SUMMARY OF ACT I.

This much of Hamlet we have now learned: he is a thoughtful man, a genuine student, little acquainted with the world save through books, and a lover of his kind. His university life at Wittenberg is suddenly interrupted by a call to the funeral of his father, whom he dearly loves and honours. Ere he reaches Denmark, his uncle Claudius has contrived, in an election (202, 250, 272) probably hastened and secretly influenced, to gain the voice of the representatives at least of the people, and ascend the throne. Hence his position must have been an irksome one from the first; but, within a month of his father's death, his mother's marriage with his uncle—a relation universally regarded as incestuous—plunges him in the deepest misery. The play introduces him at the first court held after the wedding. He is attired in the mourning of his father's funeral, which he had not laid aside for the wedding. His aspect is of absolute dejection, and he appears in a company for which he is so unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave the court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.[A] Left to himself, he breaks out in agonized and indignant lamentation over his mother's conduct, dwelling mainly on her disregard of his father's memory. Her conduct and his partial discovery of her character, is the sole cause of his misery. In such his mood, Horatio, a fellow-student, brings him word that his father's spirit walks at night. He watches for the Ghost, and receives from him a frightful report of his present condition, into which, he tells him, he was cast by the murderous hand of his brother, with whom his wife had been guilty of adultery. He enjoins him to put a stop to the crime in which they are now living, by taking vengeance on his uncle. Uncertain at the moment how to act, and dreading the consequences of rousing suspicion by the perturbation which he could not but betray, he grasps at the sudden idea of affecting madness. We have learned also Hamlet's relation to Ophelia, the daughter of the selfish, prating, busy Polonius, who, with his son Laertes, is destined to work out the earthly fate of Hamlet. Of Laertes, as yet, we only know that he prates like his father, is self-confident, and was educated at Paris, whither he has returned. Of Ophelia we know nothing but that she is gentle, and that she is fond of Hamlet, whose attentions she has encouraged, but with whom, upon her father's severe remonstrance, she is ready, outwardly at least, to break.

[Footnote A: Roger Ascham, in his Scholemaster, if I mistake not, sets the age, up to which a man should be under tutors, at twenty-nine.]

[Footnote 1: 'Sweare' not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 2: They do not this time shift their ground, but swear—in dumb show.]

[Footnote 3: —for now they had obeyed his command and sworn secrecy.]

[Footnote 4: 'cursed spight'—not merely that he had been born to do hangman's work, but that he should have been born at all—of a mother whose crime against his father had brought upon him the wretched necessity which must proclaim her ignominy. Let the student do his best to realize the condition of Hamlet's heart and mind in relation to his mother.]

[Footnote: 5 This first act occupies part of a night, a day, and part of the next night.]

[Page 64]

ACTUS SECUNDUS.[1]

Enter Polonius, and Reynoldo. [Sidenote: Enter old Polonius, with his man, or two.]

Polon. Giue him his money, and these notes Reynoldo.[2] [Sidenote: this money]

Reynol. I will my Lord.

Polon. You shall doe maruels wisely: good Reynoldo, [Sidenote: meruiles] Before you visite him you make inquiry [Sidenote: him, to make inquire] Of his behauiour.[3]

Reynol. My Lord, I did intend it.

Polon. Marry, well said; Very well said. Looke you Sir, Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris; And how, and who; what meanes; and where they keepe: What company, at what expence: and finding By this encompassement and drift of question, That they doe know my sonne: Come you more neerer[4] Then your particular demands will touch it, Take you as 'twere some distant knowledge of him, And thus I know his father and his friends, [Sidenote: As thus] And in part him. Doe you marke this Reynoldo?

Reynol. I, very well my Lord.

Polon. And in part him, but you may say not well; But if't be hee I meane, hees very wilde; Addicted so and so; and there put on him What forgeries you please: marry, none so ranke, As may dishonour him; take heed of that: But Sir, such wanton, wild, and vsuall slips, As are Companions noted and most knowne To youth and liberty.

[Footnote 1: Not in Quarto.

Between this act and the former, sufficient time has passed to allow the ambassadors to go to Norway and return: 74. See 138, and what Hamlet says of the time since his father's death, 24, by which together the interval seems indicated as about two months, though surely so much time was not necessary.

Cause and effect must be truly presented; time and space are mere accidents, and of small consequence in the drama, whose very idea is compression for the sake of presentation. All that is necessary in regard to time is, that, either by the act-pause, or the intervention of a fresh scene, the passing of it should be indicated.

This second act occupies the forenoon of one day.]

[Footnote 2: 1st Q.

Montano, here, these letters to my sonne, And this same mony with my blessing to him, And bid him ply his learning good Montano.]

[Footnote 3: The father has no confidence in the son, and rightly, for both are unworthy: he turns on him the cunning of the courtier, and sends a spy on his behaviour. The looseness of his own principles comes out very clear in his anxieties about his son; and, having learned the ideas of the father as to what becomes a gentleman, we are not surprised to find the son such as he afterwards shows himself. Till the end approaches, we hear no more of Laertes, nor is more necessary; but without this scene we should have been unprepared for his vileness.]

[Footnote 4: Point thus: 'son, come you more nearer; then &c.' The then here does not stand for than, and to change it to than makes at once a contradiction. The sense is: 'Having put your general questions first, and been answered to your purpose, then your particular demands will come in, and be of service; they will reach to the point—will touch it.' The it is impersonal. After it should come a period.]

[Page 66]

Reynol. As gaming my Lord.

Polon. I, or drinking, fencing, swearing, Quarelling, drabbing. You may goe so farre.

Reynol. My Lord that would dishonour him.

Polon. Faith no, as you may season it in the charge;[1] [Sidenote: Fayth as you] You must not put another scandall on him, That hee is open to Incontinencie;[2] That's not my meaning: but breath his faults so quaintly, That they may seeme the taints of liberty; The flash and out-breake of a fiery minde, A sauagenes in vnreclaim'd[3] bloud of generall assault.[4]

Reynol. But my good Lord.[5]

Polon. Wherefore should you doe this?[6]

Reynol. I my Lord, I would know that.

Polon. Marry Sir, heere's my drift, And I belieue it is a fetch of warrant:[7] [Sidenote: of wit,] You laying these slight sulleyes[8] on my Sonne, [Sidenote: sallies[8]] As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'th'working: [Sidenote: soiled with working,] Marke you your party in conuerse; him you would sound, Hauing euer seene. In the prenominate crimes, [Sidenote: seene in the] The youth you breath of guilty, be assur'd He closes with you in this consequence: Good sir, or so, or friend, or Gentleman. According to the Phrase and the Addition,[9] [Sidenote: phrase or the] Of man and Country.

Reynol. Very good my Lord.

Polon. And then Sir does he this? [Sidenote: doos a this a doos, what was I] He does: what was I about to say? I was about to say somthing: where did I leaue? [Sidenote: By the masse I was]

Reynol. At closes in the consequence: At friend, or so, and Gentleman.[10]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q.

I faith not a whit, no not a whit,

As you may bridle it not disparage him a iote.]

[Footnote 2: This may well seem prating inconsistency, but I suppose means that he must not be represented as without moderation in his wickedness.]

[Footnote 3: Untamed, as a hawk.]

[Footnote 4: The lines are properly arranged in Q.

A sauagenes in vnreclamed blood, Of generall assault.

—that is, 'which assails all.']

[Footnote 5: Here a hesitating pause.]

[Footnote 6: —with the expression of, 'Is that what you would say?']

[Footnote 7: 'a fetch with warrant for it'—a justifiable trick.]

[Footnote 8: Compare sallied, 25, both Quartos; sallets 67, 103; and see soil'd, next line.]

[Footnote 9: 'Addition,' epithet of courtesy in address.]

[Footnote 10: Q. has not this line]

[Page 68]

Polon. At closes in the consequence, I marry, He closes with you thus. I know the Gentleman, [Sidenote: He closes thus,] I saw him yesterday, or tother day; [Sidenote: th'other] Or then or then, with such and such; and as you say, [Sidenote: or such,] [Sidenote: 25] There was he gaming, there o'retooke in's Rouse, [Sidenote: was a gaming there, or tooke] There falling out at Tennis; or perchance, I saw him enter such a house of saile; [Sidenote: sale,] Videlicet, a Brothell, or so forth. See you now; Your bait of falshood, takes this Cape of truth; [Sidenote: take this carpe] And thus doe we of wisedome and of reach[1] With windlesses,[2] and with assaies of Bias, By indirections finde directions out: So by my former Lecture and aduice Shall you my Sonne; you haue me, haue you not?

Reynol. My Lord I haue.

Polon. God buy you; fare you well, [Sidenote: ye | ye]

Reynol. Good my Lord.

Polon. Obserue his inclination in your selfe.[3]

Reynol. I shall my Lord.

Polon. And let him[4] plye his Musicke.

Reynol. Well, my Lord. Exit.

Enter Ophelia.

Polon. Farewell: How now Ophelia, what's the matter?

Ophe. Alas my Lord, I haue beene so affrighted. [Sidenote: O my Lord, my Lord,]

Polon. With what, in the name of Heauen? [Sidenote: i'th name of God?]

Ophe. My Lord, as I was sowing in my Chamber, [Sidenote: closset,] Lord Hamlet with his doublet all vnbrac'd,[5] No hat vpon his head, his stockings foul'd, Vngartred, and downe giued[6] to his Anckle, Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other, And with a looke so pitious in purport, As if he had been loosed out of hell,

[Footnote 1: of far reaching mind.]

[Footnote 2: The word windlaces is explained in the dictionaries as shifts, subtleties—but apparently on the sole authority of this passage. There must be a figure in windlesses, as well as in assaies of Bias, which is a phrase plain enough to bowlers: the trying of other directions than that of the jack, in the endeavour to come at one with the law of the bowl's bias. I find wanlass a term in hunting: it had to do with driving game to a given point—whether in part by getting to windward of it, I cannot tell. The word may come of the verb wind, from its meaning 'to manage by shifts or expedients': Barclay. As he has spoken of fishing, could the windlesses refer to any little instrument such as now used upon a fishing-rod? I do not think it. And how do the words windlesses and indirections come together? Was a windless some contrivance for determining how the wind blew? I bethink me that a thin withered straw is in Scotland called a windlestrae: perhaps such straws were thrown up to find out 'by indirection' the direction of the wind.

The press-reader sends me two valuable quotations, through Latham's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, from Dr. H. Hammond (1605-1660), in which windlass is used as a verb:—

'A skilful woodsman, by windlassing, presently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compass, and thereby a commodious stand, he could never have obtained.'

'She is not so much at leasure as to windlace, or use craft, to satisfy them.'

