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 defaire.]

[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]

Qu. Did you assay him to any pastime?

Rosin. Madam, it so fell out, that certaine Players We ore-wrought on the way: of these we told him, [Sidenote: ore-raught[6]] And there did seeme in him a kinde of ioy To heare of it: They are about the Court, [Sidenote: are heere about] And (as I thinke) they haue already order This night to play before him.

Pol. 'Tis most true; And he beseech'd me to intreate your Majesties To heare, and see the matter.

King. With all my heart, and it doth much content me To heare him so inclin'd. Good Gentlemen,

[Footnote 1: This may be regarded as the commencement of the Third Act.]

[Footnote 2: The phrase seems to imply a doubt of the genuineness of the lunacy.]

[Footnote 3: Nominative pronoun omitted here.]

[Footnote 4: He has noted, without understanding them, the signs of Hamlet's suspicion of themselves.]

[Footnote 5: Compare the seemingly opposite statements of the two: Hamlet had bewildered them.]

[Foonote 6: over-reached—came up with, caught up, overtook.]

[Page 118]

Giue him a further edge,[1] and driue his purpose on [Sidenote: purpose into these] To these delights.

Rosin. We shall my Lord. Exeunt. [Sidenote: Exeunt Ros. & Guyl.]

King. Sweet Gertrude leaue vs too, [Sidenote: Gertrard two] For we haue closely sent for Hamlet hither, [Sidenote: 84] That he, as 'twere by accident, may there [Sidenote: heere] Affront[2] Ophelia. Her Father, and my selfe[3] (lawful espials)[4] Will so bestow our selues, that seeing vnseene We may of their encounter frankely iudge, And gather by him, as he is behaued, If't be th'affliction of his loue, or no, That thus he suffers for.

Qu. I shall obey you, And for your part Ophelia,[5] I do wish That your good Beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlets wildenesse: so shall I hope your Vertues [Sidenote: 240] Will bring him to his wonted way againe, To both your Honors.[6]

Ophe. Madam, I wish it may.

Pol. Ophelia, walke you heere. Gracious so please ye[7] [Sidenote: you,] We will bestow our selues: Reade on this booke,[8] That shew of such an exercise may colour Your lonelinesse.[9] We are oft too blame in this,[10] [Sidenote: lowlines:] 'Tis too much prou'd, that with Deuotions visage, And pious Action, we do surge o're [Sidenote: sugar] The diuell himselfe.

[Sidenote: 161] King. Oh 'tis true: [Sidenote: tis too true] How smart a lash that speech doth giue my Conscience? The Harlots Cheeke beautied with plaist'ring Art Is not more vgly to the thing that helpes it,[11] Then is my deede, to my most painted word.[12] Oh heauie burthen![13]

[Footnote 1: 'edge him on'—somehow corrupted into egg.]

[Footnote 2: confront.]

[Footnote 3: Clause in parenthesis not in Q.]

[Footnote 4: —apologetic to the queen.]

[Footnote 5: —going up to Ophelia—I would say, who stands at a little distance, and has not heard what has been passing between them.]

[Footnote 6: The queen encourages Ophelia in hoping to marry Hamlet, and may so have a share in causing a certain turn her madness takes.]

[Footnote 7: —aside to the king.]

[Footnote 8: —to Ophelia: her prayer-book. 122.]

[Footnote 9: 1st Q.

And here Ofelia, reade you on this booke, And walke aloofe, the King shal be vnseene.]

[Footnote 10: —aside to the king. I insert these asides, and suggest the queen's going up to Ophelia, to show how we may easily hold Ophelia ignorant of their plot. Poor creature as she was, I would believe Shakspere did not mean her to lie to Hamlet. This may be why he omitted that part of her father's speech in the 1st Q. given in the note immediately above, telling her the king is going to hide. Still, it would be excuse enough for her, that she thought his madness justified the deception.]

[Footnote 11: —ugly to the paint that helps by hiding it—to which it lies so close, and from which it has no secrets. Or, 'ugly to' may mean, 'ugly compared with.']

[Footnote 12: 'most painted'—very much painted. His painted word is the paint to the deed. Painted may be taken for full of paint.]

[Footnote 13: This speech of the king is the first assurance we have of his guilt.]

[Page 120]

Pol. I heare him comming, let's withdraw my Lord. [Sidenote: comming, with-draw] Exeunt.[1]

Enter Hamlet.[2]

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the Question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune, [Sidenote: 200,250] Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,[3] And by opposing end them:[4] to dye, to sleepe No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation Deuoutly to be wish'd.[5] To dye to sleepe, To sleepe, perchance to Dreame;[6] I, there's the rub, For in that sleepe of death, what[7] dreames may come,[8] When we haue shuffle'd off this mortall coile, [Sidenote: 186] Must giue vs pawse.[9] There's the respect That makes Calamity of so long life:[10] For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time, The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely, [Sidenote: proude mans] [Sidenote: 114] The pangs of dispriz'd Loue,[11] the Lawes delay, [Sidenote: despiz'd] The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes That patient merit of the vnworthy takes, [Sidenote: th'] When he himselfe might his Quietus make [Sidenote: 194,252-3] With a bare Bodkin?[12] Who would these Fardles beare[13] [Sidenote: would fardels] To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life, [Sidenote: 194] But that the dread of something after death,[14] The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne No Traueller returnes,[15] Puzels the will, And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue, Then flye to others that we know not of. Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,[16] [Sidenote: 30] And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution[17] Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,[18] [Sidenote: sickled]

[Footnote 1: Not in Q.—They go behind the tapestry, where it hangs over the recess of the doorway. Ophelia thinks they have left the room.]

