3: 'My banishment will be laid to this deed of mine.']

[Footnote 4: —to rid his mother of it.]

[Footnote 5: It may cross him, as he says this, dragging the body out by one end of it, and toward the end of its history, that he is himself drawing toward an end along with Polonius.]

[Footnote 6: —and weeping. 182. See note 5, 183.]

[Footnote 7: Here, according to the editors, comes 'Act IV.' For this there is no authority, and the point of division seems to me very objectionable. The scene remains the same, as noted from Capell in Cam. Sh., and the entrance of the king follows immediately on the exit of Hamlet. He finds his wife greatly perturbed; she has not had time to compose herself.

From the beginning of Act II., on to where I would place the end of Act III., there is continuity.]

[Footnote 8: I would have this speech uttered with pauses and growing urgency, mingled at length with displeasure.]

[Footnote 9: She is faithful to her son, declaring him mad, and attributing the death of 'the unseen' Polonius to his madness.]

[Footnote 10: This passage, like the rest, I hold to be omitted by Shakspere himself. It represents Hamlet as divining the plot with whose execution his false friends were entrusted. The Poet had at first intended Hamlet to go on board the vessel with a design formed upon this for the out-witting of his companions, and to work out that design. Afterwards, however, he alters his plan, and represents his escape as more plainly providential: probably he did not see how to manage it by any scheme of Hamlet so well as by the attack of a pirate; possibly he wished to write the passage (246) in which Hamlet, so consistently with his character, attributes his return to the divine shaping of the end rough-hewn by himself. He had designs—'dear plots'—but they were other than fell out—a rough-hewing that was shaped to a different end. The discomfiture of his enemies was not such as he had designed: it was brought about by no previous plot, but through a discovery. At the same time his deliverance was not effected by the fingering of the packet, but by the attack of the pirate: even the re-writing of the commission did nothing towards his deliverance, resulted only in the punishment of his traitorous companions. In revising the Quarto, the Poet sees that the passage before us, in which is expressed the strongest suspicion of his companions, with a determination to outwit and punish them, is inconsistent with the representation Hamlet gives afterwards of a restlessness and suspicion newly come upon him, which he attributes to the Divinity.

Neither was it likely he would say so much to his mother while so little sure of her as to warn her, on the ground of danger to herself, against revealing his sanity to the king. As to this, however, the portion omitted might, I grant, be regarded as an aside.]

[Footnote 11: —to be done to him.]

[Footnote 12: Hoised, from verb hoise—still used in Scotland.]

[Footnote 13: a kind of explosive shell, which was fixed to the object meant to be destroyed. Note once more Hamlet's delight in action.]

[Footnote 14: —said to Ros. and Guild.: in plain speech, 'Leave us a little while.']

[Page 182]

Behinde the Arras, hearing something stirre, He whips his Rapier out, and cries a Rat, a Rat, [Sidenote: Whyps out his Rapier, cryes a] And in his brainish apprehension killes [Sidenote: in this] The vnseene good old man.

King. Oh heauy deed: It had bin so with vs[1] had we beene there: His Liberty is full of threats to all,[2] To you your selfe, to vs, to euery one. Alas, how shall this bloody deede be answered? It will be laide to vs, whose prouidence Should haue kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt, This mad yong man.[2] But so much was our loue, We would not vnderstand what was most fit, But like the Owner of a foule disease, [Sidenote: 176] To keepe it from divulging, let's it feede [Sidenote: let it] Euen on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

Qu. To draw apart the body he hath kild, [Sidenote: Ger.] O're whom his very madnesse[3] like some Oare Among a Minerall of Mettels base [Sidenote: 181] Shewes it selfe pure.[4] He weepes for what is done.[5] [Sidenote: pure, a weeepes]

King: Oh Gertrude, come away: The Sun no sooner shall the Mountaines touch, But we will ship him hence, and this vilde deed, We must with all our Maiesty and Skill [Sidenote: 200] Both countenance, and excuse.[6] Enter Ros. & Guild.[7] Ho Guildenstern: Friends both go ioyne you with some further ayde: Hamlet in madnesse hath Polonius slaine, And from his Mother Clossets hath he drag'd him. [Sidenote: closet | dreg'd] Go seeke him out, speake faire, and bring the body Into the Chappell. I pray you hast in this. Exit Gent[8] Come Gertrude, wee'l call vp our wisest friends, To let them know both what we meane to do, [Sidenote: And let]

[Footnote 1: the royal plural.]

[Footnote 2: He knows the thrust was meant for him. But he would not have it so understood; he too lays it to his madness, though he too knows better.]

[Footnote 3: 'he, although mad'; 'his nature, in spite of his madness.']

[Footnote 4: by his weeping, in the midst of much to give a different impression.]

[Footnote 5: We have no reason to think the queen inventing here: what could she gain by it? the point indeed was rather against Hamlet, as showing it was not Polonius he had thought to kill. He was more than ever annoyed with the contemptible old man, who had by his meddlesomeness brought his death to his door; but he was very sorry nevertheless over Ophelia's father: those rough words in his last speech are spoken with the tears running down his face. We have seen the strange, almost discordant mingling in him of horror and humour, after the first appearance of the Ghost, 58, 60: something of the same may be supposed when he finds he has killed Polonius: in the highstrung nervous condition that must have followed such a talk with his mother, it would be nowise strange that he should weep heartily even in the midst of contemptuous anger. Or perhaps a sudden breakdown from attempted show of indifference, would not be amiss in the representation.]

[Footnote 6: 'both countenance with all our majesty, and excuse with all our skill.']

[Footnote 7: In the Quarto a line back.]

[Footnote 8: Not in Q.]

[Page 184]

And what's vntimely[1] done. [A] Oh come away, [Sidenote: doone,] My soule is full of discord and dismay. Exeunt.

Enter Hamlet. [Sidenote: Hamlet, Rosencrans, and others.]

Ham. Safely stowed.[2] [Sidenote: stowed, but soft, what noyse,]

Gentlemen within. Hamlet. Lord Hamlet?

Ham. What noise? Who cals on Hamlet? Oh heere they come.

Enter Ros. and Guildensterne.[4]

Ro. What haue you done my Lord with the dead body?

Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis Kinne.[5] [Sidenote: Compound it]

Rosin. Tell vs where 'tis, that we may take it thence, And beare it to the Chappell.

Ham. Do not beleeue it.[6]

Rosin. Beleeue what?

[Sidenote: 156] Ham. That I can keepe your counsell, and not mine owne. Besides, to be demanded of a Spundge, what replication should be made by the Sonne of a King.[7]

Rosin. Take you me for a Spundge, my Lord?

Ham. I sir, that sokes vp the Kings Countenance, his Rewards, his Authorities, but such Officers do the King best seruice in the end. He keepes them like an Ape in the corner of his iaw,[8] first [Sidenote: like an apple in] mouth'd to be last swallowed, when he needes what you haue glean'd, it is but squeezing you, and Spundge you shall be dry againe.

Rosin. I vnderstand you not my Lord.

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

Whose whisper ore the worlds dyameter,[9] [Sidenote: 206] As leuell as the Cannon to his blanck,[10] Transports his poysned shot, may miffe[11] our Name, And hit the woundlesse ayre.]

[Footnote 1: unhappily.]

[Footnote 2: He has hid the body—to make the whole look the work of a mad fit.]

[Footnote 3: This line is not in the Quarto.]

[Footnote 4: Not in Q. See margin above.]

[Footnote 5: He has put it in a place which, little visited, is very dusty.]

[Footnote 6: He is mad to them—sane only to his mother and Horatio.]

[Footnote 7: euphuistic: 'asked a question by a sponge, what answer should a prince make?']