To windlace seems then to mean 'to steal along to leeward;' would it be absurd to suggest that, so-doing, the hunter laces the wind? Shakspere, with many another, I fancy, speaks of threading the night or the darkness.

Johnson explains the word in the text as 'A handle by which anything is turned.']

[Footnote 3: 'in your selfe.' may mean either 'through the insight afforded by your own feelings'; or 'in respect of yourself,' 'toward yourself.' I do not know which is intended.]

[Footnote 4: 1st Q. 'And bid him'.]

[Footnote 5: loose; undone.]

[Footnote 6: His stockings, slipped down in wrinkles round his ankles, suggested the rings of gyves or fetters. The verb gyve, of which the passive participle is here used, is rarer.]

[Page 70]

To speake of horrors: he comes before me.

Polon. Mad for thy Loue?

Ophe. My Lord, I doe not know: but truly I do feare it.[1]

Polon. What said he?

Ophe.[2] He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard; Then goes he to the length of all his arme; And with his other hand thus o're his brow, He fals to such perusall of my face, As he would draw it. Long staid he so, [Sidenote: As a] At last, a little shaking of mine Arme: And thrice his head thus wauing vp and downe; He rais'd a sigh, so pittious and profound, That it did seeme to shatter all his bulke, [Sidenote: As it] And end his being. That done, he lets me goe, And with his head ouer his shoulders turn'd, [Sidenote: shoulder] He seem'd to finde his way without his eyes, For out adores[3] he went without their helpe; [Sidenote: helps,] And to the last, bended their light on me.

Polon. Goe with me, I will goe seeke the King, [Sidenote: Come, goe] This is the very extasie of Loue, Whose violent property foredoes[4] it selfe, And leads the will to desperate Vndertakings, As oft as any passion vnder Heauen, [Sidenote: passions] That does afflict our Natures. I am sorrie, What haue you giuen him any hard words of late?

Ophe. No my good Lord: but as you did command, [Sidenote: 42, 82] I did repell his Letters, and deny'de His accesse to me.[5]

Pol. That hath made him mad. I am sorrie that with better speed and Judgement [Sidenote: better heede] [Sidenote: 83] I had not quoted[6] him. I feare he did but trifle, [Sidenote: coted[6] | fear'd] And meant to wracke thee: but beshrew my iealousie:

[Footnote 1: She would be glad her father should think so.]

[Footnote 2: The detailed description of Hamlet and his behaviour that follows, must be introduced in order that the side mirror of narrative may aid the front mirror of drama, and between them be given a true notion of his condition both mental and bodily. Although weeks have passed since his interview with the Ghost, he is still haunted with the memory of it, still broods over its horrible revelation. That he had, probably soon, begun to feel far from certain of the truth of the apparition, could not make the thoughts and questions it had awaked, cease tormenting his whole being. The stifling smoke of his mother's conduct had in his mind burst into loathsome flame, and through her he has all but lost his faith in humanity. To know his uncle a villain, was to know his uncle a villain; to know his mother false, was to doubt women, doubt the whole world.

In the meantime Ophelia, in obedience to her father, and evidently without reason assigned, has broken off communication with him: he reads her behaviour by the lurid light of his mother's. She too is false! she too is heartless! he can look to her for no help! She has turned against him to curry favour with his mother and his uncle!

Can she be such as his mother! Why should she not be? His mother had seemed as good! He would give his life to know her honest and pure. Might he but believe her what he had believed her, he would yet have a hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest! If he could but know the truth! Alone with her once more but for a moment, he would read her very soul by the might of his! He must see her! He would see her! In the agony of a doubt upon which seemed to hang the bliss or bale of his being, yet not altogether unintimidated by a sense of his intrusion, he walks into the house of Polonius, and into the chamber of Ophelia.

Ever since the night of the apparition, the court, from the behaviour assumed by Hamlet, has believed his mind affected; and when he enters her room, Ophelia, though such is the insight of love that she is able to read in the face of the son the father's purgatorial sufferings, the picture of one 'loosed out of hell, to speak of horrors,' attributes all the strangeness of his appearance and demeanour, such as she describes them to her father, to that supposed fact. But there is, in truth, as little of affected as of actual madness in his behaviour in her presence. When he comes before her pale and trembling, speechless and with staring eyes, it is with no simulated insanity, but in the agonized hope, scarce distinguishable from despair, of finding, in the testimony of her visible presence, an assurance that the doubts ever tearing his spirit and sickening his brain, are but the offspring of his phantasy. There she sits!—and there he stands, vainly endeavouring through her eyes to read her soul! for, alas,

there's no art To find the mind's construction in the face!

—until at length, finding himself utterly baffled, but unable, save by the removal of his person, to take his eyes from her face, he retires speechless as he came. Such is the man whom we are now to see wandering about the halls and corridors of the great castle-palace.

He may by this time have begun to doubt even the reality of the sight he had seen. The moment the pressure of a marvellous presence is removed, it is in the nature of man the same moment to begin to doubt; and instead of having any reason to wish the apparition a true one, he had every reason to desire to believe it an illusion or a lying spirit. Great were his excuse even if he forced likelihoods, and suborned witnesses in the court of his own judgment. To conclude it false was to think his father in heaven, and his mother not an adulteress, not a murderess! At once to kill his uncle would be to seal these horrible things irrevocable, indisputable facts. Strongest reasons he had for not taking immediate action in vengeance; but no smallest incapacity for action had share in his delay. The Poet takes recurrent pains, as if he foresaw hasty conclusions, to show his hero a man of promptitude, with this truest fitness for action, that he would not make unlawful haste. Without sufficing assurance, he would have no part in the fate either of the uncle he disliked or the mother he loved.]

[Footnote 3: a doors, like an end. 51, 175.]

[Footnote 4: undoes, frustrates, destroys.]

[Footnote 5: See quotation from 1st Quarto, 43.]

[Footnote 6: Quoted or coted: observed; Fr. coter, to mark the number. Compare 95.]

[Page 72]

It seemes it is as proper to our Age, [Sidenote: By heauen it is] To cast beyond our selues[1] in our Opinions, As it is common for the yonger sort To lacke discretion.[2] Come, go we to the King, This must be knowne, which being kept close might moue More greefe to hide, then hate to vtter loue.[3] [Sidenote: Come.] Exeunt.

SCENA SECUNDA.[4]

_Enter King, Queene, Rosincrane, and Guildensterne Cum alijs. [Sidenote: Florish: Enter King and Queene, Rosencraus and Guyldensterne.[5]]

King. Welcome deere Rosincrance and Guildensterne. Moreouer,[6] that we much did long to see you, The neede we haue to vse you, did prouoke [Sidenote: 92] Our hastie sending.[7] Something haue you heard Of Hamlets transformation: so I call it, [Sidenote: so call] Since not th'exterior, nor the inward man [Sidenote: Sith nor] Resembles that it was. What it should bee More then his Fathers death, that thus hath put him So much from th'understanding of himselfe, I cannot deeme of.[8] I intreat you both, [Sidenote: dreame] That being of so young dayes[9] brought vp with him: And since so Neighbour'd to[10] his youth,and humour, [Sidenote: And sith | and hauior,] That you vouchsafe your rest heere in our Court Some little time: so by your Companies To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather [Sidenote: 116] So much as from Occasions you may gleane, [Sidenote: occasion] [A] That open'd lies within our remedie.[11]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

Whether ought to vs vnknowne afflicts him thus,]

[Footnote 1:

'to be overwise—to overreach ourselves' 'ambition, which o'erleaps itself,' —Macbeth, act i. sc. 7.]

[Footnote 2: Polonius is a man of faculty. His courtier-life, his self-seeking, his vanity, have made and make him the fool he is.]

[Footnote 3: He hopes now to get his daughter married to the prince.

We have here a curious instance of Shakspere's not unfrequently excessive condensation. Expanded, the clause would be like this: 'which, being kept close, might move more grief by the hiding of love, than to utter love might move hate:' the grief in the one case might be greater than the hate in the other would be. It verges on confusion, and may not be as Shakspere wrote it, though it is like his way.

1st Q.

Lets to the king, this madnesse may prooue, Though wilde a while, yet more true to thy loue.]

[Footnote 4: Not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 5: Q. has not Cum alijs.]

[Footnote 6: 'Moreover that &c.': moreover is here used as a preposition, with the rest of the clause for its objective.]

[Footnote 7: Rosincrance and Guildensterne are, from the first and throughout, the creatures of the king.]

[Footnote 8: The king's conscience makes him suspicious of Hamlet's suspicion.]

[Footnote 9: 'from such an early age'.]

[Footnote 10: 'since then so familiar with'.]

[Footnote 11: 'to gather as much as you may glean from opportunities, of that which, when disclosed to us, will lie within our remedial power.' If the line of the Quarto be included, it makes plainer construction. The line beginning with 'So much,' then becomes parenthetical, and to gather will not immediately govern that line, but the rest of the sentence.]

[Page 74]

Qu. Good Gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you, And sure I am, two men there are not liuing, [Sidenote: there is not] To whom he more adheres. If it will please you To shew vs so much Gentrie,[1] and good will, As to expend your time with vs a-while, For the supply and profit of our Hope,[2] Your Visitation shall receiue such thankes As fits a Kings remembrance.

Rosin. Both your Maiesties Might by the Soueraigne power you haue of vs, Put your dread pleasures, more into Command Then to Entreatie,

Guil. We both[3] obey, [Sidenote: But we] And here giue vp our selues, in the full bent,[4] To lay our Seruices freely at your feete, [Sidenote: seruice] To be commanded.

King. Thankes Rosincrance, and gentle Guildensterne.

Qu. Thankes Guildensterne and gentle Rosincrance,[5] And I beseech you instantly to visit My too much changed Sonne. Go some of ye, [Sidenote: you] And bring the Gentlemen where Hamlet is, [Sidenote: bring these]

Guil. Heauens make our presence and our practises Pleasant and helpfull to him. Exit[6]

Queene. Amen. [Sidenote: Amen. Exeunt Ros. and Guyld.]

Enter Polonius.

[Sidenote: 18] Pol. Th'Ambassadors from Norwey, my good Lord, Are ioyfully return'd.

[Footnote 1: gentleness, grace, favour.]

[Footnote 2: Their hope in Hamlet, as their son and heir.]

[Footnote 3: both majesties.]

[Footnote 4: If we put a comma after bent, the phrase will mean 'in the full purpose or design to lay our services &c.' Without the comma, the content of the phrase would be general:—'in the devoted force of our faculty.' The latter is more like Shakspere.]

[Footnote 5: Is there not tact intended in the queen's reversal of her husband's arrangement of the two names—that each might have precedence, and neither take offence?]

[Footnote 6: Not in Quarto.]

[Page 76]

King. Thou still hast bin the Father of good Newes.