[Footnote 2: In Q. before last speech.]

[Footnote 3: Perhaps to a Danish or Dutch critic, or one from the eastern coast of England, this simile would not seem so unfit as it does to some.]

[Footnote 4: To print this so as I would have it read, I would complete this line from here with points, and commence the next with points. At the other breaks of the soliloquy, as indicated below, I would do the same—thus:

And by opposing end them.... ....To die—to sleep,]

[Footnote 5: Break.]

[Footnote 6: Break.]

[Footnote 7: Emphasis on what.]

[Footnote 8: Such dreams as the poor Ghost's.]

[Footnote 9: Break. —'pawse' is the noun, and from its use at page 186, we may judge it means here 'pause for reflection.']

[Footnote 10: 'makes calamity so long-lived.']

[Footnote 11: —not necessarily disprized by the lady; the disprizer in Hamlet's case was the worldly and suspicious father—and that in part, and seemingly to Hamlet altogether, for the king's sake.]

[Footnote 12: small sword. If there be here any allusion to suicide, it is on the general question, and with no special application to himself. 24. But it is the king and the bare bodkin his thought associates. How could he even glance at the things he has just mentioned, as each, a reason for suicide? It were a cowardly country indeed where the question might be asked, 'Who would not commit suicide because of any one of these things, except on account of what may follow after death?'! One might well, however, be tempted to destroy an oppressor, and risk his life in that.]

[Footnote 13: Fardel, burden: the old French for fardeau, I am informed.]

[Footnote 14: —a dread caused by conscience.]

[Footnote 15: The Ghost could not be imagined as having returned.]

[Footnote 16: 'of us all' not in Q. It is not the fear of evil that makes us cowards, but the fear of deserved evil. The Poet may intend that conscience alone is the cause of fear in man. 'Coward' does not here involve contempt: it should be spoken with a grim smile. But Hamlet would hardly call turning from suicide cowardice in any sense. 24.]

[Footnote 17: —such as was his when he vowed vengeance.]

[Footnote 18: —such as immediately followed on that The native hue of resolution—that which is natural to man till interruption comes—is ruddy; the hue of thought is pale. I suspect the 'pale cast' of an allusion to whitening with rough-cast.]

[Page 122]

And enterprizes of great pith and moment,[1] [Sidenote: pitch [1]] With this regard their Currants turne away, [Sidenote: awry] And loose the name of Action.[2] Soft you now, [Sidenote: 119] The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons[3] Be all my sinnes remembred.[4]

Ophe. Good my Lord, How does your Honor for this many a day?

Ham. I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.[5]

Ophe. My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours, That I haue longed long to re-deliuer. I pray you now, receiue them.

Ham. No, no, I neuer gaue you ought.[6] [Sidenote: No, not I, I never]

Ophe. My honor'd Lord, I know right well you did, [Sidenote: you know] And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd, As made the things more rich, then perfume left: [Sidenote: these things their perfume lost.[7]] Take these againe, for to the Noble minde Rich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde. There my Lord.[8]

Ham. Ha, ha: Are you honest?[9]

Ophe. My Lord.

Ham. Are you faire?

Ophe. What meanes your Lordship?

Ham. That if you be honest and faire, your [Sidenote: faire, you should admit] Honesty[10] should admit no discourse to your Beautie.

Ophe. Could Beautie my Lord, haue better Comerce[11] then your Honestie?[12] [Sidenote: Then with honestie?[11]]

Ham. I trulie: for the power of Beautie, will sooner transforme Honestie from what it is, to a Bawd, then the force of Honestie can translate Beautie into his likenesse. This was sometime a Paradox, but now the time giues it proofe. I did loue you once.[13]

Ophe. Indeed my Lord, you made me beleeue so.

[Footnote 1: How could suicide be styled an enterprise of great pith? Yet less could it be called of great pitch.]

[Footnote 2: I allow this to be a general reflection, but surely it serves to show that conscience must at least be one of Hamlet's restraints.]

[Footnote 3: —by way of intercession.]