[Footnote 8: 1st Q.:

For hee doth keep you as an Ape doth nuttes, In the corner of his Iaw, first mouthes you, Then swallowes you:]

[Footnote 9: Here most modern editors insert, 'so, haply, slander'. But, although I think the Poet left out this obscure passage merely from dissatisfaction with it, I believe it renders a worthy sense as it stands. The antecedent to whose is friends: cannon is nominative to transports; and the only difficulty is the epithet poysned applied to shot, which seems transposed from the idea of an unfriendly whisper. Perhaps Shakspere wrote poysed shot. But taking this as it stands, the passage might be paraphrased thus: 'Whose (favourable) whisper over the world's diameter (from one side of the world to the other), as level (as truly aimed) as the cannon (of an evil whisper) transports its poisoned shot to his blank (the white centre of the target), may shoot past our name (so keeping us clear), and hit only the invulnerable air.' ('the intrenchant air': Macbeth, act v. sc. 8). This interpretation rests on the idea of over-condensation with its tendency to seeming confusion—the only fault I know in the Poet—a grand fault, peculiarly his own, born of the beating of his wings against the impossible. It is much as if, able to think two thoughts at once, he would compel his phrase to utter them at once.]

[Footnote 10:

for the harlot king Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank And level of my brain, plot-proof;

The Winter's Tale, act ii. sc. 3.

My life stands in the level of your dreams,

Ibid, act iii. sc. 2.]

[Footnote 11: two ff for two long ss.]

[Page 186]

Ham. I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleepes in a foolish eare.

Rosin. My Lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the King.

Ham. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.[1] The King, is a thing——

Guild. A thing my Lord?

Ham. Of nothing[2]: bring me to him, hide Fox, and all after.[3] Exeunt[4]

Enter King. [Sidenote: King, and two or three.]

King. I have sent to seeke him, and to find the bodie: How dangerous is it that this man goes loose:[5] Yet must not we put the strong Law on him: [Sidenote: 212] Hee's loved of the distracted multitude,[6] Who like not in their iudgement, but their eyes: And where 'tis so, th'Offenders scourge is weigh'd But neerer the offence: to beare all smooth, and euen, [Sidenote: neuer the] This sodaine sending him away, must seeme [Sidenote: 120] Deliberate pause,[7] diseases desperate growne, By desperate appliance are releeved, Or not at all. Enter Rosincrane. [Sidenote: Rosencraus and all the rest.] How now? What hath befalne?

Rosin. Where the dead body is bestow'd my Lord, We cannot get from him.

King. But where is he?[8]

Rosin. Without my Lord, guarded[9] to know your pleasure.

King. Bring him before us.

Rosin. Hoa, Guildensterne? Bring in my Lord. [Sidenote: Ros. How, bring in the Lord. They enter.]

Enter Hamlet and Guildensterne[10]

King. Now Hamlet, where's Polonius?

[Footnote 1: 'The body is in the king's house, therefore with the king; but the king knows not where, therefore the king is not with the body.']

[Footnote 2: 'A thing of nothing' seems to have been a common phrase.]

[Footnote 3: The Quarto has not 'hide Fox, and all after.']

[Footnote 4: Hamlet darts out, with the others after him, as in a hunt. Possibly there was a game called Hide fox, and all after.]

[Footnote 5: He is a hypocrite even to himself.]

[Footnote 6: This had all along helped to Hamlet's safety.]

[Footnote 7: 'must be made to look the result of deliberate reflection.' Claudius fears the people may imagine Hamlet treacherously used, driven to self-defence, and hurried out of sight to be disposed of.]

[Footnote 8: Emphasis on he; the point of importance with the king, is where he is, not where the body is.]

[Footnote 9: Henceforward he is guarded, or at least closely watched, according to the Folio—left much to himself according to the Quarto. 192.]

[Footnote 10: Not in Quarto.]

[Page 188]

Ham. At Supper.

King. At Supper? Where?

Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten, [Sidenote: where a is] a certaine conuocation of wormes are e'ne at him. [Sidenote: of politique wormes[1]] Your worm is your onely Emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat vs, and we fat our selfe [Sidenote: ourselves] for Magots. Your fat King, and your leane Begger is but variable seruice to dishes, but to one [Sidenote: two dishes] Table that's the end.

[A]

King. What dost thou meane by this?[2]

Ham. Nothing but to shew you how a King may go a Progresse[3] through the guts of a Begger.[4]

King. Where is Polonius.

Ham. In heauen, send thither to see. If your Messenger finde him not there, seeke him i'th other place your selfe: but indeed, if you finde him not [Sidenote: but if indeed you find him not within this] this moneth, you shall nose him as you go vp the staires into the Lobby.

King. Go seeke him there.

Ham. He will stay till ye come. [Sidenote: A will stay till you]

K. Hamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety [Sidenote: this deede for thine especiall] Which we do tender, as we deerely greeue For that which thou hast done,[5] must send thee hence With fierie Quicknesse.[6] Therefore prepare thy selfe, The Barke is readie, and the winde at helpe,[7] Th'Associates tend,[8] and euery thing at bent [Sidenote: is bent] For England.

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

King Alas, alas.[9]

Ham. A man may fish with the worme that hath eate of a King, and eate of the fish that hath fedde of that worme.]

[Footnote 1: —such as Rosincrance and Guildensterne!]

[Footnote 2: I suspect this and the following speech ought by the printers to have been omitted also: without the preceding two speeches of the Quarto they are not accounted for.]

[Footnote 3: a royal progress.]

[Footnote 4: Hamlet's philosophy deals much now with the worthlessness of all human distinctions and affairs.]

[Footnote 5: 'and we care for your safety as much as we grieve for the death of Polonius.']

[Footnote 6: 'With fierie Quicknesse.' Not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 7: fair—ready to help.]

[Footnote 8: attend, wait.]

[Footnote 9: pretending despair over his madness.]

[Page 190]

Ham. For England?

King. I Hamlet.

Ham. Good.

King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.

Ham. I see a Cherube that see's him: but [Sidenote: sees them,] come, for England. Farewell deere Mother.

King. Thy louing Father Hamlet.

Hamlet. My Mother: Father and Mother is man and wife: man and wife is one flesh, and so [Sidenote: flesh, so my] my mother.[1] Come, for England. Exit

[Sidenote: 195] King. Follow him at foote,[2] Tempt him with speed aboord: Delay it not, He haue him hence to night. Away, for euery thing is Seal'd and done That else leanes on[3] th'Affaire pray you make hast. And England, if my loue thou holdst at ought, As my great power thereof may giue thee sense, Since yet thy Cicatrice lookes raw and red[4] After the Danish Sword, and thy free awe Payes homage to vs[5]; thou maist not coldly set[6] Our Soueraigne Processe,[7] which imports at full By Letters conjuring to that effect [Sidenote: congruing] The present death of Hamlet. Do it England, For like the Hecticke[8] in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me: Till I know 'tis done, How ere my happes,[9] my ioyes were ne're begun.[10] [Sidenote: ioyes will nere begin.] Exit[11]

[Sidenote: 274] [12]Enter Fortinbras with an Armie. [Sidenote: with his Army ouer the stage.]

For. Go Captaine, from me greet the Danish King, Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras [Sidenote: 78] Claimes the conueyance[13] of a promis'd March [Sidenote: Craues the] Ouer his Kingdome. You know the Rendeuous:[14]

[Footnote 1: He will not touch the hand of his father's murderer.]

[Footnote 2: 'at his heels.']

[Footnote 3: 'belongs to.']

[Footnote 4: 'as my great power may give thee feeling of its value, seeing the scar of my vengeance has hardly yet had time to heal.']

[Footnote 5: 'and thy fear uncompelled by our presence, pays homage to us.']

[Footnote 6: 'set down to cool'; 'set in the cold.']

[Footnote 7: mandate: 'Where's Fulvia's process?' Ant. and Cl., act i. sc. 1. Shakespeare Lexicon.]

[Footnote 8: hectic fever—habitual or constant fever.]

[Footnote 9: 'whatever my fortunes.']

[Footnote 10: The original, the Quarto reading—'my ioyes will nere begin' seems to me in itself better, and the cause of the change to be as follows.

In the Quarto the next scene stands as in our modern editions, ending with the rime,

ô from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth. Exit.

This was the act-pause, the natural end of act iii.