Pol. Haue I, my Lord?[1] Assure you, my good Liege, [Sidenote: I assure my] I hold my dutie, as I hold my Soule, Both to my God, one to my gracious King:[2] [Sidenote: God, and to[2]] And I do thinke, or else this braine of mine Hunts not the traile of Policie, so sure As I haue vs'd to do: that I haue found [Sidenote: it hath vsd] The very cause of Hamlets Lunacie.

King. Oh speake of that, that I do long to heare. [Sidenote: doe I long]

Pol. Giue first admittance to th'Ambassadors, My Newes shall be the Newes to that great Feast, [Sidenote: the fruite to that]

King. Thy selfe do grace to them, and bring them in. He tels me my sweet Queene, that he hath found [Sidenote: my deere Gertrard he] The head[3] and sourse of all your Sonnes distemper.

Qu. I doubt it is no other, but the maine, His Fathers death, and our o're-hasty Marriage.[4] [Sidenote: our hastie]

Enter Polonius, Voltumand, and Cornelius. [Sidenote: Enter Embassadors.]

King. Well, we shall sift him. Welcome good Frends: [Sidenote: my good] Say Voltumand, what from our Brother Norwey?

Volt. Most faire returne of Greetings, and Desires. Vpon our first,[5] he sent out to suppresse His Nephewes Leuies, which to him appear'd To be a preparation 'gainst the Poleak: [Sidenote: Pollacke,] But better look'd into, he truly found It was against your Highnesse, whereat greeued, That so his Sicknesse, Age, and Impotence Was falsely borne in hand,[6] sends[7] out Arrests On Fortinbras, which he (in breefe) obeyes,

[Footnote 1: To be spoken triumphantly, but in the peculiar tone of one thinking, 'You little know what better news I have behind!']

[Footnote 2: I cannot tell which is the right reading; if the Q.'s, it means, 'I hold my duty precious as my soul, whether to my God or my king'; if the F.'s, it is a little confused by the attempt of Polonius to make a fine euphuistic speech:—'I hold my duty as I hold my soul,—both at the command of my God, one at the command of my king.']

[Footnote 3: the spring; the river-head

'The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood'

Macbeth, act ii. sc. 3.]

[Footnote 4: She goes a step farther than the king in accounting for Hamlet's misery—knows there is more cause of it yet, but hopes he does not know so much cause for misery as he might know.]

[Footnote 5: Either 'first' stands for first desire, or it is a noun, and the meaning of the phrase is, 'The instant we mentioned the matter'.]

[Footnote 6: 'borne in hand'—played with, taken advantage of.

'How you were borne in hand, how cross'd,'

Macbeth, act iii. sc. 1.]

[Footnote 7: The nominative pronoun was not quite indispensable to the verb in Shakspere's time.]

[Page 78]

Receiues rebuke from Norwey: and in fine, Makes Vow before his Vnkle, neuer more To giue th'assay of Armes against your Maiestie. Whereon old Norwey, ouercome with ioy, Giues him three thousand Crownes in Annuall Fee, [Sidenote: threescore thousand] And his Commission to imploy those Soldiers So leuied as before, against the Poleak: [Sidenote: Pollacke,] With an intreaty heerein further shewne, [Sidenote: 190] That it might please you to giue quiet passe Through your Dominions, for his Enterprize, [Sidenote: for this] On such regards of safety and allowance, As therein are set downe.

King. It likes vs well: And at our more consider'd[1] time wee'l read, Answer, and thinke vpon this Businesse. Meane time we thanke you, for your well-tooke Labour. Go to your rest, at night wee'l Feast together.[2] Most welcome home. Exit Ambass. [Sidenote: Exeunt Embassadors]

Pol. This businesse is very well ended.[3] [Sidenote: is well] My Liege, and Madam, to expostulate[4] What Maiestie should be, what Dutie is,[5] Why day is day; night, night; and time is time, Were nothing but to waste Night, Day and Time. Therefore, since Breuitie is the Soule of Wit, [Sidenote: Therefore breuitie] And tediousnesse, the limbes and outward flourishes,[6] I will be breefe. Your Noble Sonne is mad: Mad call I it; for to define true Madnesse, What is't, but to be nothing else but mad.[7] But let that go.

Qu. More matter, with lesse Art.[8]

Pol. Madam, I sweare I vse no Art at all: That he is mad, 'tis true: 'Tis true 'tis pittie, [Sidenote: hee's mad] And pittie it is true; A foolish figure,[9] [Sidenote: pitty tis tis true,]

[Footnote 1: time given up to, or filled with consideration; or, perhaps, time chosen for a purpose.]

[Footnote 2: He is always feasting.]

[Footnote 3: Now for his turn! He sets to work at once with his rhetoric.]

[Footnote 4: to lay down beforehand as postulates.]

[Footnote 5: We may suppose a dash and pause after 'Dutie is'. The meaning is plain enough, though logical form is wanting.]

[Footnote 6: As there is no imagination in Polonius, we cannot look for great aptitude in figure.]

[Footnote 7: The nature of madness also is a postulate.]

[Footnote 8: She is impatient, but wraps her rebuke in a compliment. Art, so-called, in speech, was much favoured in the time of Elizabeth. And as a compliment Polonius takes the form in which she expresses her dislike of his tediousness, and her anxiety after his news: pretending to wave it off, he yet, in his gratification, coming on the top of his excitement with the importance of his fancied discovery, plunges immediately into a very slough of art, and becomes absolutely silly.]

[Footnote 9: It is no figure at all. It is hardly even a play with the words.]

[Page 80]

But farewell it: for I will vse no Art. Mad let vs grant him then: and now remaines That we finde out the cause of this effect, Or rather say, the cause of this defect; For this effect defectiue, comes by cause, Thus it remaines, and the remainder thus. Perpend, I haue a daughter: haue, whil'st she is mine, [Sidenote: while] Who in her Dutie and Obedience, marke, Hath giuen me this: now gather, and surmise.

The Letter.[1] To the Celestiall, and my Soules Idoll, the most beautified Ophelia. That's an ill Phrase, a vilde Phrase, beautified is a vilde Phrase: but you shall heare these in her thus in her excellent white bosome, these.[2] [Sidenote: these, &c]

Qu. Came this from Hamlet to her.

Pol. Good Madam stay awhile, I will be faithfull. Doubt thou, the Starres are fire, [Sidenote: Letter] Doubt, that the Sunne doth moue; Doubt Truth to be a Lier, But neuer Doubt, I loue.[3] O deere Ophelia, I am ill at these Numbers: I haue not Art to reckon my grones; but that I loue thee best, oh most Best beleeue it. Adieu. Thine euermore most deere Lady, whilst this Machine is to him, Hamlet. This in Obedience hath my daughter shew'd me: [Sidenote: Pol. This showne] And more aboue hath his soliciting, [Sidenote: more about solicitings] As they fell out by Time, by Meanes, and Place, All giuen to mine eare.

King. But how hath she receiu'd his Loue?

Pol. What do you thinke of me?

King. As of a man, faithfull and Honourable.

Pol. I wold faine proue so. But what might you think?

[Footnote 1: Not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 2: Point thus: 'but you shall heare. These, in her excellent white bosom, these:'

Ladies, we are informed, wore a small pocket in front of the bodice;—but to accept the fact as an explanation of this passage, is to cast the passage away. Hamlet addresses his letter, not to Ophelia's pocket, but to Ophelia herself, at her house—that is, in the palace of her bosom, excellent in whiteness. In like manner, signing himself, he makes mention of his body as a machine of which he has the use for a time. So earnest is Hamlet that when he makes love, he is the more a philosopher. But he is more than a philosopher: he is a man of the Universe, not a man of this world only.

We must not allow the fashion of the time in which the play was written, to cause doubt as to the genuine heartiness of Hamlet's love-making.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q.

Doubt that in earth is fire, Doubt that the starres doe moue, Doubt trueth to be a liar, But doe not doubt I loue.]

[Page 82]

When I had seene this hot loue on the wing, As I perceiued it, I must tell you that Before my Daughter told me, what might you Or my deere Maiestie your Queene heere, think, If I had playd the Deske or Table-booke,[1] Or giuen my heart a winking, mute and dumbe, [Sidenote: working] Or look'd vpon this Loue, with idle sight,[2] What might you thinke? No, I went round to worke, And (my yong Mistris) thus I did bespeake[3] Lord Hamlet is a Prince out of thy Starre,[4] This must not be:[5] and then, I Precepts gaue her, [Sidenote: I prescripts] That she should locke her selfe from his Resort, [Sidenote: from her] [Sidenote: 42[6], 43, 70] Admit no Messengers, receiue no Tokens: Which done, she tooke the Fruites of my Aduice,[7] And he repulsed. A short Tale to make, [Sidenote: repell'd, a] Fell into a Sadnesse, then into a Fast,[8] Thence to a Watch, thence into a Weaknesse, [Sidenote: to a wath,] Thence to a Lightnesse, and by this declension [Sidenote: to lightnes] Into the Madnesse whereon now he raues, [Sidenote: wherein] And all we waile for.[9] [Sidenote: mourne for]

King. Do you thinke 'tis this?[10] [Sidenote: thinke this?]

Qu. It may be very likely. [Sidenote: like]

Pol. Hath there bene such a time, I'de fain know that, [Sidenote: I would] That I haue possitiuely said, 'tis so, When it prou'd otherwise?

King. Not that I know.

Pol. Take this from this[11]; if this be otherwise, If Circumstances leade me, I will finde Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeede Within the Center.

King. How may we try it further?

[Footnote 1: —behaved like a piece of furniture.]

[Footnote 2: The love of talk makes a man use many idle words, foolish expressions, and useless repetitions.]

[Footnote 3: Notwithstanding the parenthesis, I take 'Mistris' to be the objective to 'bespeake'—that is, address.]

[Footnote 4: Star, mark of sort or quality; brand (45). The 1st Q. goes on—

An'd one that is vnequall for your loue:

But it may mean, as suggested by my Reader, 'outside thy destiny,'—as ruled by the star of nativity—and I think it does.]

[Footnote 5: Here is a change from the impression conveyed in the first act: he attributes his interference to his care for what befitted royalty; whereas, talking to Ophelia (40, 72), he attributes it entirely to his care for her;—so partly in the speech correspondent to the present in 1st Q.:—

Now since which time, seeing his loue thus cross'd, Which I tooke to be idle, and but sport, He straitway grew into a melancholy,]

[Footnote 6: See also passage in note from 1st Q.]

[Footnote 7: She obeyed him. The 'fruits' of his advice were her conformed actions.]

[Footnote 8: When the appetite goes, and the sleep follows, doubtless the man is on the steep slope of madness. But as to Hamlet, and how matters were with him, what Polonius says is worth nothing.]

[Footnote 9: 'wherein now he raves, and wherefor all we wail.']