[Footnote 4: Note the entire change of mood from that of the last soliloquy. The right understanding of this soliloquy is indispensable to the right understanding of Hamlet. But we are terribly trammelled and hindered, as in the understanding of Hamlet throughout, so here in the understanding of his meditation, by traditional assumption. I was roused to think in the right direction concerning it, by the honoured friend and relative to whom I have feebly acknowledged my obligation by dedicating to him this book. I could not at first see it as he saw it: 'Think about it, and you will,' he said. I did think, and by degrees—not very quickly—my prejudgments thinned, faded, and almost vanished. I trust I see it now as a whole, and in its true relations, internal and external—its relations to itself, to the play, and to the Hamlet, of Shakspere.

Neither in its first verse, then, nor in it anywhere else, do I find even an allusion to suicide. What Hamlet is referring to in the said first verse, it is not possible with certainty to determine, for it is but the vanishing ripple of a preceding ocean of thought, from which he is just stepping out upon the shore of the articulate. He may have been plunged in some profound depth of the metaphysics of existence, or he may have been occupied with the one practical question, that of the slaying of his uncle, which has, now in one form, now in another, haunted his spirit for weeks. Perhaps, from the message he has just received, he expects to meet the king, and conscience, confronting temptation, has been urging the necessity of proof; perhaps a righteous consideration of consequences, which sometimes have share in the primary duty, has been making him shrink afresh from the shedding of blood, for every thoughtful mind recoils from the irrevocable, and that is an awful form of the irrevocable. But whatever thought, general or special, this first verse may be dismissing, we come at once thereafter into the light of a definite question: 'Which is nobler—to endure evil fortune, or to oppose it a outrance; to bear in passivity, or to resist where resistance is hopeless—resist to the last—to the death which is its unavoidable end?'

Then comes a pause, during which he is thinking—we will not say 'too precisely on the event,' but taking his account with consequences: the result appears in the uttered conviction that the extreme possible consequence, death, is a good and not an evil. Throughout, observe, how here, as always, he generalizes, himself being to himself but the type of his race.

Then follows another pause, during which he seems prosecuting the thought, for he has already commenced further remark in similar strain, when suddenly a new and awful element introduces itself:

....To die—to sleep.— —To sleep! perchance to dream!

He had been thinking of death only as the passing away of the present with its troubles; here comes the recollection that death has its own troubles—its own thoughts, its own consciousness: if it be a sleep, it has its dreams. 'What dreams may come' means, 'the sort of dreams that may come'; the emphasis is on the what, not on the may; there is no question whether dreams will come, but there is question of the character of the dreams. This consideration is what makes calamity so long-lived! 'For who would bear the multiform ills of life'—he alludes to his own wrongs, but mingles, in his generalizing way, others of those most common to humanity, and refers to the special cure for some of his own which was close to his hand—'who would bear these things if he could, as I can, make his quietus with a bare bodkin'—that is, by slaying his enemy—'who would then bear them, but that he fears the future, and the divine judgment upon his life and actions—that conscience makes a coward of him!'[14]

To run, not the risk of death, but the risks that attend upon and follow death, Hamlet must be certain of what he is about; he must be sure it is a right thing he does, or he will leave it undone. Compare his speech, 250, 'Does it not, &c.':—by the time he speaks this speech, he has had perfect proof, and asserts the righteousness of taking vengeance in almost an agony of appeal to Horatio.

The more continuous and the more formally logical a soliloquy, the less natural it is. The logic should be all there, but latent; the bones of it should not show: they do not show here.]

[Footnote 5: One 'well' only in Q.]

[Footnote 6: He does not want to take them back, and so sever even that weak bond between them. He has not given her up.]

[Footnote 7: The Q. reading seems best. The perfume of his gifts was the sweet words with which they were given; those words having lost their savour, the mere gifts were worth nothing.]

[Footnote 8: Released from the commands her father had laid upon her, and emboldened by the queen's approval of more than the old relation between them, she would timidly draw Hamlet back to the past—to love and a sound mind.]

[Footnote 9: I do not here suppose a noise or movement of the arras, or think that the talk from this point bears the mark of the madness he would have assumed on the least suspicion of espial. His distrust of Ophelia comes from a far deeper source—suspicion of all women, grown doubtful to him through his mother. Hopeless for her, he would give his life to know that Ophelia was not like her. Hence the cruel things he says to her here and elsewhere; they are the brood of a heart haunted with horrible, alas! too excusable phantoms of distrust. A man wretched as Hamlet must be forgiven for being rude; it is love suppressed, love that can neither breathe nor burn, that makes him rude. His horrid insinuations are a hungry challenge to indignant rejection. He would sting Ophelia to defence of herself and her sex. But, either from her love, or from gentleness to his supposed madness, as afterwards in the play-scene, or from the poverty and weakness of a nature so fathered and so brothered, she hears, and says nothing. 139.]

[Footnote 10: Honesty is here figured as a porter,—just after, as a porter that may be corrupted.]

[Footnote 11: If the Folio reading is right, commerce means companionship; if the Quarto reading, then it means intercourse. Note then constantly for our than.]