But when the author struck out all but the commencement of the scene, leaving only the three little speeches of Fortinbras and his captain, then plainly the act-pause must fall at the end of the preceding scene. He therefore altered the end of the last verse to make it rime with the foregoing, in accordance with his frequent way of using a rime before an important pause.

It perplexes us to think how on his way to the vessel, Hamlet could fall in with the Norwegian captain. This may have been one of Shakspere's reasons for striking the whole scene out—but he had other and more pregnant reasons.]

[Footnote 11: Here is now the proper close of the Third Act.]

[Footnote 12: Commencement of the Fourth Act.

Between the third and the fourth passes the time Hamlet is away; for the latter, in which he returns, and whose scenes are contiguous, needs no more than one day.]

[Footnote 13: 'claims a convoy in fulfilment of the king's promise to allow him to march over his kingdom.' The meaning is made plainer by the correspondent passage in the 1st Quarto:

Tell him that Fortenbrasse nephew to old Norway, Craues a free passe and conduct ouer his land, According to the Articles agreed on:]

[Footnote 14: 'where to rejoin us.']

[Page 192]

If that his Maiesty would ought with vs, We shall expresse our dutie in his eye,[1] And let[2] him know so.

Cap. I will doo't, my Lord.

For. Go safely[3] on. Exit. [Sidenote: softly]

[A]

[4] Enter Queene and Horatio. [Sidenote: Enter Horatio, Gertrard, and a Gentleman.]

Qu. I will not speake with her.

Hor.[5] She is importunate, indeed distract, her [Sidenote: Gent.] moode will needs be pittied.

Qu. What would she haue?

Hor. She speakes much of her Father; saies she heares [Sidenote: Gent.]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

Enter Hamlet, Rosencraus, &c.

Ham. Good sir whose powers are these?

Cap. They are of Norway sir.

Ham. How purposd sir I pray you?

Cap. Against some part of Poland.

Ham. Who commaunds them sir?

Cap. The Nephew to old Norway, Fortenbrasse.

Ham. Goes it against the maine of Poland sir, Or for some frontire?

Cap. Truly to speake, and with no addition,[6] We goe to gaine a little patch of ground[7] That hath in it no profit but the name To pay fiue duckets, fiue I would not farme it; Nor will it yeeld to Norway or the Pole A rancker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Ham. Why then the Pollacke neuer will defend it.

Cap. Yes, it is already garisond.

Ham. Two thousand soules, and twenty thousand duckets Will not debate the question of this straw This is th'Impostume of much wealth and peace, That inward breakes, and showes no cause without Why the man dies.[8] I humbly thanke you sir.

Cap. God buy you sir.

Ros. Wil't please you goe my Lord?

[Sidenote: 187, 195] Ham. Ile be with you straight, goe a little before.[9] [10]How all occasions[11] doe informe against me,

[Continued on next text page.]]

[Footnote 1: 'we shall pay our respects, waiting upon his person.']

[Footnote 2: 'let,' imperative mood.]

[Footnote 3: 'with proper precaution,' said to his attendant officers.]

[Footnote 4: This was originally intended, I repeat, for the commencement of the act. But when the greater part of the foregoing scene was omitted, and the third act made to end with the scene before that, then the small part left of the all-but-cancelled scene must open the fourth act.]

[Footnote 5: Hamlet absent, we find his friend looking after Ophelia. Gertrude seems less friendly towards her.]

[Footnote 6: exaggeration.]

[Footnote 7: —probably a small outlying island or coast-fortress, not far off, else why should Norway care about it at all? If the word frontier has the meaning, as the Shakespeare Lexicon says, of 'an outwork in fortification,' its use two lines back would, taken figuratively, tend to support this.]

[Footnote 8: The meaning may be as in the following paraphrase: 'This quarrelling about nothing is (the breaking of) the abscess caused by wealth and peace—which breaking inward (in general corruption), would show no outward sore in sign of why death came.' Or it might be forced thus:—

This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace. That (which) inward breaks, and shows no cause without— Why, the man dies!

But it may mean:—'The war is an imposthume, which will break within, and cause much affliction to the people that make the war.' On the other hand, Hamlet seems to regard it as a process for, almost a sign of health.]

[Footnote 9: Note his freedom.]

[Footnote 10: See 'examples grosse as earth' below.]

[Footnote 11: While every word that Shakspere wrote we may well take pains to grasp thoroughly, my endeavour to cast light on this passage is made with the distinct understanding in my own mind that the author himself disapproved of and omitted it, and that good reason is not wanting why he should have done so. At the same time, if my student, for this book is for those who would have help and will take pains to the true understanding of the play, would yet retain the passage, I protest against the acceptance of Hamlet's judgment of himself, except as revealing the simplicity and humility of his nature and character. That as often as a vivid memory of either interview with the Ghost came back upon him, he should feel rebuked and ashamed, and vexed with himself, is, in the morally, intellectually, and emotionally troubled state of his mind, nowise the less natural that he had the best of reasons for the delay because of which he here so unmercifully abuses himself. A man of self-satisfied temperament would never in similar circumstances have done so. But Hamlet was, by nature and education, far from such self-satisfaction; and there is in him besides such a strife and turmoil of opposing passions and feelings and apparent duties, as can but rarely rise in a human soul. With which he ought to side, his conscience is not sure—sides therefore now with one, now with another. At the same time it is by no means the long delay the critics imagine of which he is accusing himself—it is only that the thing is not done.

In certain moods the action a man dislikes will therefore look to him the more like a duty; and this helps to prevent Hamlet from knowing always how great a part conscience bears in the omission because of which he condemns and even contemns himself. The conscience does not naturally examine itself—is not necessarily self-conscious. In any soliloquy, a man must speak from his present mood: we who are not suffering, and who have many of his moods before us, ought to understand Hamlet better than he understands himself. To himself, sitting in judgment on himself, it would hardly appear a decent cause of, not to say reason for, a moment's delay in punishing his uncle, that he was so weighed down with misery because of his mother and Ophelia, that it seemed of no use to kill one villain out of the villainous world; it would seem but 'bestial oblivion'; and, although his reputation as a prince was deeply concerned, any reflection on the consequences to himself would at times appear but a 'craven scruple'; while at times even the whispers of conscience might seem a 'thinking too precisely on the event.' A conscientious man of changeful mood wilt be very ready in either mood to condemn the other. The best and rightest men will sometimes accuse themselves in a manner that seems to those who know them best, unfounded, unreasonable, almost absurd. We must not, I say, take the hero's judgment of himself as the author's judgment of him. The two judgments, that of a man upon himself from within, and that of his beholder upon him from without, are not congeneric. They are different in origin and in kind, and cannot be adopted either of them into the source of the other without most serious and dangerous mistake. So adopted, each becomes another thing altogether. It is to me probable that, although it involves other unfitnesses, the Poet omitted the passage chiefly from coming to see the danger of its giving occasion, or at least support, to an altogether mistaken and unjust idea of his Hamlet.]

[Page 194]

There's trickes i'th'world, and hems, and beats her heart, Spurnes enuiously at Strawes,[1] speakes things in doubt,[2] That carry but halfe sense: Her speech is nothing,[3] Yet the vnshaped vse of it[4] doth moue The hearers to Collection[5]; they ayme[6] at it, [Sidenote: they yawne at] And botch the words[7] vp fit to their owne thoughts

[Continuation of quote from Quarto from previous text page:—

And spur my dull reuenge. [8]What is a man If his chiefe good and market of his time Be but to sleepe and feede, a beast, no more; Sure he that made vs with such large discourse[9] Looking before and after, gaue vs not That capabilitie and god-like reason To fust in vs vnvsd,[8] now whether it be [Sidenote: 52, 120] Bestiall obliuion,[10] or some crauen scruple Of thinking too precisely on th'euent,[11] A thought which quarterd hath but one part wisedom, And euer three parts coward, I doe not know Why yet I liue to say this thing's to doe, Sith I haue cause, and will, and strength, and meanes To doo't;[12] examples grosse as earth exhort me, Witnes this Army of such masse and charge, [Sidenote: 235] Led by a delicate and tender Prince, Whose spirit with diuine ambition puft, Makes mouthes at the invisible euent, [Sidenote: 120] Exposing what is mortall, and vnsure, To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,[13] Euen for an Egge-shell. Rightly to be great, Is not to stirre without great argument, But greatly to find quarrell in a straw When honour's at the stake, how stand I then That haue a father kild, a mother staind, Excytements of my reason, and my blood, And let all sleepe,[14] while to my shame I see The iminent death of twenty thousand men, That for a fantasie and tricke[15] of fame Goe to their graues like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,[16] Which is not tombe enough and continent[17] To hide the slaine,[18] ô from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.[19] Exit.]