[Footnote 10: To the queen.]

[Footnote 11: head from shoulders.]

[Page 84]

Pol. You know sometimes He walkes foure houres together, heere[1] In the Lobby.

Qu. So he ha's indeed. [Sidenote: he dooes indeede]

[Sidenote: 118] Pol. At such a time Ile loose my Daughter to him, Be you and I behinde an Arras then, Marke the encounter: If he loue her not, And be not from his reason falne thereon; Let me be no Assistant for a State, And keepe a Farme and Carters. [Sidenote: But keepe]

King. We will try it.

Enter Hamlet reading on a Booke.[2]

Qu. But looke where sadly the poore wretch Comes reading.[3]

Pol. Away I do beseech you, both away, He boord[4] him presently. Exit King & Queen[5] Oh giue me leaue.[6] How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Ham. Well, God-a-mercy.

Pol. Do you know me, my Lord?

[Sidenote: 180] Ham. Excellent, excellent well: y'are a Fish-monger.[7] [Sidenote: Excellent well, you are]

Pol. Not I my Lord.

Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.

Pol. Honest, my Lord?

Ham. I sir, to be honest as this world goes, is to bee one man pick'd out of two thousand. [Sidenote: tenne thousand[8]]

Pol. That's very true, my Lord.

Ham.[9] For if the Sun breed Magots in a dead dogge, being a good kissing Carrion—[10] [Sidenote: carrion. Have] Haue you a daughter?[11]

Pol. I haue my Lord.

[Footnote 1: 1st Q.

The Princes walke is here in the galery, There let Ofelia, walke vntill hee comes: Your selfe and I will stand close in the study,]

[Footnote 2: Not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q.—

King. See where hee comes poring vppon a booke.]

[Footnote 4: The same as accost, both meaning originally go to the side of.]

[Footnote 5: A line back in the Quarto.]

[Footnote 6: 'Please you to go away.' 89, 203. Here should come the preceding stage-direction.]

[Footnote 7: Now first the Play shows us Hamlet in his affected madness. He has a great dislike to the selfish, time-serving courtier, who, like his mother, has forsaken the memory of his father—and a great distrust of him as well. The two men are moral antipodes. Each is given to moralizing—but compare their reflections: those of Polonius reveal a lover of himself, those of Hamlet a lover of his kind; Polonius is interested in success; Hamlet in humanity.]

[Footnote 8: So also in 1st Q.]

[Footnote 9: —reading, or pretending to read, the words from the book he carries.]

[Footnote 10: When the passion for emendation takes possession of a man, his opportunities are endless—so many seeming emendations offer themselves which are in themselves not bad, letters and words affording as much play as the keys of a piano. 'Being a god kissing carrion,' is in itself good enough; but Shakspere meant what stands in both Quarto and Folio: the dead dog being a carrion good at kissing. The arbitrary changes of the editors are amazing.]

[Footnote 11: He cannot help his mind constantly turning upon women; and if his thoughts of them are often cruelly false, it is not Hamlet but his mother who is to blame: her conduct has hurled him from the peak of optimism into the bottomless pool of pessimistic doubt, above the foul waters of which he keeps struggling to lift his head.]

[Page 86]

Ham. Let her not walke i'th'Sunne: Conception[1] is a blessing, but not as your daughter may [Sidenote: but as your] conceiue. Friend looke too't.

[Sidenote: 100] Pol.[2] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said [Sidenote: a sayd I] I was a Fishmonger: he is farre gone, farre gone: [Sidenote: Fishmonger, a is farre gone, and truly] and truly in my youth, I suffred much extreamity and truly for loue: very neere this. Ile speake to him againe.

What do you read my Lord?

Ham. Words, words, words.

Pol. What is the matter, my Lord?

Ham. Betweene who?[3]

Pol. I meane the matter you meane, my [Sidenote: matter that you reade my] Lord.

Ham. Slanders Sir: for the Satyricall slaue [Sidenote: satericall rogue sayes] saies here, that old men haue gray Beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thicke Amber, or Plum-Tree Gumme: and that they haue [Sidenote: Amber, and] a plentifull locke of Wit, together with weake [Sidenote: lacke | with most weake] Hammes. All which Sir, though I most powerfully, and potently beleeue; yet I holde it not Honestie[4] to haue it thus set downe: For you [Sidenote: for your selfe sir shall grow old as I am:] your selfe Sir, should be old as I am, if like a Crab you could go backward.

Pol.[5] Though this be madnesse, Yet there is Method in't: will you walke Out of the ayre[6] my Lord?

Ham. Into my Graue?

Pol. Indeed that is out o'th'Ayre: [Sidenote: that's out of the ayre;] How pregnant (sometimes) his Replies are? A happinesse, That often Madnesse hits on, Which Reason and Sanitie could not [Sidenote: sanctity] So prosperously be deliuer'd of.

[Footnote 1: One of the meanings of the word, and more in use then than now, is understanding.]

[Footnote 2: (aside).]

[Footnote 3: —pretending to take him to mean by matter, the point of quarrel.]

[Footnote 4: Propriety.]

[Footnote 5: (aside).]

[Footnote 6: the draught.]

[Page 88]

[A] I will leaue him, And sodainely contriue the meanes of meeting Betweene him,[1] and my daughter. My Honourable Lord, I will most humbly Take my leaue of you.

Ham. You cannot Sir take from[2] me any thing, that I will more willingly part withall, except my [Sidenote: will not more | my life, except my] life, my life.[3] [Sidenote: Enter Guyldersterne, and Rosencrans.]

Polon. Fare you well my Lord.

Ham. These tedious old fooles.

Polon. You goe to seeke my Lord Hamlet; [Sidenote: the Lord] there hee is.

Enter Rosincran and Guildensterne.[4]

Rosin. God saue you Sir.

Guild. Mine honour'd Lord?

Rosin. My most deare Lord?

Ham. My excellent good friends? How do'st [Sidenote: My extent good] thou Guildensterne? Oh, Rosincrane; good Lads: [Sidenote: A Rosencraus] How doe ye both? [Sidenote: you]

Rosin. As the indifferent Children of the earth.

Guild. Happy, in that we are not ouer-happy: [Sidenote: euer happy on] on Fortunes Cap, we are not the very Button. [Sidenote: Fortunes lap,]

Ham. Nor the Soales of her Shoo?

Rosin. Neither my Lord.

Ham. Then you liue about her waste, or in the middle of her fauour? [Sidenote: fauors.]

Guil. Faith, her priuates, we.

Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh, most true: she is a Strumpet.[5] What's the newes? [Sidenote: What newes?]

Rosin. None my Lord; but that the World's [Sidenote: but the] growne honest.

Ham. Then is Doomesday neere: But your

[Footnote A: In the Quarto, the speech ends thus:—I will leaue him and my daughter.[6] My Lord, I will take my leaue of you.]

[Footnote 1: From 'And sodainely' to 'betweene him,' not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 2: It is well here to recall the modes of the word leave: 'Give me leave,' Polonius says with proper politeness to the king and queen when he wants them to go—that is, 'Grant me your departure'; but he would, going himself, take his leave, his departure, of or from them—by their permission to go. Hamlet means, 'You cannot take from me anything I will more willingly part with than your leave, or, my permission to you to go.' 85, 203. See the play on the two meanings of the word in Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. 4:

Duke. Give me now leave to leave thee;

though I suspect it ought to be—

Duke. Give me now leave.

Clown. To leave thee!—Now, the melancholy &c.]

[Footnote 3: It is a relief to him to speak the truth under the cloak of madness—ravingly. He has no one to whom to open his heart: what lies there he feels too terrible for even the eye of Horatio. He has not apparently told him as yet more than the tale of his father's murder.]

[Footnote 4: Above, in Quarto.]

[Footnote 5: In this and all like utterances of Hamlet, we see what worm it is that lies gnawing at his heart.]

[Footnote 6: This is a slip in the Quarto—rectified in the Folio: his daughter was not present.]

[Page 90]

newes is not true.[1] [2] Let me question more in particular: what haue you my good friends, deserued at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to Prison hither?

Guil. Prison, my Lord?

Ham. Denmark's a Prison.

Rosin. Then is the World one.

Ham. A goodly one, in which there are many Confines, Wards, and Dungeons; Denmarke being one o'th'worst.

Rosin. We thinke not so my Lord.

Ham. Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so[3]: to me it is a prison.

Rosin. Why then your Ambition makes it one: 'tis too narrow for your minde.[4]

Ham. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count my selfe a King of infinite space; were it not that I haue bad dreames.

Guil. Which dreames indeed are Ambition: for the very substance[5] of the Ambitious, is meerely the shadow of a Dreame.

Ham. A dreame it selfe is but a shadow.

Rosin. Truely, and I hold Ambition of so ayry and light a quality, that it is but a shadowes shadow.

Ham. Then are our Beggers bodies; and our Monarchs and out-stretcht Heroes the Beggers Shadowes: shall wee to th'Court: for, by my fey[6] I cannot reason?[7]

Both. Wee'l wait vpon you.

Ham. No such matter.[8] I will not sort you with the rest of my seruants: for to speake to you like an honest man: I am most dreadfully attended;[9] but in the beaten way of friendship,[10] [Sidenote: But in]

What make you at Elsonower?

[Footnote 1: 'it is not true that the world is grown honest': he doubts themselves. His eye is sharper because his heart is sorer since he left Wittenberg. He proceeds to examine them.]

[Footnote 2: This passage, beginning with 'Let me question,' and ending with 'dreadfully attended,' is not in the Quarto.

Who inserted in the Folio this and other passages? Was it or was it not Shakspere? Beyond a doubt they are Shakspere's all. Then who omitted those omitted? Was Shakspere incapable of refusing any of his own work? Or would these editors, who profess to have all opportunity, and who, belonging to the theatre, must have had the best of opportunities, have desired or dared to omit what far more painstaking editors have since presumed, though out of reverence, to restore?]

[Footnote 3: 'but it is thinking that makes it so:']

[Footnote 4: —feeling after the cause of Hamlet's strangeness, and following the readiest suggestion, that of chagrin at missing the succession.]

[Footnote 5: objects and aims.]

[Footnote 6: foi.]

[Footnote 7: Does he choose beggars as the representatives of substance because they lack ambition—that being shadow? Or does he take them as the shadows of humanity, that, following Rosincrance, he may get their shadows, the shadows therefore of shadows, to parallel monarchs and heroes? But he is not satisfied with his own analogue—therefore will to the court, where good logic is not wanted—where indeed he knows a hellish lack of reason.]

[Footnote 8: 'On no account.']

[Footnote 9: 'I have very bad servants.' Perhaps he judges his servants spies upon him. Or might he mean that he was haunted with bad thoughts? Or again, is it a stroke of his pretence of madness—suggesting imaginary followers?]