[Footnote 12: I imagine Ophelia here giving Hamlet a loving look—which hardens him. But I do not think she lays emphasis on your; the word is here, I take it, used (as so often then) impersonally.]

[Footnote 13: '—proof in you and me: I loved you once, but my honesty did not translate your beauty into its likeness.']

[Footnote 14: That the Great Judgement was here in Shakspere's thought, will be plain to those who take light from the corresponding passage in the 1st Quarto. As it makes an excellent specimen of that issue in the character I am most inclined to attribute to it—that of original sketch and continuous line of notes, with more or less finished passages in place among the notes—I will here quote it, recommending it to my student's attention. If it be what I suggest, it is clear that Shakspere had not at first altogether determined how he would carry the soliloquy—what line he was going to follow in it: here hope and fear contend for the place of motive to patience. The changes from it in the text are well worth noting: the religion is lessened: the hope disappears: were they too much of pearls to cast before 'barren spectators'? The manuscript could never have been meant for any eye but his own, seeing it was possible to print from it such a chaos—over which yet broods the presence of the formative spirit of the Poet.

Ham. To be, or not to be, I there's the point, To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all: No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes, For in that dreame of death, when wee awake, [Sidenote: 24, 247, 260] And borne before an euerlasting Iudge, From whence no passenger euer retur'nd, The vndiscouered country, at whose sight The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd. But for this, the ioyfull hope of this, Whol'd beare the scornes and flattery of the world, Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore? The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd, The taste of hunger, or a tirants raigne, And thousand more calamities besides, To grunt and sweate vnder this weary life, When that he may his full Quietus make, With a bare bodkin, who would this indure, But for a hope of something after death? Which pulses the braine, and doth confound the sence, Which makes vs rather beare those euilles we haue, Than flie to others that we know not of. I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of vs all, Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembred.]

[Page 126]

Ham. You should not haue beleeued me. For vertue cannot so innocculate[1] our old stocke,[2] but we shall rellish of it.[3] I loued you not.[4]

Ophe. I was the more deceiued.

Ham. Get thee to a Nunnerie. Why would'st [Sidenote: thee a] thou be a breeder of Sinners? I am my selfe indifferent[5] [Sidenote: 132] honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things,[6] that it were better my Mother had [Sidenote: 62] not borne me,[7] I am very prowd, reuengefull, Ambitious, with more offences at my becke, then I haue thoughts to put them in imagination, to giue them shape, or time to acte them in. What should such Fellowes as I do, crawling betweene Heauen [Sidenote: earth and heauen] and Earth.[8] We are arrant Knaues all[10], beleeue none of vs.[9] Goe thy wayes to a Nunnery. Where's your Father?[11]

Ophe. At home, my Lord.[12]

Ham. Let the doores be shut vpon him, that he may play the Foole no way, but in's owne house.[13] [Sidenote: no where but] Farewell.[14]

Ophe. O helpe him, you sweet Heauens.

Ham.[15] If thou doest Marry, Ile giue thee this Plague for thy Dowrie. Be thou as chast as Ice, as pure as Snow, thou shalt not escape Calumny.[16] Get thee to a Nunnery. Go,[17] Farewell.[18] Or if thou wilt needs Marry, marry a fool: for Wise men know well enough, what monsters[19] you make of them. To a Nunnery go, and quickly too. Farwell.[20]

Ophe. O[21] heauenly Powers, restore him.

Ham.[22] I haue heard of your pratlings[23] too wel [Sidenote: your paintings well] enough. God has giuen you one pace,[23] and you [Sidenote: hath one face,] make your selfe another: you gidge, you amble, [Sidenote: selfes you gig and amble, and] and you lispe, and nickname Gods creatures, and [Sidenote: you list you nickname] make your Wantonnesse, your[24] Ignorance.[25] Go

[Footnote 1: 'inoculate'—bud, in the horticultural use.]

[Footnote 2: trunk or stem of the family tree.]

[Footnote 3: Emphasis on relish—'keep something of the old flavour of the stock.']

[Footnote 4: He tries her now with denying his love—perhaps moved in part by a feeling, taught by his mother's, of how imperfect it was.]

[Footnote 5: tolerably.]

[Footnote 6: He turns from baiting woman in her to condemn himself. Is it not the case with every noble nature, that the knowledge of wrong in another arouses in it the consciousness of its own faults and sins, of its own evil possibilities? Hurled from the heights of ideal humanity, Hamlet not only recognizes in himself every evil tendency of his race, but almost feels himself individually guilty of every transgression. 'God, God, forgive us all!' exclaims the doctor who has just witnessed the misery of Lady Macbeth, unveiling her guilt.

This whole speech of Hamlet is profoundly sane—looking therefore altogether insane to the shallow mind, on which the impression of its insanity is deepened by its coming from him so freely. The common nature disappointed rails at humanity; Hamlet, his earthly ideal destroyed, would tear his individual human self to pieces.]

[Footnote 7: This we may suppose uttered with an expression as startling to Ophelia as impenetrable.]