[Footnote 1: trifles.]

[Footnote 2: doubtfully.]

[Footnote 3: 'there is nothing in her speech.']

[Footnote 4: 'the formless mode of it.']

[Footnote 5: 'to gathering things and putting them together.']

[Footnote 6: guess.]

[Footnote 7: Ophelia's words.]

[Footnote 8: I am in doubt whether this passage from 'What is a man' down to 'unused,' does not refer to the king, and whether Hamlet is not persuading himself that it can be no such objectionable thing to kill one hardly above a beast. At all events it is far more applicable to the king: it was not one of Hamlet's faults, in any case, to fail of using his reason. But he may just as well accuse himself of that too! At the same time the worst neglect of reason lies in not carrying out its conclusions, and if we cannot justify Hamlet in his delay, the passage is of good application to him. 'Bestiall oblivion' does seem to connect himself with the reflection; but how thoroughly is the thing intended by such a phrase alien from the character of Hamlet!]

[Footnote 9: —the mental faculty of running hither and thither: 'We look before and after.' Shelley: To a Skylark.]

[Footnote 10: —the forgetfulness of such a beast as he has just mentioned.]

[Footnote 11: —the consequences. The scruples that come of thinking of the event, Hamlet certainly had: that they were craven scruples, that his thinking was too precise, I deny to the face of the noble self-accuser. Is that a craven scruple which, seeing no good to result from the horrid deed, shrinks from its irretrievableness, and demands at least absolute assurance of guilt? or that 'a thinking too precisely on the event,' to desire, as the prince of his people, to leave an un wounded name behind him?]

[Footnote 12: This passage is the strongest there is on the side of the ordinary misconception of the character of Hamlet. It comes from himself; and it is as ungenerous as it is common and unfair to use such a weapon against a man. Does any but St. Paul himself say he was the chief of sinners? Consider Hamlet's condition, tormented on all sides, within and without, and think whether this outbreak against himself be not as unfair as it is natural. Lest it should be accepted against him, Shakspere did well to leave it out. In bitter disappointment, both because of what is and what is not, both because of what he has done and what he has failed to do, having for the time lost all chance, with the last vision of the Ghost still haunting his eyes, his last reproachful words yet ringing in his ears, are we bound to take his judgment of himself because it is against himself? Are we bound to take any man's judgment because it is against himself? I answer, 'No more than if it were for himself.' A good man's judgment, where he is at all perplexed, especially if his motive comes within his own question, is ready to be against himself, as a bad man's is sure to be for himself. Or because he is a philosopher, does it follow that throughout he understands himself? Were such a man in cool, untroubled conditions, we might feel compelled to take his judgment, but surely not here! A philosopher in such state as Hamlet's would understand the quality of his spiritual operations with no more certainty than another man. In his present mood, Hamlet forgets the cogency of the reasons that swayed him in the other; forgets that his uppermost feeling then was doubt, as horror, indignation, and conviction are uppermost now. Things were never so clear to Hamlet as to us.

But how can he say he has strength and means—in the position in which he now finds himself? I am glad to be able to believe, let my defence of Hamlet against himself be right or wrong, that Shakspere intended the omission of the passage. I lay nothing on the great lack of logic throughout the speech, for that would not make it unfit for Hamlet in such mood, while it makes its omission from the play of less consequence to my general argument.]

[Footnote 13: threaten. This supports my argument as to the great soliloquy—that it was death as the result of his slaying the king, or attempting to do so, not death by suicide, he was thinking of: he expected to die himself in the punishing of his uncle.]

[Footnote 14: He had had no chance but that when the king was on his knees.]

[Footnote 15: 'a fancy and illusion.']

[Footnote 16: 'which is too small for those engaged to find room to fight on it.']

[Footnote 17: 'continent,' containing space.]

[Footnote 18: This soliloquy is antithetic to the other. Here is no thought of the 'something after death.']

[Footnote 19: If, with this speech in his mouth, Hamlet goes coolly on board the vessel, not being compelled thereto (190, 192, 216), and possessing means to his vengeance, as here he says, and goes merely in order to hoist Rosincrance and Guildensterne with their own petard—that is, if we must keep the omitted passages, then the author exposes his hero to a more depreciatory judgment than any from which I would justify him, and a conception of his character entirely inconsistent with the rest of the play. He did not observe the risk at the time he wrote the passage, but discovering it afterwards, rectified the oversight—to the dissatisfaction of his critics, who have agreed in restoring what he cancelled.]

[Page 196]

Which as her winkes, and nods, and gestures yeeld[1] them, Indeed would make one thinke there would[2] be thought, [Sidenote: there might[2] be] Though nothing sure, yet much vnhappily.

Qu. 'Twere good she were spoken with,[3] [Sidenote: Hora.] For she may strew dangerous coniectures In ill breeding minds.[4] Let her come in. [Sidenote: Enter Ophelia.] To my sicke soule (as sinnes true Nature is) [Sidenote: Quee. 'To my[5]] Each toy seemes Prologue, to some great amisse, [Sidenote: 'Each] So full of Artlesse iealousie is guilt, [Sidenote: 'So] It spill's it selfe, in fearing to be spilt.[6] [Sidenote: 'It]

Enter Ophelia distracted.[7]

Ophe. Where is the beauteous Maiesty of Denmark.

Qu. How now Ophelia? [Sidenote: shee sings.]

Ophe. How should I your true loue know from another one? By his Cockle hat and staffe, and his Sandal shoone.

Qu. Alas sweet Lady: what imports this Song?

Ophe. Say you? Nay pray you marke. He is dead and gone Lady, he is dead and gone, At his head a grasse-greene Turfe, at his heeles a stone. [Sidenote: O ho.]

Enter King.

Qu. Nay but Ophelia.

Ophe. Pray you marke. White his Shrow'd as the Mountaine Snow. [Sidenote: Enter King.]

Qu. Alas looke heere my Lord,

[Sidenote: 246] Ophe. Larded[8] with sweet flowers: [Sidenote: Larded all with] Which bewept to the graue did not go, [Sidenote: ground | Song.] With true-loue showres,

[Footnote 1: 'present them,'—her words, that is—giving significance or interpretation to them.]

[Footnote 2: If this would, and not the might of the Quarto, be the correct reading, it means that Ophelia would have something thought so and so.]

[Footnote 3: —changing her mind on Horatio's representation. At first she would not speak with her.]

[Footnote 4: 'minds that breed evil.']

[Footnote 5: —as a quotation.]

[Footnote 6: Instance, the history of Macbeth.]

[Footnote 7: 1st Q. Enter Ofelia playing on a Lute, and her haire downe singing.

Hamlet's apparent madness would seem to pass into real madness in Ophelia. King Lear's growing perturbation becomes insanity the moment he sees the pretended madman Edgar.

The forms of Ophelia's madness show it was not her father's death that drove her mad, but his death by the hand of Hamlet, which, with Hamlet's banishment, destroyed all the hope the queen had been fostering in her of marrying him some day.]

[Footnote 8: This expression is, as Dr. Johnson says, taken from cookery; but it is so used elsewhere by Shakspere that we cannot regard it here as a scintillation of Ophelia's insanity.]

[Page 198]

King. How do ye, pretty Lady? [Sidenote: you]

Ophe. Well, God dil'd you.[1] They say the [Sidenote: good dild you,[1]] Owle was a Bakers daughter.[2] Lord, wee know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your Table.

[Sidenote: 174] King. Conceit[3] vpon her Father.