[Footnote: 10: 'to speak plainly, as old friends.']

[Page 92]

Rosin. To visit you my Lord, no other occasion.

Ham. Begger that I am, I am euen poore in [Sidenote: am ever poore] thankes; but I thanke you: and sure deare friends my thanks are too deare a halfepeny[1]; were you [Sidenote: 72] not sent for? Is it your owne inclining? Is it a free visitation?[2] Come, deale iustly with me: come, come; nay speake. [Sidenote: come, come,]

Guil. What should we say my Lord?[3]

Ham. Why any thing. But to the purpose; [Sidenote: Any thing but to'th purpose:] you were sent for; and there is a kinde confession [Sidenote: kind of confession] in your lookes; which your modesties haue not craft enough to color, I know the good King and [Sidenote: 72] Queene haue sent for you.

Rosin. To what end my Lord?

Ham. That you must teach me: but let mee coniure[4] you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth,[5] by the Obligation of our euer-preserued loue, and by what more deare, a better proposer could charge you withall; [Sidenote: can] be euen and direct with me, whether you were sent for or no.

Rosin. What say you?[6]

Ham. Nay then I haue an eye of you[7]: if you loue me hold not off.[8]

[Sidenote: 72] Guil. My Lord, we were sent for.

Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation preuent your discouery of your secricie to [Sidenote: discovery, and your secrecie to the King and Queene moult no feather,[10]] the King and Queene[9] moult no feather, I haue [Sidenote: 116] of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custome of exercise; and indeed, [Sidenote: exercises;] it goes so heauenly with my disposition; that this [Sidenote: heauily] goodly frame the Earth, seemes to me a sterrill Promontory; this most excellent Canopy the Ayre, look you, this braue ore-hanging, this Maiesticall [Sidenote: orehanging firmament,] Roofe, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeares no [Sidenote: appeareth]

[Footnote 1: —because they were by no means hearty thanks.]

[Footnote 2: He wants to know whether they are in his uncle's employment and favour; whether they pay court to himself for his uncle's ends.]

[Footnote 3: He has no answer ready.]

[Footnote 4: He will not cast them from him without trying a direct appeal to their old friendship for plain dealing. This must be remembered in relation to his treatment of them afterwards. He affords them every chance of acting truly—conjuring them to honesty—giving them a push towards repentance.]

[Footnote 5: Either, 'the harmony of our young days,' or, 'the sympathies of our present youth.']

[Footnote 6: —to Guildenstern.]

[Footnote 7: (aside) 'I will keep an eye upon you;'.]

[Footnote 8: 'do not hold back.']

[Footnote 9: The Quarto seems here to have the right reading.]

[Footnote 10: 'your promise of secrecy remain intact;'.]

[Page 94]

other thing to mee, then a foule and pestilent congregation [Sidenote: nothing to me but a] of vapours. What a piece of worke is [Sidenote: what peece] a man! how Noble in Reason? how infinite in faculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and [Sidenote: faculties,] admirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension, how like a God? the beauty of the world, the Parragon of Animals; and yet to me, what is this Quintessence of Dust? Man delights not me;[1] no, nor Woman neither; though by your [Sidenote: not me, nor women] smiling you seeme to say so.[2]

Rosin. My Lord, there was no such stuffe in my thoughts.

Ham. Why did you laugh, when I said, Man [Sidenote: yee laugh then, when] delights not me?

Rosin. To thinke, my Lord, if you delight not in Man, what Lenton entertainment the Players shall receiue from you:[3] wee coated them[4] on the way, and hither are they comming to offer you Seruice.

Ham.[5] He that playes the King shall be welcome; his Maiesty shall haue Tribute of mee: [Sidenote: on me,] the aduenturous Knight shal vse his Foyle and Target: the Louer shall not sigh gratis, the humorous man[6] shall end his part in peace: [7] the Clowne shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled a'th' sere:[8] and the Lady shall say her minde freely; or the blanke Verse shall halt for't[9]: [Sidenote: black verse] what Players are they?

Rosin. Euen those you Were wont to take [Sidenote: take such delight] delight in the Tragedians of the City.

Ham. How chances it they trauaile? their residence both in reputation and profit was better both wayes.

Rosin. I thinke their Inhibition comes by the meanes of the late Innouation?[10]

[Footnote 1: A genuine description, so far as it goes, of the state of Hamlet's mind. But he does not reveal the operating cause—his loss of faith in women, which has taken the whole poetic element out of heaven, earth, and humanity: he would have his uncle's spies attribute his condition to mere melancholy.]

[Footnote 2: —said angrily, I think.]

[Footnote 3: —a ready-witted subterfuge.]

[Footnote 4: came alongside of them; got up with them; apparently rather from Fr. côté than coter; like accost. Compare 71. But I suspect it only means noted, observed, and is from coter.]

[Footnote 5: —with humorous imitation, perhaps, of each of the characters.]

[Footnote 6: —the man with a whim.]

[Footnote 7: This part of the speech—from [7] to [8], is not in the Quarto.]

[Footnote 8: Halliwell gives a quotation in which the touch-hole of a pistol is called the sere: the sere, then, of the lungs would mean the opening of the lungs—the part with which we laugh: those 'whose lungs are tickled a' th' sere,' are such as are ready to laugh on the least provocation: tickled—irritable, ticklish—ready to laugh, as another might be to cough. 'Tickled o' the sere' was a common phrase, signifying, thus, propense.

1st Q. The clowne shall make them laugh That are tickled in the lungs,]

[Footnote 9: Does this refer to the pause that expresses the unutterable? or to the ruin of the measure of the verse by an incompetent heroine?]

[Footnote 10: Does this mean, 'I think their prohibition comes through the late innovation,'—of the children's acting; or, 'I think they are prevented from staying at home by the late new measures,'—such, namely, as came of the puritan opposition to stage-plays? This had grown so strong, that, in 1600, the Privy Council issued an order restricting the number of theatres in London to two: by such an innovation a number of players might well be driven to the country.]

[Page 96]

Ham. Doe they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the City? Are they so follow'd?

Rosin. No indeed, they are not. [Sidenote: are they not.]

[1]Ham. How comes it? doe they grow rusty?

Rosin. Nay, their indeauour keepes in the wonted pace; But there is Sir an ayrie of Children,[2] little Yases,[3] that crye out[4] on the top of question;[5] and are most tyrannically clap't for't: these are now the fashion, and so be-ratled the common Stages[6] (so they call them) that many wearing Rapiers,[7] are affraide of Goose-quils, and dare scarse come thither.[8]

Ham. What are they Children? Who maintains 'em? How are they escoted?[9] Will they pursue the Quality[10] no longer then they can sing?[11] Will they not say afterwards if they should grow themselues to common Players (as it is like most[12] if their meanes are no better) their Writers[13] do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their owne Succession.[14]

Rosin. Faith there ha's bene much to do on both sides: and the Nation holds it no sinne, to tarre them[15] to Controuersie. There was for a while, no mony bid for argument, vnlesse the Poet and the Player went to Cuffes in the Question.[16]

Ham. Is't possible?

Guild. Oh there ha's beene much throwing about of Braines.

Ham. Do the Boyes carry it away?[17]

Rosin. I that they do my Lord, Hercules and his load too.[18]

Ham. It is not strange: for mine Vnckle is [Sidenote: not very strange, | my] King of Denmarke, and those that would make mowes at him while my Father liued; giue twenty, [Sidenote: make mouths]

[Footnote 1: The whole of the following passage, beginning with 'How comes it,' and ending with 'Hercules and his load too,' belongs to the Folio alone—is not in the Quarto.

In the 1st Quarto we find the germ of the passage—unrepresented in the 2nd, developed in the Folio.

Ham. Players, what Players be they?

Ross. My Lord, the Tragedians of the Citty, Those that you tooke delight to see so often.

Ham. How comes it that they trauell? Do they grow restie?

Gil. No my Lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.

Ham. How then?

Gil. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away, For the principall publike audience that Came to them, are turned to priuate playes,[19] And to the humour[20] of children.

Ham. I doe not greatly wonder of it, For those that would make mops and moes At my vncle, when my father liued, &c.]

[Footnote 2: a nest of children. The acting of the children of two or three of the chief choirs had become the rage.]

[Footnote 3: Eyases—unfledged hawks.]

[Footnote 4: Children cry out rather than speak on the stage.]

[Footnote 5: 'cry out beyond dispute'—unquestionably; 'cry out and no mistake.' 'He does not top his part.' The Rehearsal, iii. 1.—'He is not up to it.' But perhaps here is intended above reason: 'they cry out excessively, excruciatingly.' 103.

This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,—A Lover's Complaint.]

[Footnote 6: I presume it should be the present tense, beratle—except the are of the preceding member be understood: 'and so beratled are the common stages.' If the present, then the children 'so abuse the grown players,'—in the pieces they acted, particularly in the new arguments, written for them—whence the reference to goose-quills.]

[Footnote 7: —of the play-going public.]

[Footnote 8: —for dread of sharing in the ridicule.]

[Footnote 9: paid—from the French escot, a shot or reckoning: Dr. Johnson.]

[Footnote 10: —the quality of players; the profession of the stage.]

[Footnote 11: 'Will they cease playing when their voices change?']

[Footnote 12: Either will should follow here, or like and most must change places.]

[Footnote 13: 'those that write for them'.]

[Footnote 14: —what they had had to come to themselves.]

[Footnote 15: 'to incite the children and the grown players to controversy': to tarre them on like dogs: see King John, iv. 1.]

[Footnote 16: 'No stage-manager would buy a new argument, or prologue, to a play, unless the dramatist and one of the actors were therein represented as falling out on the question of the relative claims of the children and adult actors.']

[Footnote 17: 'Have the boys the best of it?']

[Footnote 18: 'That they have, out and away.' Steevens suggests that allusion is here made to the sign of the Globe Theatre—Hercules bearing the world for Atlas.]

[Footnote 19: amateur-plays.]

[Footnote 20: whimsical fashion.]

[Page 98]

forty, an hundred Ducates a peece, for his picture[1] [Sidenote: fortie, fifty, a hundred] in Little.[2] There is something in this more then [Sidenote: little, s'bloud there is] Naturall, if Philosophic could finde it out.

Flourish for tke Players.[3] [Sidenote: A Florish.]

Guil. There are the Players.

Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcom to Elsonower: your hands, come: The appurtenance of [Sidenote: come then, th'] Welcome, is Fashion and Ceremony. Let me [Sidenote: 260] comply with you in the Garbe,[4] lest my extent[5] to [Sidenote: in this garb: let me extent] the Players (which I tell you must shew fairely outward) should more appeare like entertainment[6] [Sidenote: outwards,] then yours.[7] You are welcome: but my Vnckle Father, and Aunt Mother are deceiu'd.