[Footnote 8: He is disgusted with himself, with his own nature and consciousness—]

[Footnote 9: —and this reacts on his kind.]

[Footnote 10: 'all' not in Q.]

[Footnote 11: Here, perhaps, he grows suspicious—asks himself why he is allowed this prolonged tete a tete.]

[Footnote 12: I am willing to believe she thinks so.]

[Footnote 13: Whether he trusts Ophelia or not, he does not take her statement for correct, and says this in the hope that Polonius is not too far off to hear it. The speech is for him, not for Ophelia, and will seem to her to come only from his madness.]

[Footnote 14: Exit.]

[Footnote 15: (re-entering)]

[Footnote 16: 'So many are bad, that your virtue will not be believed in.']

[Footnote 17: 'Go' not in Q.]

[Footnote 18: Exit, and re-enter.]

[Footnote 19: Cornuti.]

[Footnote 20: Exit.]

[Footnote 21: 'O' not in Q.]

[Footnote 22: (re-entering)]

[Footnote 23: I suspect pratlings to be a corruption, not of the printed paintings, but of some word substituted for it by the Poet, perhaps prancings, and pace to be correct.]

[Footnote 24: 'your' not in Q.]

[Footnote 25: As the present type to him of womankind, he assails her with such charges of lightness as are commonly brought against women. He does not go farther: she is not his mother, and he hopes she is innocent. But he cannot make her speak!]

[Page 128]

too, Ile no more on't, it hath made me mad. I say, we will haue no more Marriages.[1] Those that are [Sidenote: no mo marriage,] married already,[2] all but one shall liue, the rest shall keep as they are. To a Nunnery, go.

Exit Hamlet. [Sidenote: Exit]

[3]Ophe. O what a Noble minde is heere o're-throwne? The Courtiers, Soldiers, Schollers: Eye, tongue, sword, Th'expectansie and Rose[4] of the faire State, [Sidenote: Th' expectation,] The glasse of Fashion,[5] and the mould of Forme,[6] Th'obseru'd of all Obseruers, quite, quite downe. Haue I of Ladies most deiect and wretched, [Sidenote: And I of] That suck'd the Honie of his Musicke Vowes: [Sidenote: musickt] Now see that Noble, and most Soueraigne Reason, [Sidenote: see what] Like sweet Bels iangled out of tune, and harsh,[7] [Sidenote: out of time] That vnmatch'd Forme and Feature of blowne youth,[8] [Sidenote: and stature of] Blasted with extasie.[9] Oh woe is me, T'haue scene what I haue scene: see what I see.[10] [Sidenote: Exit.]

Enter King, and Polonius.

King. Loue? His affections do not that way tend, Nor what he spake, though it lack'd Forme a little, [Sidenote: Not] Was not like Madnesse.[11] There's something in his soule? O're which his Melancholly sits on brood, And I do doubt the hatch, and the disclose[12] Will be some danger,[11] which to preuent [Sidenote: which for to] I haue in quicke determination [Sidenote: 138, 180] Thus set it downe. He shall with speed to England For the demand of our neglected Tribute: Haply the Seas and Countries different

[Footnote 1: 'The thing must be put a stop to! the world must cease! it is not fit to go on.']

[Footnote 2: 'already—(aside) all but one—shall live.']

[Footnote 3: 1st Q.

Ofe. Great God of heauen, what a quicke change is this? The Courtier, Scholler, Souldier, all in him, All dasht and splinterd thence, O woe is me, To a seene what I haue seene, see what I see. Exit.

To his cruel words Ophelia is impenetrable—from the conviction that not he but his madness speaks.

The moment he leaves her, she breaks out in such phrase as a young girl would hardly have used had she known that the king and her father were listening. I grant, however, the speech may be taken as a soliloquy audible to the spectators only, who to the persons of a play are but the spiritual presences.]

[Footnote 4: 'The hope and flower'—The rose is not unfrequently used in English literature as the type of perfection.]

[Footnote 5: 'he by whom Fashion dressed herself'—he who set the fashion. His great and small virtues taken together, Hamlet makes us think of Sir Philip Sidney—ten years older than Shakspere, and dead sixteen years before Hamlet was written.]

[Footnote 6: 'he after whose ways, or modes of behaviour, men shaped theirs'—therefore the mould in which their forms were cast;—the object of universal imitation.]

[Footnote 7: I do not know whether this means—the peal rung without regard to tune or time—or—the single bell so handled that the tongue checks and jars the vibration. In some country places, I understand, they go about ringing a set of hand-bells.]

[Footnote 8: youth in full blossom.]

[Footnote 9: madness 177.]

[Footnote 10: 'to see now such a change from what I saw then.']

[Footnote 11: The king's conscience makes him keen. He is, all through, doubtful of the madness.]

[Footnote 12: —of the fact- or fancy-egg on which his melancholy sits brooding]

[Page 130]

With variable Obiects, shall expell This something setled matter[1] in his heart Whereon his Braines still beating, puts him thus From[2] fashion of himselfe. What thinke you on't?