Ophe. Pray you let's haue no words of this: [Sidenote: Pray lets] but when they aske you what it meanes, say you this:

[4] To morrow is S. Valentines day, all in the morning betime, And I a Maid at your Window to be your Valentine. Then vp he rose, and don'd[5] his clothes, and dupt[5] the chamber dore, Let in the Maid, that out a Maid, neuer departed more.

King. Pretty Ophelia.

Ophe. Indeed la? without an oath Ile make an [Sidenote: Indeede without] end ont.[6]

By gis, and by S. Charity, Alacke, and fie for shame: Yong men wil doo't, if they come too't, By Cocke they are too blame. Quoth she before you tumbled me, You promis'd me to Wed: So would I ha done by yonder Sunne, [Sidenote: (He answers,) So would] And thou hadst not come to my bed.

King. How long hath she bin this? [Sidenote: beene thus?]

Ophe. I hope all will be well. We must bee patient, but I cannot choose but weepe, to thinke they should lay him i'th'cold ground: My brother [Sidenote: they wouid lay] shall knowe of it, and so I thanke you for your good counsell. Come, my Coach: Goodnight Ladies: Goodnight sweet Ladies: Goodnight, goodnight. Exit[7]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q. 'God yeeld you,' that is, reward you. Here we have a blunder for the contraction, 'God 'ild you'—perhaps a common blunder.]

[Footnote 2: For the silly legend, see Douce's note in Johnson and Steevens.]

[Footnote 3: imaginative brooding.]

[Footnote 4: We dare no judgment on madness in life: we need not in art.]

[Footnote 5: Preterites of don and dup, contracted from do on and do up.]

[Footnote 6: —disclaiming false modesty.]

[Footnote 7: Not in Q.]

[Page 200]

King. Follow her close, Giue her good watch I pray you: Oh this is the poyson of deepe greefe, it springs All from her Fathers death. Oh Gertrude, Gertrude, [Sidenote: death, and now behold, ô Gertrard, Gertrard,] When sorrowes comes, they come not single spies,[1] [Sidenote: sorrowes come] But in Battaliaes. First, her Father slaine, [Sidenote: battalians:] Next your Sonne gone, and he most violent Author Of his owne iust remoue: the people muddied,[2] Thicke and vnwholsome in their thoughts, and whispers [Sidenote: in thoughts] For[3] good Polonius death; and we haue done but greenly [Sidenote: 182] In hugger mugger[4] to interre him. Poore Ophelia Diuided from her selfe,[5] and her faire Iudgement, Without the which we are Pictures, or meere Beasts. Last, and as much containing as all these, Her Brother is in secret come from France, Keepes on his wonder,[6] keepes himselfe in clouds, [Sidenote: Feeds on this[6]] And wants not Buzzers to infect his eare [Sidenote: care] With pestilent Speeches of his Fathers death, Where in necessitie of matter Beggard, [Sidenote: Wherein necessity] Will nothing sticke our persons to Arraigne [Sidenote: person] In eare and eare.[7] O my deere Gertrude, this, Like to a murdering Peece[8] in many places, Giues me superfluous death. A Noise within.

Enter a Messenger.

Qu. Alacke, what noyse is this?[9]

King. Where are my Switzers?[10] [Sidenote: King. Attend, where is my Swissers,] Let them guard the doore. What is the matter?

Mes. Saue your selfe, my Lord. [Sidenote: 120] The Ocean (ouer-peering of his List[11]) Eates not the Flats with more impittious[12] haste

[Footnote 1: —each alone, like scouts.]

[Footnote 2: stirred up like pools—with similar result.]

[Footnote 3: because of.]

[Footnote 4: The king wished to avoid giving the people any pretext or cause for interfering: he dreaded whatever might lead to enquiry—to the queen of course pretending it was to avoid exposing Hamlet to the popular indignation. Hugger mugger—secretly: Steevens and Malone.]

[Footnote 5: The phrase has the same visual root as beside herself—both signifying 'not at one with herself.']

[Footnote 6: If the Quarto reading is right, 'this wonder' means the hurried and suspicious funeral of his father. But the Folio reading is quite Shaksperean: 'He keeps on (as a garment) the wonder of the people at him'; keeps his behaviour such that the people go on wondering about him: the phrase is explained by the next clause. Compare:

By being seldom seen, I could not stir But, like a comet, I was wondered at.

K. Henry IV. P. I. act iii. sc. 1.]

[Footnote 7: 'wherein Necessity, beggared of material, will not scruple to whisper invented accusations against us.']

[Footnote 8: —the name given to a certain small cannon—perhaps charged with various missiles, hence the better figuring the number and variety of 'sorrows' he has just recounted.]

[Footnote 9: This line not in Q.]

[Footnote 10: Note that the king is well guarded, and Hamlet had to lay his account with great risk in the act of killing him.]

[Footnote 11: border, as of cloth: the mounds thrown up to keep the sea out. The figure here specially fits a Dane.]

[Footnote 12: I do not know whether this word means pitiless, or stands for impetuous. The Quarto has one t.]

[Page 202]

Then young Laertes, in a Riotous head,[1] Ore-beares your Officers, the rabble call him Lord, And as the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, Custome not knowne, The Ratifiers and props of euery word,[2] [Sidenote: 62] They cry choose we? Laertes shall be King,[3] [Sidenote: The cry] Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds, Laertes shall be King, Laertes King.

Qu. How cheerefully on the false Traile they cry, [Sidenote: A noise within.] Oh this is Counter you false Danish Dogges.[4]

Noise within. Enter Laertes[5]. [Sidenote: Laertes with others.]

King. The doores are broke.

Laer. Where is the King, sirs? Stand you all without. [Sidenote: this King? sirs stand]

All. No, let's come in.

Laer. I pray you giue me leaue.[6]

All. We will, we will.

Laer. I thanke you: Keepe the doore. Oh thou vilde King, giue me my Father.

Qu. Calmely good Laertes.

Laer. That drop of blood, that calmes[7] [Sidenote: thats calme] Proclaimes me Bastard: Cries Cuckold to my Father, brands the Harlot Euen heere betweene the chaste vnsmirched brow Of my true Mother.[8]

Kin. What is the cause Laertes, That thy Rebellion lookes so Gyant-like? Let him go Gertrude: Do not feare[9] our person: There's such Diuinity doth hedge a King,[10] That Treason can but peepe to what it would, Acts little of his will.[11] Tell me Laertes,

[Footnote 1: Head is a rising or gathering of people—generally rebellious, I think.]

[Footnote 2: Antiquity and Custom.]

[Footnote 3: This refers to the election of Claudius—evidently not a popular election, but effected by intrigue with the aristocracy and the army: 'They cry, Let us choose: Laertes shall be king!'

We may suppose the attempt of Claudius to have been favoured by the lingering influence of the old Norse custom of succession, by which not the son but the brother inherited. 16, bis.]

[Footnote 4: To hunt counter is to 'hunt the game by the heel or track.' The queen therefore accuses them of not using their scent or judgment, but following appearances.]

[Footnote 5: Now at length re-appears Laertes, who has during the interim been ripening in Paris for villainy. He is wanted for the catastrophe, and requires but the last process of a few hours in the hell-oven of a king's instigation.]

[Footnote 6: The customary and polite way of saying leave me: 'grant me your absence.' 85, 89.]

[Footnote 7: grows calm.]

[Footnote 8: In taking vengeance Hamlet must acknowledge his mother such as Laertes says inaction on his part would proclaim his mother.

The actress should here let a shadow cross the queen's face: though too weak to break with the king, she has begun to repent.]

[Footnote 9: fear for.]

[Footnote 10: The consummate hypocrite claims the protection of the sacred hedge through which he had himself broken—or crept rather, like a snake, to kill. He can act innocence the better that his conscience is clear as to Polonius.]

[Footnote 11: 'can only peep through the hedge to its desire—acts little of its will.']

[Page 204]

Why thou art thus Incenst? Let him go Gertrude. Speake man.

Laer. Where's my Father? [Sidenote: is my]

King. Dead.