Guil. In what my deere Lord?

Ham. I am but mad North, North-West: when the Winde is Southerly, I know a Hawke from a Handsaw.[8]

Enter Polonius.

Pol. Well[9] be with you Gentlemen.

Ham. Hearke you Guildensterne, and you too: at each eare a hearer: that great Baby you see there, is not yet out of his swathing clouts. [Sidenote: swadling clouts.]

Rosin. Happily he's the second time come to [Sidenote: he is] them: for they say, an old man is twice a childe.

Ham. I will Prophesie. Hee comes to tell me of the Players. Mark it, you say right Sir: for a [Sidenote: sir, a Monday] Monday morning 'twas so indeed.[10] [Sidenote: t'was then indeede.]

Pol. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you.

Ham. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you. When Rossius an Actor in Rome——[11] [Sidenote: Rossius was an]

Pol. The Actors are come hither my Lord.

Ham. Buzze, buzze.[12]

Pol. Vpon mine Honor.[13] [Sidenote: my]

Ham. Then can each Actor on his Asse—— [Sidenote: came each]

[Footnote 1: If there be any logical link here, except that, after the instance adduced, no change in social fashion—nothing at all indeed, is to be wondered at, I fail to see it. Perhaps the speech is intended to belong to the simulation. The last sentence of it appears meant to convey the impression that he suspects nothing—is only bewildered by the course of things.]

[Footnote 2: his miniature.]

[Footnote 3: —to indicate their approach.]

[Footnote 4: com'ply—accent on first syllable—'pass compliments with you' (260)—in the garb, either 'in appearance,' or 'in the fashion of the hour.']

[Footnote 5: 'the amount of courteous reception I extend'—'my advances to the players.']

[Footnote 6: reception, welcome.]

[Footnote 7: He seems to desire that they shall no more be on the footing of fellow-students, and thus to rid himself of the old relation. Perhaps he hints that they are players too. From any further show of friendliness he takes refuge in convention—and professed convention—supplying a reason in order to escape a dangerous interpretation of his sudden formality—'lest you should suppose me more cordial to the players than to you.' The speech is full of inwoven irony, doubtful, and refusing to be ravelled out. With what merely half-shown, yet scathing satire it should be spoken and accompanied!]

[Footnote 8: A proverb of the time comically corrupted—handsaw for hernshaw—a heron, the quarry of the hawk. He denies his madness as madmen do—and in terms themselves not unbefitting madness—so making it seem the more genuine. Yet every now and then, urged by the commotion of his being, he treads perilously on the border of self-betrayal.]

[Footnote 9: used as a noun.]

[Footnote 10: Point thus: 'Mark it.—You say right, sir; &c.' He takes up a speech that means nothing, and might mean anything, to turn aside the suspicion their whispering might suggest to Polonius that they had been talking about him—so better to lay his trap for him.]

[Footnote 11: He mentions the actor to lead Polonius so that his prophecy of him shall come true.]

[Footnote 12: An interjection of mockery: he had made a fool of him.]

[Footnote 13: Polonius thinks he is refusing to believe him.]

[Page 100]

Polon. The best Actors in the world, either for Tragedie, Comedie, Historic, Pastorall: Pastoricall- Comicall-Historicall-Pastorall: [1] Tragicall-Historicall: Tragicall-Comicall—Historicall-Pastorall[1]: Scene indiuible,[2] or Poem vnlimited.[3] Seneca cannot [Sidenote: scene indeuidible,[2]] be too heauy, nor Plautus too light, for the law of Writ, and the Liberty. These are the onely men.[4]

Ham. O Iephta Iudge of Israel, what a Treasure had'st thou?

Pol. What a Treasure had he, my Lord?[5]

Ham. Why one faire Daughter, and no more,[6] The which he loued passing well.[6]

[Sidenote: 86] Pol. Still on my Daughter.

Ham. Am I not i'th'right old Iephta?

Polon. If you call me Iephta my Lord, I haue a daughter that I loue passing well.

Ham. Nay that followes not.[7]

Polon. What followes then, my Lord?

Ham. Why, As by lot, God wot:[6] and then you know, It came to passe, as most like it was:[6] The first rowe of the Pons[8] Chanson will shew you more, [Sidenote: pious chanson] For looke where my Abridgements[9] come. [Sidenote: abridgment[9] comes]

Enter foure or fiue Players. [Sidenote: Enter the Players.]

Y'are welcome Masters, welcome all. I am glad [Sidenote: You are] to see thee well: Welcome good Friends. O my [Sidenote: oh old friend, why thy face is valanct[10]] olde Friend? Thy face is valiant[10] since I saw thee last: Com'st thou to beard me in Denmarke? What, my yong Lady and Mistris?[11] Byrlady [Sidenote: by lady] your Ladiship is neerer Heauen then when I saw [Sidenote: nerer to] you last, by the altitude of a Choppine.[12] Pray God your voice like a peece of vncurrant Gold be not crack'd within the ring.[13] Masters, you are all welcome: wee'l e'ne to't like French Faulconers,[14] [Sidenote: like friendly Fankner] flie at any thing we see: wee'l haue a Speech

[Footnote 1: From [1] to [1] is not in the Quarto.]

[Footnote 2: Does this phrase mean all in one scene?]

[Footnote 3: A poem to be recited only—one not limited, or divided into speeches.]

[Footnote 4: Point thus: 'too light. For the law of Writ, and the Liberty, these are the onely men':—either for written plays, that is, or for those in which the players extemporized their speeches.

1st Q. 'For the law hath writ those are the onely men.']

[Footnote 5: Polonius would lead him on to talk of his daughter.]

[Footnote 6: These are lines of the first stanza of an old ballad still in existence. Does Hamlet suggest that as Jephthah so Polonius had sacrificed his daughter? Or is he only desirous of making him talk about her?]

[Footnote 7: 'That is not as the ballad goes.']

[Footnote 8: That this is a corruption of the pious in the Quarto, is made clearer from the 1st Quarto: 'the first verse of the godly Ballet wil tel you all.']

[Footnote 9: abridgment—that which abridges, or cuts short. His 'Abridgements' were the Players.]

[Footnote 10: 1st Q. 'Vallanced'—with a beard, that is. Both readings may be correct.]

[Footnote 11: A boy of course: no women had yet appeared on the stage.]

[Footnote 12: A Venetian boot, stilted, sometimes very high.]

[Footnote 13: —because then it would be unfit for a woman-part. A piece of gold so worn that it had a crack reaching within the inner circle was no longer current. 1st Q. 'in the ring:'—was a pun intended?]

[Footnote 14: —like French sportsmen of the present day too.]

[Page 102]

straight. Come giue vs a tast of your quality: come, a passionate speech.

1. Play. What speech, my Lord? [Sidenote: my good Lord?]

Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was neuer Acted: or if it was, not aboue once, for the Play I remember pleas'd not the Million, 'twas Cauiarie to the Generall[1]: but it was (as I receiu'd it, and others, whose iudgement in such matters, cried in the top of mine)[2] an excellent Play; well digested in the Scoenes, set downe with as much modestie, as cunning.[3] I remember one said there was no Sallets[4] in the lines, to make the [Sidenote: were] matter sauoury; nor no matter in the phrase,[5] that might indite the Author of affectation, but cal'd it [Sidenote: affection,] an honest method[A]. One cheefe Speech in it, I [Sidenote: one speech in't I] cheefely lou'd, 'twas Æneas Tale to Dido, and [Sidenote: Aeneas talke to] thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of [Sidenote: when] Priams[6] slaughter. If it liue in your memory, begin at this Line, let me see, let me see: The rugged Pyrrhus like th'Hyrcanian Beast.[7] It is [Sidenote: tis not] not so: it begins[8] with Pyrrhus.[9]

[10] The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose Sable Armes[11] Blacke as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in the Ominous[12] Horse, Hath now this dread and blacke Complexion smear'd With Heraldry more dismall: Head to foote Now is he to take Geulles,[13] horridly Trick'd [Sidenote: is he totall Gules [18]] With blood of Fathers, Mothers, Daughters, Sonnes, [14] Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrannous, and damned light [Sidenote: and a damned]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:— as wholesome as sweete, and by very much, more handsome then fine:]

[Footnote 1: The salted roe of the sturgeon is a delicacy disliked by most people.]

[Footnote 2: 'were superior to mine.'

The 1st Quarto has,

'Cried in the toppe of their iudgements, an excellent play,'—that is, pronounced it, to the best of their judgments, an excellent play.

Note the difference between 'the top of my judgment', and 'the top of their judgments'. 97.]

[Footnote 3: skill.]

[Footnote 4: coarse jests. 25, 67.]

[Footnote 5: style.]

[Footnote 6: 1st Q. 'Princes slaughter.']

[Footnote 7: 1st Q. 'th'arganian beast:' 'the Hyrcan tiger,' Macbeth, iii. 4.]

[Footnote 8: 'it begins': emphasis on begins.]

[Footnote 9: A pause; then having recollected, he starts afresh.]

[Footnote 10: These passages are Shakspere's own, not quotations: the Quartos differ. But when he wrote them he had in his mind a phantom of Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage. I find Steevens has made a similar conjecture, and quotes from Marlowe two of the passages I had marked as being like passages here.]

[Footnote 11: The poetry is admirable in its kind—intentionally charged, to raise it to the second stage-level, above the blank verse, that is, of the drama in which it is set, as that blank verse is raised above the ordinary level of speech. 143.

The correspondent passage in 1st Q. runs nearly parallel for a few lines.]

[Footnote 12:—like portentous.]

[Footnote 13: 'all red', 1st Q. 'totall guise.']

[Footnote 14: Here the 1st Quarto has:—

Back't and imparched in calagulate gore, Rifted in earth and fire, olde grandsire Pryam seekes: So goe on.]