Pol. It shall do well. But yet do I beleeue The Origin and Commencement of this greefe [Sidenote: his greefe,] Sprung from neglected loue.[3] How now Ophelia? You neede not tell vs, what Lord Hamlet saide, We heard it all.[4] My Lord, do as you please, But if you hold it fit after the Play, Let his Queene Mother all alone intreat him To shew his Greefes: let her be round with him, [Sidenote: griefe,] And Ile be plac'd so, please you in the eare Of all their Conference. If she finde him not,[5] To England send him: Or confine him where Your wisedome best shall thinke.

King. It shall be so: Madnesse in great Ones, must not vnwatch'd go.[6] [Sidenote: unmatched] Exeunt.

Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players. [Sidenote: and three]

Ham.[7] Speake the Speech I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you trippingly[8] on the Tongue: But if you mouth it, as many of your Players do, [Sidenote: of our Players] I had as liue[9] the Town-Cryer had spoke my [Sidenote: cryer spoke] Lines:[10] Nor do not saw the Ayre too much your [Sidenote: much with] hand thus, but vse all gently; for in the verie Torrent, Tempest, and (as I may say) the Whirlewinde [Sidenote: say, whirlwind] of Passion, you must acquire and beget a [Sidenote: of your] Temperance that may giue it Smoothnesse.[11] O it offends mee to the Soule, to see a robustious Perywig-pated [Sidenote: to heare a] Fellow, teare a Passion to tatters, to [Sidenote: totters,] verie ragges, to split the eares of the Groundlings:[12] [Sidenote: spleet] who (for the most part) are capeable[13] of nothing, but inexplicable dumbe shewes,[14] and noise:[15] I could haue such a Fellow whipt for o're-doing [Sidenote: would]

[Footnote 1: 'something of settled matter'—idee fixe.]

[Footnote 2: 'away from his own true likeness'; 'makes him so unlike himself.']

[Footnote 3: Polonius is crestfallen, but positive.]

[Footnote 4: This supports the notion of Ophelia's ignorance of the espial. Polonius thinks she is about to disclose what has passed, and informs her of its needlessness. But it might well enough be taken as only an assurance of the success of their listening—that they had heard without difficulty.]

[Footnote 5: 'If she do not find him out': a comparable phrase, common at the time, was, Take me with you, meaning, Let me understand you.

Polonius, for his daughter's sake, and his own in her, begs for him another chance.]

[Footnote 6: 'in the insignificant, madness may roam the country, but in the great it must be watched.' The unmatcht of the Quarto might bear the meaning of countermatched.]

[Footnote 7: I should suggest this exhortation to the Players introduced with the express purpose of showing how absolutely sane Hamlet was, could I believe that Shakspere saw the least danger of Hamlet's pretence being mistaken for reality.]

[Footnote 8: He would have neither blundering nor emphasis such as might rouse too soon the king's suspicion, or turn it into certainty.]

[Footnote 9: 'liue'—lief]

[Footnote 10: 1st Q.:—

I'de rather heare a towne bull bellow, Then such a fellow speake my lines.

Lines is a player-word still.]

[Footnote 11: —smoothness such as belongs to the domain of Art, and will both save from absurdity, and allow the relations with surroundings to manifest themselves;—harmoniousness, which is the possibility of co-existence.]

[Footnote 12: those on the ground—that is, in the pit; there was no gallery then.]

[Footnote 13: receptive.]

[Footnote 14: —gestures extravagant and unintelligible as those of a dumb show that could not by the beholder be interpreted; gestures incorrespondent to the words.

A dumb show was a stage-action without words.]

[Footnote 15: Speech that is little but rant, and scarce related to the sense, is hardly better than a noise; it might, for the purposes of art, as well be a sound inarticulate.]

[Page 132]

Termagant[1]: it out-Herod's Herod[2] Pray you auoid it.

Player. I warrant your Honor.

Ham. Be not too tame neyther: but let your owne Discretion be your Tutor. Sute the Action to the Word, the Word to the Action, with this speciall obseruance: That you ore-stop not the [Sidenote: ore-steppe] modestie of Nature; for any thing so ouer-done, [Sidenote ore-doone] is fro[3] the purpose of Playing, whose end both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twer the Mirrour vp to Nature; to shew Vertue her owne [Sidenote: her feature;] Feature, Scorne[4] her owne Image, and the verie Age and Bodie of the Time, his forme and pressure.[5] Now, this ouer-done, or come tardie off,[6] though it make the vnskilfull laugh, cannot but make the [Sidenote: it makes] Iudicious greeue; The censure of the which One,[7] [Sidenote: of which one] must in your allowance[8] o're-way a whole Theater of Others. Oh, there bee Players that I haue scene Play, and heard others praise, and that highly [Sidenote: praysd,] (not to speake it prophanely) that neyther hauing the accent of Christians, nor the gate of Christian, Pagan, or Norman, haue so strutted and bellowed, [Sidenote: Pagan, nor man, haue] that I haue thought some of Natures Iouerney-men had made men, and not made them well, they imitated Humanity so abhominably.[9]

[Sidenote: 126] Play. I hope we haue reform'd that indifferently[10] with vs, Sir.