Qu. But not by him.

King. Let him demand his fill.

Laer. How came he dead? Ile not be Iuggel'd with. To hell Allegeance: Vowes, to the blackest diuell. Conscience and Grace, to the profoundest Pit I dare Damnation: to this point I stand, That both the worlds I giue to negligence, Let come what comes: onely Ile be reueng'd Most throughly for my Father.

King. Who shall stay you?[1]

Laer. My Will, not all the world,[1] [Sidenote: worlds:] And for my meanes, Ile husband them so well, They shall go farre with little.

King. Good Laertes: If you desire to know the certaintie Of your deere Fathers death, if writ in your reuenge, [Sidenote: Father, i'st writ] That Soop-stake[2] you will draw both Friend and Foe, Winner and Looser.[3]

Laer. None but his Enemies.

King. Will you know them then.

La. To his good Friends, thus wide Ile ope my Armes: And like the kinde Life-rend'ring Politician,[4] [Sidenote: life-rendring Pelican,] Repast them with my blood.[5]

King. Why now you speake Like a good Childe,[6] and a true Gentleman. That I am guiltlesse of your Fathers death, And am most sensible in greefe for it,[7] [Sidenote: sencibly]

[Footnote 1:

'Who shall prevent you?' 'My own will only—not all the world,'

or,

'Who will support you?' 'My will. Not all the world shall prevent me,'—

so playing on the two meanings of the word stay. Or it might mean: 'Not all the world shall stay my will.']

[Footnote 2: swoop-stake—sweepstakes.]

[Footnote 3: 'and be loser as well as winner—' If the Folio's is the right reading, then the sentence is unfinished, and should have a dash, not a period.]

[Footnote 4: A curious misprint: may we not suspect a somewhat dull joker among the compositors?]

[Footnote 6: 'a true son to your father.']

[Footnote 7: 'feel much grief for it.']

[Footnote 5: Laertes is a ranter—false everywhere.

Plainly he is introduced as the foil from which Hamlet 'shall stick fiery off.' In this speech he shows his moral condition directly the opposite of Hamlet's: he has no principle but revenge. His conduct ought to be quite satisfactory to Hamlet's critics; there is action enough in it of the very kind they would have of Hamlet; and doubtless it would be satisfactory to them but for the treachery that follows. The one, dearly loving a father who deserves immeasurably better of him than Polonius of Laertes, will not for the sake of revenge disregard either conscience, justice, or grace; the other will not delay even to inquire into the facts of his father's fate, but will act at once on hearsay, rushing to a blind satisfaction that cannot even be called retaliation, caring for neither right nor wrong, cursing conscience and the will of God, and daring damnation. He slights assurance as to the hand by which his father fell, dismisses all reflection that might interfere with a stupid revenge. To make up one's mind at once, and act without ground, is weakness, not strength: this Laertes does—and is therefore just the man to be the villainous, not the innocent, tool of villainy. He who has sufficing ground and refuses to act is weak; but the ground that will satisfy the populace, of which the commonplace critic is the fair type, will not satisfy either the man of conscience or of wisdom. The mass of world-bepraised action owes its existence to the pressure of circumstance, not to the will and conscience of the man. Hamlet waits for light, even with his heart accusing him; Laertes rushes into the dark, dagger in hand, like a mad Malay: so he kill, he cares not whom. Such a man is easily tempted to the vilest treachery, for the light that is in him is darkness; he is not a true man; he is false in himself. This is what comes of his father's maxim:

To thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day (!) Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Like the aphorism 'Honesty is the best policy,' it reveals the difference between a fact and a truth. Both sayings are correct as facts, but as guides of conduct devilishly false, leading to dishonesty and treachery. To be true to the divine self in us, is indeed to be true to all; but it is only by being true to all, against the ever present and urging false self, that at length we shall see the divine self rise above the chaotic waters of our selfishness, and know it so as to be true to it.

Of Laertes we must note also that it is not all for love of his father that he is ready to cast allegiance to hell, and kill the king: he has the voice of the people to succeed him.]

[Page 206]

[Sidenote: 184] It shall as leuell to your Iudgement pierce [Sidenote: peare'] As day do's to your eye.[1]

A noise within. [2]Let her come in.

Enter Ophelia[3]

Laer. How now? what noise is that?[4] [Sidenote: Laer. Let her come in. How now,] Oh heate drie vp my Braines, teares seuen times salt, Burne out the Sence and Vertue of mine eye. By Heauen, thy madnesse shall be payed by waight, [Sidenote: with weight] Till our Scale turnes the beame. Oh Rose of May, [Sidenote: turne] Deere Maid, kinde Sister, sweet Ophelia: Oh Heauens, is't possible, a yong Maids wits, Should be as mortall as an old mans life?[5] [Sidenote: a poore mans] Nature is fine[6] in Loue, and where 'tis fine, It sends some precious instance of it selfe After the thing it loues.[7]

Ophe. They bore him bare fac'd on the Beer. [Sidenote: Song.] [Sidenote: bare-faste] Hey non nony, nony, hey nony:[8] And on his graue raines many a teare, [Sidenote: And in his graue rain'd] Fare you well my Doue.

Laer. Had'st thou thy wits, and did'st perswade Reuenge, it could not moue thus.

Ophe. You must sing downe a-downe, and [Sidenote: sing a downe a downe, And] you call him[9] a-downe-a. Oh, how the wheele[10] becomes it? It is the false Steward that stole his masters daughter.[11]

Laer. This nothings more then matter.[12]

Ophe. There's Rosemary,[13] that's for Remembraunce. Pray loue remember: and there is [Sidenote: , pray you loue] Paconcies, that's for Thoughts. [Sidenote: Pancies[14]]

Laer. A document[15] in madnesse, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Ophe. There's Fennell[16] for you, and Columbines[16]: ther's Rew[17] for you, and heere's some for

[Footnote 1: 'pierce as directly to your judgment.'

But the simile of the day seems to favour the reading of the Q.—'peare,' for appear. In the word level would then be indicated the rising sun.]

[Footnote 2: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'Enter Ofelia as before.']

[Footnote 4: To render it credible that Laertes could entertain the vile proposal the king is about to make, it is needful that all possible influences should be represented as combining to swell the commotion of his spirit, and overwhelm what poor judgment and yet poorer conscience he had. Altogether unprepared, he learns Ophelia's pitiful condition by the sudden sight of the harrowing change in her—and not till after that hears who killed his father and brought madness on his sister.]

[Footnote 5: 1st Q.

I'st possible a yong maides life, Should be as mortall as an olde mans sawe?]

[Footnote 6: delicate, exquisite.]

[Footnote 7: 'where 'tis fine': I suggest that the it here may be impersonal: 'where things, where all is fine,' that is, 'in a fine soul'; then the meaning would be, 'Nature is fine always in love, and where the soul also is fine, she sends from it' &c. But the where may be equal, perhaps, to whereas. I can hardly think the phrase means merely 'and where it is in love.' It might intend—'and where Love is fine, it sends' &c. The 'precious instance of itself,' that is, 'something that is a part and specimen of itself,' is here the 'young maid's wits': they are sent after the 'old man's life.'—These three lines are not in the Quarto. It is not disputed that they are from Shakspere's hand: if the insertion of these be his, why should the omission of others not be his also?]

[Footnote 8: This line is not in Q.]

[Footnote 9: 'if you call him': I think this is not a part of the song, but is spoken of her father.]

[Footnote 10: the burden of the song: Steevens.]

[Footnote 11: The subject of the ballad.]

[Footnote 12: 'more than sense'—in incitation to revenge.]

[Footnote 13: —an evergreen, and carried at funerals: Johnson.

For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep Seeming and savour ail the winter long: Grace and remembrance be to you both.

The Winter's Tale, act iv. sc. 3.]

[Footnote 14: penseés.]

[Footnote 15: a teaching, a lesson—the fitting of thoughts and remembrance, namely—which he applies to his intent of revenge. Or may it not rather be meant that the putting of these two flowers together was a happy hit of her madness, presenting the fantastic emblem of a document or writing—the very idea of which is the keeping of thoughts in remembrance?]