[Page 104]

To their vilde Murthers, roasted in wrath and fire, [Sidenote: their Lords murther,] And thus o're-sized with coagulate gore, With eyes like Carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old Grandsire Priam seekes.[1] [Sidenote: seekes; so proceede you.[2]]

Pol. Fore God, my Lord, well spoken, with good accent, and good discretion.[3]

1. Player. Anon he findes him, [Sidenote: Play] Striking too short at Greekes.[4] His anticke Sword, Rebellious to his Arme, lyes where it falles Repugnant to command[4]: vnequall match, [Sidenote: matcht,] Pyrrhus at Priam driues, in Rage strikes wide: But with the whiffe and winde of his fell Sword, Th'vnnerued Father fals.[5] Then senselesse Illium,[6] Seeming to feele his blow, with flaming top [Sidenote: seele[7] this blowe,] Stoopes to his Bace, and with a hideous crash Takes Prisoner Pyrrhus eare. For loe, his Sword Which was declining on the Milkie head Of Reuerend Priam, seem'd i'th'Ayre to sticke: So as a painted Tyrant Pyrrhus stood,[8] [Sidenote: stood Like] And like a Newtrall to his will and matter,[9] did nothing.[10] [11] But as we often see against some storme, A silence in the Heauens, the Racke stand still, The bold windes speechlesse, and the Orbe below As hush as death: Anon the dreadfull Thunder [Sidenote: 110] Doth rend the Region.[11] So after Pyrrhus pause, Arowsed Vengeance sets him new a-worke, And neuer did the Cyclops hammers fall On Mars his Armours, forg'd for proofe Eterne, [Sidenote: Marses Armor] With lesse remorse then Pyrrhus bleeding sword Now falles on Priam. [12] Out, out, thou Strumpet-Fortune, all you Gods, In generall Synod take away her power: Breake all the Spokes and Fallies from her wheele, [Sidenote: follies]

[Footnote 1: This, though horrid enough, is in degree below the description in Dido.]

[Footnote 2: He is directing the player to take up the speech there where he leaves it. See last quotation from 1st Q.]

[Footnote 3: judgment.]

[Footnote 4: —with an old man's under-reaching blows—till his arm is so jarred by a missed blow, that he cannot raise his sword again.]

[Footnote 5:

Whereat he lifted up his bedrid limbs, And would have grappled with Achilles' son,

* * * * *

Which he, disdaining, whisk'd his sword about, And with the wound[13] thereof the king fell down.

Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage.]

[Footnote 6: The Quarto has omitted 'Then senselesse Illium,' or something else.]

[Footnote 7: Printed with the long f[symbol for archaic long s].]

[Footnote 8: —motionless as a tyrant in a picture.]

[Footnote 9: 'standing between his will and its object as if he had no relation to either.']

[Footnote 10:

And then in triumph ran into the streets, Through which he could not pass for slaughtered men; So, leaning on his sword, he stood stone still, Viewing the fire wherewith rich Ilion burnt.

Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage.]

[Footnote 11: Who does not feel this passage, down to 'Region,' thoroughly Shaksperean!]

[Footnote 12: Is not the rest of this speech very plainly Shakspere's?]

[Footnote 13: wind, I think it should be.]

[Page 106]

And boule the round Naue downe the hill of Heauen, As low as to the Fiends.

Pol. This is too long.

Ham. It shall to'th Barbars, with your beard. [Sidenote: to the] Prythee say on: He's for a Iigge, or a tale of Baudry, or hee sleepes. Say on; come to Hecuba.

1. Play. But who, O who, had seen the inobled[1] Queen. [Sidenote: But who, a woe, had | mobled[1]]

Ham. The inobled[1] Queene? [Sidenote: mobled]

Pol. That's good: Inobled[1] Queene is good.[2]

1. Play. Run bare-foot vp and downe, Threatning the flame [Sidenote: flames] With Bisson Rheume:[3] A clout about that head, [Sidenote: clout vppon] Where late the Diadem stood, and for a Robe About her lanke and all ore-teamed Loines,[4] A blanket in th'Alarum of feare caught vp. [Sidenote: the alarme] Who this had seene, with tongue in Venome steep'd, 'Gainst Fortunes State, would Treason haue pronounc'd?[5] But if the Gods themselues did see her then, When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport In mincing with his Sword her Husbands limbes,[6] [Sidenote: husband] The instant Burst of Clamour that she made (Vnlesse things mortall moue them not at all) Would haue made milche[7] the Burning eyes of Heauen, And passion in the Gods.[8]

Pol. Looke where[9] he ha's not turn'd his colour, and ha's teares in's eyes. Pray you no more. [Sidenote: prethee]

Ham. 'Tis well, He haue thee speake out the rest, soone. Good my Lord, will you see the [Sidenote: rest of this] Players wel bestow'd. Do ye heare, let them be [Sidenote: you] well vs'd: for they are the Abstracts and breefe [Sidenote: abstract] Chronicles of the time. After your death, you

[Footnote 1: 'mobled'—also in 1st Q.—may be the word: muffled seems a corruption of it: compare mob-cap, and

'The moon does mobble up herself'

—Shirley, quoted by Farmer;

but I incline to 'inobled,' thrice in the Folio—once with a capital: I take it to stand for 'ignobled,' degraded.]

[Footnote 2: 'Inobled Queene is good.' Not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 3: —threatening to put the flames out with blind tears: 'bisen,' blind—Ang. Sax.]

[Footnote 4: —she had had so many children.]

[Footnote 5: There should of course be no point of interrogation here.]

[Footnote 6:

This butcher, whilst his hands were yet held up, Treading upon his breast, struck off his hands.

Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage.]

[Footnote 7: 'milche'—capable of giving milk: here capable of tears, which the burning eyes of the gods were not before.]

[Footnote 8: 'And would have made passion in the Gods.']

[Footnote 9: 'whether'.]

[Page 108]

were better haue a bad Epitaph, then their ill report while you liued.[1] [Sidenote: live]

Pol. My Lord, I will vse them according to their desart.

Ham. Gods bodykins man, better. Vse euerie [Sidenote: bodkin man, much better,] man after his desart, and who should scape whipping: [Sidenote: shall] vse them after your own Honor and Dignity. The lesse they deserue, the more merit is in your bountie. Take them in.

Pol. Come sirs. Exit Polon.[2]

Ham. Follow him Friends: wee'l heare a play to morrow.[3] Dost thou heare me old Friend, can you play the murther of Gonzago?

Play. I my Lord.

Ham. Wee'l ha't to morrow night. You could for a need[4] study[5] a speech of some dosen or sixteene [Sidenote: for neede | dosen lines, or] lines, which I would set downe, and insert in't? Could ye not?[6] [Sidenote: you]

Play. I my Lord.

Ham. Very well. Follow that Lord, and looke you mock him not.[7] My good Friends, Ile leaue you til night you are welcome to Elsonower? [Sidenote: Exeuent Pol. and Players.]

Rosin. Good my Lord. Exeunt.

Manet Hamlet.[8]

Ham. I so, God buy'ye[9]: Now I am alone. [Sidenote: buy to you,[9]] Oh what a Rogue and Pesant slaue am I?[10] Is it not monstrous that this Player heere,[11] But in a Fixion, in a dreame of Passion, Could force his soule so to his whole conceit,[12] [Sidenote: his own conceit] That from her working, all his visage warm'd; [Sidenote: all the visage wand,] Teares in his eyes, distraction in's Aspect, [Sidenote: in his] A broken voyce, and his whole Function suiting [Sidenote: an his] With Formes, to his Conceit?[13] And all for nothing?

[Footnote 1: Why do the editors choose the present tense of the Quarto? Hamlet does not mean, 'It is worse to have the ill report of the Players while you live, than a bad epitaph after your death.' The order of the sentence has provided against that meaning. What he means is, that their ill report in life will be more against your reputation after death than a bad epitaph.]

[Footnote 2: Not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 3: He detains their leader.]

[Footnote 4: 'for a special reason'.]

[Footnote 5: Study is still the Player's word for commit to memory.]

[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's quick resolve, made clearer towards the end of the following soliloquy.]

[Footnote 7: Polonius is waiting at the door: this is intended for his hearing.]

[Footnote 8: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 9: Note the varying forms of God be with you.]

[Footnote 10: 1st Q.

Why what a dunghill idiote slaue am I? Why these Players here draw water from eyes: For Hecuba, why what is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?]

[Footnote 11: Everything rings on the one hard, fixed idea that possesses him; but this one idea has many sides. Of late he has been thinking more upon the woman-side of it; but the Player with his speech has brought his father to his memory, and he feels he has been forgetting him: the rage of the actor recalls his own 'cue for passion.' Always more ready to blame than justify himself, he feels as if he ought to have done more, and so falls to abusing himself.]

[Footnote 12: imagination.]

[Footnote 13: 'his whole operative nature providing fit forms for the embodiment of his imagined idea'—of which forms he has already mentioned his warmed visage, his tears, his distracted look, his broken voice.

In this passage we have the true idea of the operation of the genuine acting faculty. Actor as well as dramatist, the Poet gives us here his own notion of his second calling.]

[Page 110]

For Hecuba? What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,[1] [Sidenote: or he to her,] That he should weepe for her? What would he doe, Had he the Motiue and the Cue[2] for passion [Sidenote: , and that for] That I haue? He would drowne the Stage with teares, And cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech: Make mad the guilty, and apale[3] the free,[4] Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed, The very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I, [Sidenote: faculties] A dull and muddy-metled[5] Rascall, peake Like Iohn a-dreames, vnpregnant of my cause,[6] And can say nothing: No, not for a King, Vpon whose property,[7] and most deere life, A damn'd defeate[8] was made. Am I a Coward?[9] Who calles me Villaine? breakes my pate a-crosse? Pluckes off my Beard, and blowes it in my face? Tweakes me by'th'Nose?[10] giues me the Lye i'th' Throate, [Sidenote: by the] As deepe as to the Lungs? Who does me this? Ha? Why I should take it: for it cannot be, [Sidenote: Hah, s'wounds I] But I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke Gall[11] To make Oppression bitter, or ere this, [Sidenote: 104] I should haue fatted all the Region Kites [Sidenote: should a fatted] With this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine, [Sidenote: bloody, baudy] Remorselesse,[12] Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles[13] villaine! Oh Vengeance![14] Who? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue, [Sidenote: Why what an Asse am I, this] That I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered, [Sidenote: a deere] Prompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell, Must (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with words, And fall a Cursing like a very Drab,[15] A Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine.[16] [Sidenote: a stallyon, | braines; hum,]

[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1st Q.

What would he do and if he had my losse? His father murdred, and a Crowne bereft him, [Sidenote: 174] He would turne all his teares to droppes of blood, Amaze the standers by with his laments,

&c. &c.]

[Footnote 2: Speaking of the Player, he uses the player-word.]

[Footnote 3: make pale—appal.]

[Footnote 4: the innocent.]

[Footnote 5: Mettle is spirit—rather in the sense of animal-spirit: mettlesome—spirited, as a horse.]

[Footnote 6: 'unpossessed by my cause'.]

[Footnote 7: personality, proper person.]

[Footnote 8: undoing, destruction—from French défaire.]

[Footnote 9: In this mood he no more understands, and altogether doubts himself, as he has previously come to doubt the world.]

[Footnote 10: 1st Q. 'or twites my nose.']

[Footnote 11: It was supposed that pigeons had no gall—I presume from their livers not tasting bitter like those of perhaps most birds.]

[Footnote 12: pitiless.]

[Footnote 13: unnatural.]

[Footnote 14: This line is not in the Quarto.]

[Footnote 15: Here in Q. the line runs on to include Foh. The next line ends with heard.]