Ham. O reforme it altogether. And let those that play your Clownes, speake no more then is set downe for them.[12] For there be of them, that will themselues laugh, to set on some quantitie of barren Spectators to laugh too, though in the meane time, some necessary Question of the Play be then to be considered:[12] that's Villanous, and shewes a most pittifull Ambition in the Fool that vses it.[13] Go make you readie. Exit Players

[Footnote 1: 'An imaginary God of the Mahometans, represented as a most violent character in the old Miracle-plays and Moralities.'—Sh. Lex.]

[Footnote 2: 'represented as a swaggering tyrant in the old dramatic performances.'—Sh. Lex.]

[Footnote 3: away from: inconsistent with.]

[Footnote 4: —that which is deserving of scorn.]

[Footnote 5: impression, as on wax. Some would persuade us that Shakspere's own plays do not do this; but such critics take the accidents or circumstances of a time for the body of it—the clothes for the person. Human nature is 'Nature,' however dressed.

There should be a comma after 'Age.']

[Footnote 6: 'laggingly represented'—A word belonging to time is substituted for a word belonging to space:—'this over-done, or inadequately effected'; 'this over-done, or under-done.']

[Footnote 7: 'and the judgment of such a one.' 'the which' seems equivalent to and—such.]

[Footnote 8: 'must, you will grant.']

[Footnote 9: Shakspere may here be playing with a false derivation, as I was myself when the true was pointed out to me—fancying abominable derived from ab and homo. If so, then he means by the phrase: 'they imitated humanity so from the nature of man, so inhumanly.']

[Footnote 10: tolerably.]

[Footnote 11: 'Sir' not in Q.]

[Footnote 12: Shakspere must have himself suffered from such clowns: Coleridge thinks some of their gag has crept into his print.]

[Footnote 13: Here follow in the 1st Q. several specimens of such a clown's foolish jests and behaviour.]

[Page 134]

Enter Polonius, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne.[1] [Sidenote: Guyldensterne, & Rosencraus.]

How now my Lord, Will the King heare this peece of Worke?

Pol. And the Queene too, and that presently.[2]

Ham. Bid the Players make hast.

Exit Polonius.[3]

Will you two helpe to hasten them?[4]

Both. We will my Lord. Exeunt. [Sidenote: Ros. I my Lord. Exeunt they two.]

Enter Horatio[5]

Ham. What hoa, Horatio? [Sidenote: What howe,]

Hora. Heere sweet Lord, at your Seruice.

[Sidenote: 26] Ham.[7] Horatio, thou art eene as iust a man As ere my Conversation coap'd withall.

Hora. O my deere Lord.[6]

Ham.[7] Nay do not thinke I flatter: For what aduancement may I hope from thee,[8] That no Reuennew hast, but thy good spirits To feed and cloath thee. Why shold the poor be flatter'd? No, let the Candied[9] tongue, like absurd pompe, [Sidenote: licke] And crooke the pregnant Hindges of the knee,[10] Where thrift may follow faining? Dost thou heare, [Sidenote: fauning;] Since my deere Soule was Mistris of my choyse;[11] [Sidenote: her choice,] And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for her selfe. For thou hast bene [Sidenote: S'hath seald] [Sidenote: 272] As one in suffering all, that suffers nothing. A man that Fortunes buffets, and Rewards Hath 'tane with equall Thankes. And blest are those, [Sidenote: Hast] Whose Blood and Iudgement are so well co-mingled, [Sidenote: comedled,[12]] [Sidenote: 26] That they are not a Pipe for Fortunes finger, To sound what stop she please.[13] Giue me that man, That is not Passions Slaue,[14] and I will weare him In my hearts Core: I, in my Heart of heart,[15] As I do thee. Something too much of this.[16]

[Footnote 1: In Q. at end of speech.]

[Footnote 2: He humours Hamlet as if he were a child.]

[Footnote 3: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 4: He has sent for Horatio, and is expecting him.]

[Footnote 5: In Q. after next speech.]

[Footnote 6: —repudiating the praise.]

[Footnote 7: To know a man, there is scarce a readier way than to hear him talk of his friend—why he loves, admires, chooses him. The Poet here gives us a wide window into Hamlet. So genuine is his respect for being, so indifferent is he to having, that he does not shrink, in argument for his own truth, from reminding his friend to his face that, being a poor man, nothing is to be gained from him—nay, from telling him that it is through his poverty he has learned to admire him, as a man of courage, temper, contentment, and independence, with nothing but his good spirits for an income—a man whose manhood is dominant both over his senses and over his fortune—a true Stoic. He describes an ideal man, then clasps the ideal to his bosom as his own, in the person of his friend. Only a great man could so worship another, choosing him for such qualities; and hereby Shakspere shows us his Hamlet—a brave, noble, wise, pure man, beset by circumstances the most adverse conceivable. That Hamlet had not misapprehended Horatio becomes evident in the last scene of all. 272.]