[Footnote 16: —said to mean flattery and thanklessness—perhaps given to the king.]

[Footnote 17: Repentance—given to the queen. Another name of the plant was Herb-Grace, as below, in allusion, doubtless, to its common name—rue or repentance being both the gift of God, and an act of grace.]

[Page 208]

me. Wee may call it Herbe-Grace a Sundaies: [Sidenote: herbe of Grace a Sondaies, you may weare] Oh you must weare your Rew with a difference.[1] There's a Daysie,[2] I would giue you some Violets,[3] but they wither'd all when my Father dyed: They say, he made a good end; [Sidenote: say a made]

For bonny sweet Robin is all my ioy.

Laer. Thought, and Affliction, Passion, Hell it selfe: [Sidenote: afflictions,] She turnes to Fauour, and to prettinesse.

[Sidenote:Song.]

Ophe. And will he not come againe, [Sidenote: will a not] And will he not come againe: [Sidenote: will a not] No, no, he is dead, go to thy Death-bed, He neuer wil come againe. His Beard as white as Snow, [Sidenote: beard was as] All[4] Flaxen was his Pole: He is gone, he is gone, and we cast away mone, Gramercy[5] on his Soule. [Sidenote: God a mercy on] And of all Christian Soules, I pray God.[6] [Sidenote: Christians soules,] God buy ye.[7] Exeunt Ophelia[8] [Sidenote: you.]

Laer. Do you see this, you Gods? [Sidenote: Doe you this ô God.]

King. Laertes, I must common[9] with your greefe, [Sidenote: commune] Or you deny me right: go but apart, Make choice of whom your wisest Friends you will, And they shall heare and iudge 'twixt you and me; If by direct or by Colaterall hand They finde vs touch'd,[10] we will our Kingdome giue, Our Crowne, our Life, and all that we call Ours To you in satisfaction. But if not, Be you content to lend your patience to vs,[11] And we shall ioyntly labour with your soule To giue it due content.

Laer. Let this be so:[12] His meanes of death,[13] his obscure buriall; [Sidenote: funerall,] No Trophee, Sword, nor Hatchment o're his bones,[14]

[Footnote 1: —perhaps the heraldic term. The Poet, not Ophelia, intends the special fitness of the speech. Ophelia means only that the rue of the matron must differ from the rue of the girl.]

[Footnote 2: 'the dissembling daisy': Greene—quoted by Henley.]

[Footnote 3: —standing for faithfulness: Malone, from an old song.]

[Footnote 4: 'All' not in Q.]

[Footnote 5: Wherever else Shakspere uses the word, it is in the sense of grand merci—great thanks (Skeat's Etym. Dict.); here it is surely a corruption, whether Ophelia's or the printer's, of the Quarto reading, 'God a mercy' which, spoken quickly, sounds very near gramercy. The 1st Quarto also has 'God a mercy.']

[Footnote 6: 'I pray God.' not in Q.]

[Footnote 7: 'God b' wi' ye': good bye.]

[Footnote 8: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 9: 'I must have a share in your grief.' The word does mean commune, but here is more pregnant, as evidenced in the next phrase, 'Or you deny me right:'—'do not give me justice.']

[Footnote 10: 'touched with the guilt of the deed, either as having done it with our own hand, or caused it to be done by the hand of one at our side.']

[Footnote 11: We may paraphrase thus: 'Be pleased to grant us a loan of your patience,' that is, be patient for a while at our request, 'and we will work along with your soul to gain for it (your soul) just satisfaction.']

[Footnote 12: He consents—but immediately re-sums the grounds of his wrathful suspicion.]

[Footnote 13: —the way in which he met his death.]

[Footnote 14: —customary honours to the noble dead. A trophy was an arrangement of the armour and arms of the dead in a set decoration. The origin of the word hatchment shows its intent: it is a corruption of achievement.]

[Page 210]

No Noble rite, nor formall ostentation,[1] Cry to be heard, as 'twere from Heauen to Earth, That I must call in question.[2] [Sidenote: call't in]

King. So you shall: And where th'offence is, let the great Axe fall. I pray you go with me.[3] Exeunt

Enter Horatio, with an Attendant. [Sidenote: Horatio and others.]

Hora. What are they that would speake with me?

Ser. Saylors sir, they say they haue Letters [Gent. Sea-faring men sir,] for you.

Hor. Let them come in,[4] I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

Enter Saylor. [Sidenote: Saylers.]

Say. God blesse you Sir.

Hor. Let him blesse thee too.

Say. Hee shall Sir, and't[5] please him. There's [Sidenote: A shall sir and please] a Letter for you Sir: It comes from th'Ambassadours [Sidenote: it came frõ th' Embassador] that was bound for England, if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know[6] it is.

Reads the Letter[7]

Horatio, When thou shalt haue ouerlook'd this, [Sidenote: Hor. Horatio when] giue these Fellowes some meanes to the King: They haue Letters for him. Ere we were two dayes[8] old at Sea, a Pyrate of very Warlicke appointment gaue vs Chace. Finding our selues too slow of Saile, we put on a compelled Valour. In the Grapple, I boarded [Sidenote: valour, and in the] them: On the instant they got cleare of our Shippe, so I alone became their Prisoner.[9] They haue dealt with mee, like Theeues of Mercy, but they knew what they did. I am to doe a good turne for them. Let [Sidenote: a turne] the King have the Letters I haue sent, and repaire thou to me with as much hast as thou wouldest flye [Sidenote: much speede as] death[10] I haue words to speake in your eare, will [Sidenote: in thine eare]

[Footnote 1: 'formal ostentation'—show or publication of honour according to form or rule.]

[Footnote 2: 'so that I must call in question'—institute inquiry; or '—that (these things) I must call in question.']

[Footnote 3: Note such a half line frequently after the not uncommon closing couplet—as if to take off the formality of the couplet, and lead back, through the more speech-like, to greater verisimilitude.]

[Footnote 4: Here the servant goes, and the rest of the speech Horatio speaks solus. He had expected to hear from Hamlet.]

[Footnote 5: 'and it please'—if it please. An for if is merely and.]

[Footnote 6: 'I am told.']

[Footnote 7: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 8: This gives an approximate clue to the time between the second and third acts: it needs not have been a week.]

[Footnote 9: Note once more the unfailing readiness of Hamlet where there was no question as to the fitness of the action seemingly required. This is the man who by too much thinking, forsooth, has rendered himself incapable of action!—so far ahead of the foremost behind him, that, when the pirate, not liking such close quarters, 'on the instant got clear,' he is the only one on her deck! There was no question here as to what ought to be done: the pirate grappled them; he boarded her. Thereafter, with his prompt faculty for dealing with men, he soon comes to an understanding with his captors, and they agree, upon some certain condition, to put him on shore.

He writes in unusual spirits; for he has now gained full, presentable, and indisputable proof of the treachery which before he scarcely doubted, but could not demonstrate. The present instance of it has to do with himself, not his father, but in itself would justify the slaying of his uncle, whose plausible way had possibly perplexed him so that he could not thoroughly believe him the villain he was: bad as he must be, could he actually have killed his own brother, and such a brother? A better man than Laertes might have acted more promptly than Hamlet, and so happened to do right; but he would not have been right, for the proof was not sufficient.]

[Footnote 10: The value Hamlet sets on his discovery, evident in his joyous urgency to share it with his friend, is explicable only on the ground of the relief it is to his mind to be now at length quite certain of his duty.]

[Page 212]

make thee dumbe, yet are they much too light for the bore of the Matter.[1] These good Fellowes will bring [Sidenote: the bord of] thee where I am. Rosincrance and Guildensterne, hold their course for England. Of them I haue much to tell thee, Farewell. He that thou knowest thine. [Sidenote: So that thou knowest thine Hamlet.] Hamlet.

Come, I will giue you way for these your Letters, [Sidenote: Hor. Come I will you way] And do't the speedier, that you may direct me To him from whom you brought them. Exit. [Sidenote: Exeunt.]