[Footnote 16: Point thus: 'About! my brain.' He apostrophizes his brain, telling it to set to work.]

[Page 112]

I haue heard, that guilty Creatures sitting at a Play, Haue by the very cunning of the Scoene,[1] Bene strooke so to the soule, that presently They haue proclaim'd their Malefactions. For Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speake With most myraculous Organ.[2] Ile haue these Players, Play something like the murder of my Father, Before mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes, [Sidenote: 137] Ile tent him to the quicke: If he but blench[3] [Sidenote: if a doe blench] I know my course. The Spirit that I haue seene [Sidenote: 48] May[4] be the Diuell, and the Diuel hath power [Sidenote: May be a deale, and the deale] T'assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhaps Out of my Weaknesse, and my Melancholly,[5] As he is very potent with such Spirits,[6] [Sidenote: 46] Abuses me to damne me.[7] Ile haue grounds More Relatiue then this: The Play's the thing, Wherein Ile catch the Conscience of the King. Exit.

* * * * *

SUMMARY.

The division between the second and third acts is by common consent placed here. The third act occupies the afternoon, evening, and night of the same day with the second.

This soliloquy is Hamlet's first, and perhaps we may find it correct to say only outbreak of self-accusation. He charges himself with lack of feeling, spirit, and courage, in that he has not yet taken vengeance on his uncle. But unless we are prepared to accept and justify to the full his own hardest words against himself, and grant him a muddy-mettled, pigeon-livered rascal, we must examine and understand him, so as to account for his conduct better than he could himself. If we allow that perhaps he accuses himself too much, we may find on reflection that he accuses himself altogether wrongfully. If a man is content to think the worst of Hamlet, I care to hold no argument with that man.

We must not look for expressed logical sequence in a soliloquy, which is a vocal mind. The mind is seldom conscious of the links or transitions of a yet perfectly logical process developed in it. This remark, however, is more necessary in regard to the famous soliloquy to follow.

In Hamlet, misery has partly choked even vengeance; and although sure in his heart that his uncle is guilty, in his brain he is not sure. Bitterly accusing himself in an access of wretchedness and rage and credence, he forgets the doubt that has restrained him, with all besides which he might so well urge in righteous defence, not excuse, of his delay. But ungenerous criticism has, by all but universal consent, accepted his own verdict against himself. So in common life there are thousands on thousands who, upon the sad confession of a man immeasurably greater than themselves, and showing his greatness in the humility whose absence makes admission impossible to them, immediately pounce upon him with vituperation, as if he were one of the vile, and they infinitely better. Such should be indignant with St. Paul and say—if he was the chief of sinners, what insolence to lecture them! and certainly the more justified publican would never by them have been allowed to touch the robe of the less justified Pharisee. Such critics surely take little or no pains to understand the object of their contempt: because Hamlet is troubled and blames himself, they without hesitation condemn him—and there where he is most commendable. It is the righteous man who is most ready to accuse himself; the unrighteous is least ready. Who is able when in deep trouble, rightly to analyze his feelings? Delay in action is not necessarily abandonment of duty; in Hamlet's case it is a due recognition of duty, which condemns precipitancy—and action in the face of doubt, so long as it is nowise compelled, is precipitancy. The first thing is to be sure: Hamlet has never been sure; he spies at length a chance of making himself sure; he seizes upon it; and while his sudden resolve to make use of the players, like the equally sudden resolve to shroud himself in pretended madness, manifests him fertile in expedient, the carrying out of both manifests him right capable and diligent in execution—a man of action in every true sense of the word.

The self-accusation of Hamlet has its ground in the lapse of weeks during which nothing has been done towards punishing the king. Suddenly roused to a keen sense of the fact, he feels as if surely he might have done something. The first act ends with a burning vow of righteous vengeance; the second shows him wandering about the palace in profoundest melancholy—such as makes it more than easy for him to assume the forms of madness the moment he marks any curious eye bent upon him. Let him who has never loved and revered a mother, call such melancholy weakness. He has indeed done nothing towards the fulfilment of his vow; but the way in which he made the vow, the terms in which he exacted from his companions their promise of silence, and his scheme for eluding suspicion, combine to show that from the first he perceived its fulfilment would be hard, saw the obstacles in his way, and knew it would require both time and caution. That even in the first rush of his wrath he should thus be aware of difficulty, indicates moral symmetry; but the full weight of what lay in his path could appear to him only upon reflection. Partly in the light of passages yet to come, I will imagine the further course of his thoughts, which the closing couplet of the first act shows as having already begun to apale 'the native hue of resolution.'

'But how shall I take vengeance on my uncle? Shall I publicly accuse him, or slay him at once? In the one case what answer can I make to his denial? in the other, what justification can I offer? If I say the spirit of my father accuses him, what proof can I bring? My companions only saw the apparition—heard no word from him; and my uncle's party will assert, with absolute likelihood to the minds of those who do not know me—and who here knows me but my mother!—that charge is a mere coinage of jealous disappointment, working upon the melancholy I have not cared to hide. (174-6.) When I act, it must be to kill him, and to what misconstruction shall I not expose myself! (272) If the thing must so be, I must brave all; but I could never present myself thereafter as successor to the crown of one whom I had first slain and then vilified on the accusation of an apparition whom no one heard but myself! I must find proof—such proof as will satisfy others as well as myself. My immediate duty is evidence, not vengeance.'

We have seen besides, that, when informed of the haunting presence of the Ghost, he expected the apparition with not a little doubt as to its authenticity—a doubt which, even when he saw it, did not immediately vanish: is it any wonder that when the apparition was gone, the doubt should return? Return it did, in accordance with the reaction which waits upon all high-strung experience. If he did not believe in the person who performed it, would any man long believe in any miracle? Hamlet soon begins to question whether he can with confidence accept the appearance for that which it appeared and asserted itself to be. He steps over to the stand-point of his judges, and doubts the only testimony he has to produce. Far more:—was he not bound in common humanity, not to say filialness, to doubt it? To doubt the Ghost, was to doubt a testimony which to accept was to believe his father in horrible suffering, his uncle a murderer, his mother at least an adulteress; to kill his uncle was to set his seal to the whole, and, besides, to bring his mother into frightful suspicion of complicity in his father's murder. Ought not the faintest shadow of a doubt, assuaging ever so little the glare of the hell-sun of such crime, to be welcome to the tortured heart? Wretched wife and woman as his mother had shown herself, the Ghost would have him think her far worse—perhaps, even accessory to her husband's murder! For action he must have proof!

At the same time, what every one knew of his mother, coupled now with the mere idea of the Ghost's accusation, wrought in him such misery, roused in him so many torturing and unanswerable questions, so blotted the face of the universe and withered the heart of hope, that he could not but doubt whether, in such a world of rogues and false women, it was worth his while to slay one villain out of the swarm.

Ophelia's behaviour to him, in obedience to her father, of which she gives him no explanation, has added 'the pangs of disprized love,' and increased his doubts of woman-kind. 120.

But when his imagination, presenting afresh the awful interview, brings him more immediately under the influence of the apparition and its behest, he is for the moment delivered both from the stunning effect of its communication and his doubt of its truth; forgetting then the considerations that have wrought in him, he accuses himself of remissness, blames himself grievously for his delay. Soon, however, his senses resume their influence, and he doubts again. So goes the mill-round of his thoughts, with the revolving of many wheels.

His whole conscious nature is frightfully shaken: he would be the poor creature most of his critics would make of him, were it otherwise; it is because of his greatness that he suffers so terribly, and doubts so much. A mother's crime is far more paralyzing than a father's murder is stimulating; and either he has not set himself in thorough earnest to find the proof he needs, or he has as yet been unable to think of any serviceable means to the end, when the half real, half simulated emotion of the Player yet again rouses in him the sense of remissness, leads him to accuse himself of forgotten obligation and heartlessness, and simultaneously suggests a device for putting the Ghost and his words to the test. Instantly he seizes the chance: when a thing has to be done, and can be done, Hamlet is never wanting—shows himself the very promptest of men.

In the last passage of this act I do not take it that he is expressing an idea then first occurring to him: that the whole thing may be a snare of the devil is a doubt with which during weeks he has been familiar.

The delay through which, in utter failure to comprehend his character, he has been so miserably misjudged, falls really between the first and second acts, although it seems in the regard of most readers to underlie and protract the whole play. Its duration is measured by the journey of the ambassadors to and from the neighbouring kingdom of Norway.

It is notably odd, by the way, that those who accuse Hamlet of inaction, are mostly the same who believe his madness a reality! In truth, however, his affected madness is one of the strongest signs of his activity, and his delay one of the strongest proofs of his sanity.

This second act, the third act, and a part always given to the fourth, but which really belongs to the third, occupy in all only one day.

[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1st Q.

confest a murder Committed long before. This spirit that I haue seene may be the Diuell, And out of my weakenesse and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such men, Doth seeke to damne me, I will haue sounder proofes, The play's the thing, &c.]

[Footnote 2:

'Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;' &c.

Macbeth, iii. 4.]

[Footnote 3: In the 1st Q. Hamlet, speaking to Horatio (l 37), says,

And if he doe not bleach, and change at that,—

Bleach is radically the same word as blench:—to bleach, to blanch, to blench—to grow white.]

[Footnote 4: Emphasis on May, as resuming previous doubtful thought and suspicion.]

[Footnote 5: —caused from the first by his mother's behaviour, not constitutional.]

[Footnote 6: —'such conditions of the spirits'.]

[Footnote 7: Here is one element in the very existence of the preceding act: doubt as to the facts of the case has been throughout operating to restrain him; and here first he reveals, perhaps first recognizes its influence. Subject to change of feeling with the wavering of conviction, he now for a moment regards his uncertainty as involving unnatural distrust of a being in whose presence he cannot help feeling him his father. He was familiar with the lore of the supernatural, and knew the doubt he expresses to be not without support.—His companions as well had all been in suspense as to the identity of the apparition with the late king.]

[Page 116]

Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance, Guildenstern, and Lords.[1] [Sidenote: Guyldensterne, Lords.]

[Sidenote: 72] King. And can you by no drift of circumstance [Sidenote: An can | of conference] Get from him why he puts on[2] this Confusion: Grating so harshly all his dayes of quiet With turbulent and dangerous Lunacy.

Rosin. He does confesse he feeles himselfe distracted, [Sidenote: 92] But from what cause he will by no meanes speake. [Sidenote: a will]

Guil. Nor do we finde him forward to be sounded, But with a crafty Madnesse[3] keepes aloofe: When we would bring him on to some Confession Of his true state.

Qu. Did he receiue you well?

Rosin. Most like a Gentleman.

Guild. But with much forcing of his disposition.[4]

Rosin. Niggard of question, but of our demands Most free in his reply.[5]