Enter King and Laertes.[2]

King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for Friend, Sith you haue heard, and with a knowing eare,[3] That he which hath your Noble Father slaine, Pursued my life.[4]

Laer. It well appeares. But tell me, Why you proceeded not against these feates,[5] [Sidenote: proceede] So crimefull, and so Capitall in Nature,[6] [Sidenote: criminall] As by your Safety, Wisedome, all things else, [Sidenote: safetie, greatnes, wisdome,] You mainly[7] were stirr'd vp?

King. O for two speciall Reasons, Which may to you (perhaps) seeme much vnsinnowed,[8] And yet to me they are strong. The Queen his Mother, [Sidenote: But yet | tha'r strong] Liues almost by his lookes: and for my selfe, My Vertue or my Plague, be it either which,[9] She's so coniunctiue to my life and soule; [Sidenote: she is so concliue] That as the Starre moues not but in his Sphere,[10] I could not but by her. The other Motiue, Why to a publike count I might not go, [Sidenote: 186] Is the great loue the generall gender[11] beare him, Who dipping all his Faults in their affection,

[Footnote 1: Note here also Hamlet's feeling of the importance of what has passed since he parted with his friend. 'The bullet of my words, though it will strike thee dumb, is much too small for the bore of the reality (the facts) whence it will issue.']

[Footnote 2: While we have been present at the interview between Horatio and the sailors, the king has been persuading Laertes.]

[Footnote 3: an ear of judgment.]

[Footnote 4: 'thought then to have killed me.']

[Footnote 5: faits, deeds.]

[Footnote 6: 'deeds so deserving of death, not merely in the eye of the law, but in their own nature.']

[Footnote 7: powerfully.]

[Footnote 8: 'unsinewed.']

[Footnote 9: 'either-which.']

[Footnote 10: 'moves not but in the moving of his sphere,'—The stars were popularly supposed to be fixed in a solid crystalline sphere, and moved in its motion only. The queen, Claudius implies, is his sphere; he could not move but by her.]

[Footnote 11: Here used in the sense of the Fr. 'genre'—sort. It is not the only instance of the word so used by Shakspere.

The king would rouse in Laertes jealousy of Hamlet.]

[Page 214]

Would like the Spring that turneth Wood to Stone, [Sidenote: Worke like] Conuert his Gyues to Graces.[1] So that my Arrowes Too slightly timbred for so loud a Winde, [Sidenote: for so loued Arm'd[2]] Would haue reuerted to my Bow againe, And not where I had arm'd them.[2] [Sidenote: But not | have aym'd them.]

Laer. And so haue I a Noble Father lost, A Sister driuen into desperate tearmes,[3] Who was (if praises may go backe againe) [Sidenote: whose worth, if] Stood Challenger on mount of all the Age For her perfections. But my reuenge will come.

King. Breake not your sleepes for that, You must not thinke That we are made of stuffe, so flat, and dull, That we can let our Beard be shooke with danger,[4] And thinke it pastime. You shortly shall heare more,[5] I lou'd your Father, and we loue our Selfe, And that I hope will teach you to imagine——[6]

Enter a Messenger. [Sidenote: with letters.]

How now? What Newes?

Mes. Letters my Lord from Hamlet.[7] This to [Sidenote: Messen. These to] your Maiesty: this to the Queene.

King. From Hamlet? Who brought them?

Mes. Saylors my Lord they say, I saw them not: They were giuen me by Claudio, he recciu'd them.[8] [Sidenote: them Of him that brought them.]

King. Laertes you shall heare them:[9] Leaue vs. Exit Messenger[10]

High and Mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your Kingdome. To morrow shall I begge leaue to see your Kingly Eyes[11] When I shall (first asking your Pardon thereunto) recount th'Occasions [Sidenote: the occasion of my suddaine returne.] of my sodaine, and more strange returne.[12] Hamlet.[13] What should this meane? Are all the rest come backe? [Sidenote: King. What]

[Footnote 1: 'would convert his fetters—if I imprisoned him—to graces, commending him yet more to their regard.']

[Footnote 2: arm'd is certainly the right, and a true Shaksperean word:—it was no fault in the aim, but in the force of the flight—no matter of the eye, but of the arm, which could not give momentum enough to such slightly timbered arrows. The fault in the construction of the last line, I need not remark upon.

I think there is a hint of this the genuine meaning even in the blundered and partly unintelligible reading of the Quarto. If we leave out 'for so loued,' we have this: 'So that my arrows, too slightly timbered, would have reverted armed to my bow again, but not (would not have gone) where I have aimed them,'—implying that his arrows would have turned their armed heads against himself.

What the king says here is true, but far from the truth: he feared driving Hamlet, and giving him at the same time opportunity, to speak in his own defence and render his reasons.]

[Footnote 3: extremes? or conditions?]

[Footnote 4: 'With many a tempest hadde his berd ben schake.'—Chaucer, of the Schipman, in The Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.]

[Footnote 5: —hear of Hamlet's death in England, he means.

At this point in the 1st Q. comes a scene between Horatio and the queen, in which he informs her of a letter he had just received from Hamlet,

Whereas he writes how he escap't the danger, And subtle treason that the king had plotted, Being crossed by the contention of the windes, He found the Packet &c.

Horatio does not mention the pirates, but speaks of Hamlet 'being set ashore,' and of Gilderstone and Rossencraft going on to their fate. The queen assures Horatio that she is but temporizing with the king, and shows herself anxious for the success of her son's design against his life. The Poet's intent was not yet clear to himself.]

[Footnote 6: Here his crow cracks.]

[Footnote 7: From 'How now' to 'Hamlet' is not in Q.]

[Footnote 8: Horatio has given the sailors' letters to Claudio, he to another.]

[Footnote 9: He wants to show him that he has nothing behind—that he is open with him: he will read without having pre-read.]

[Footnote 10: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 11: He makes this request for an interview with the intent of killing him. The king takes care he does not have it.]

[Footnote 12: 'more strange than sudden.']

[Footnote 13: Not in Q.]

[Page 216]

Or is it some abuse?[1] Or no such thing?[2] [Sidenote: abuse, and no[2]]

Laer. Know you the hand?[3]

Kin. 'Tis Hamlets Character, naked and in a Postscript here he sayes alone:[4] Can you aduise [Sidenote: deuise me?] me?[5]

Laer. I'm lost in it my Lord; but let him come, [Sidenote: I am] It warmes the very sicknesse in my heart, That I shall liue and tell him to his teeth; [Sidenote: That I liue and] Thus diddest thou. [Sidenote: didst]

Kin. If it be so Laertes, as how should it be so:[6] How otherwise will you be rul'd by me?

Laer. If so[7] you'l not o'rerule me to a peace. [Sidenote: I my Lord, so you will not]

Kin. To thine owne peace: if he be now return'd, [Sidenote: 195] As checking[8] at his Voyage, and that he meanes [Sidenote: As the King[8] at his] No more to vndertake it; I will worke him To an exployt now ripe in my Deuice, [Sidenote: deuise,] Vnder the which he shall not choose but fall; And for his death no winde of blame shall breath, [Sidenote: 221] But euen his Mother shall vncharge the practice,[9] And call it accident: [A] Some two Monthes hence[10] [Sidenote: two months since] Here was a Gentleman of Normandy, I'ue seene my selfe, and seru'd against the French, [Sidenote: I haue]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

Laer. My Lord I will be rul'd, The rather if you could deuise it so That I might be the organ.

King. It falls right, You haue beene talkt of since your trauaile[11] much, And that in Hamlets hearing, for a qualitie Wherein they say you shine, your summe of parts[12] Did not together plucke such enuie from him As did that one, and that in my regard Of the vnworthiest siedge.[13]

Laer. What part is that my Lord?

King. A very ribaud[14] in the cap of youth, Yet needfull to, for youth no lesse becomes[15] The light and carelesse liuery that it weares Then setled age, his sables, and his weedes[16] Importing health[17] and grauenes;]

[Footnote 1: 'some trick played on me?' Compare K. Lear, act v. sc. 7: 'I am mightily abused.']