[Footnote 8: The mother of flattery is self-advantage.]

[Footnote 9: sugared. 1st Q.:

Let flattery sit on those time-pleasing tongs; To glose with them that loues to heare their praise; And not with such as thou Horatio. There is a play to night, &c.]

[Footnote 10: A pregnant figure and phrase, requiring thought.]

[Footnote 11: 'since my real self asserted its dominion, and began to rule my choice,' making it pure, and withdrawing it from the tyranny of impulse and liking.]

[Footnote 12: The old word medle is synonymous with mingle.]

[Footnote 13: To Hamlet, the lordship of man over himself, despite of circumstance, is a truth, and therefore a duty.]

[Footnote 14: The man who has chosen his friend thus, is hardly himself one to act without sufficing reason, or take vengeance without certain proof of guilt.]

[Footnote 15: He justifies the phrase, repeating it.]

[Footnote 16: —apologetic for having praised him to his face.]

[Page 136]

There is a Play to night before the King, One Scoene of it comes neere the Circumstance Which I haue told thee, of my Fathers death. I prythee, when thou see'st that Acte a-foot,[1] Euen with the verie Comment of my[2] Soule [Sidenote: thy[2] soule] Obserue mine Vnkle: If his occulted guilt, [Sidenote: my Vncle,] Do not it selfe vnkennell in one speech, [Sidenote: 58] It is a damned Ghost that we haue seene:[3] And my Imaginations are as foule As Vulcans Stythe.[4] Giue him needfull note, [Sidenote: stithy; heedfull] For I mine eyes will riuet to his Face: And after we will both our iudgements ioyne,[5] To censure of his seeming.[6] [Sidenote: in censure]

Hora. Well my Lord. If he steale ought the whil'st this Play is Playing. [Sidenote: if a] And scape detecting, I will pay the Theft.[1] [Sidenote: detected,]

Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance, Guildensterne, and other Lords attendant with his Guard carrying Torches. Danish March. Sound a Flourish. [Sidenote: Enter Trumpets and Kettle Drummes, King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia.]

Ham. They are comming to the Play: I must [Sidenote: 60, 156, 178] be idle.[7] Get you a place.

King. How fares our Cosin Hamlet?

Ham. Excellent Ifaith, of the Camelions dish: [Sidenote: 154] I eate the Ayre promise-cramm'd,[8] you cannot feed Capons so.[9]

King. I haue nothing with this answer Hamlet, these words are not mine.[10]

Ham. No, nor mine. Now[11] my Lord, you plaid once i'th'Vniuersity, you say?

Polon. That I did my Lord, and was accounted [Sidenote: did I] a good Actor.

[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1st Q.

Marke thou the King, doe but obserue his lookes, For I mine eies will riuet to his face: [Sidenote: 112] And if he doe not bleach, and change at that, It is a damned ghost that we haue seene. Horatio, haue a care, obserue him well.

Hor. My lord, mine eies shall still be on his face, And not the smallest alteration That shall appeare in him, but I shall note it.]

[Footnote 2: I take 'my' to be right: 'watch my uncle with the comment—the discriminating judgment, that is—of my soul, more intent than thine.']

[Footnote 3: He has then, ere this, taken Horatio into his confidence—so far at least as the Ghost's communication concerning the murder.]

[Footnote 4: a dissyllable: stithy, anvil; Scotch, studdy.

Hamlet's doubt is here very evident: he hopes he may find it a false ghost: what good man, what good son would not? He has clear cause and reason—it is his duty to delay. That the cause and reason and duty are not invariably clear to Hamlet himself—not clear in every mood, is another thing. Wavering conviction, doubt of evidence, the corollaries of assurance, the oppression of misery, a sense of the worthlessness of the world's whole economy—each demanding delay, might yet well, all together, affect the man's feeling as mere causes of rather than reasons for hesitation. The conscientiousness of Hamlet stands out the clearer that, throughout, his dislike to his uncle, predisposing him to believe any ill of him, is more than evident. By his incompetent or prejudiced judges, Hamlet's accusations and justifications of himself are equally placed to the discredit of his account. They seem to think a man could never accuse himself except he were in the wrong; therefore if ever he excuses himself, he is the more certainly in the wrong: whatever point may tell on the other side, it is to be disregarded.]

[Footnote 5: 'bring our two judgments together for comparison.']

[Footnote 6: 'in order to judge of the significance of his looks and behaviour.']

[Footnote 7: Does he mean foolish, that is, lunatic? or insouciant, and unpreoccupied?]

[Footnote 8: The king asks Hamlet how he fares—that is, how he gets on; Hamlet pretends to think he has asked him about his diet. His talk has at once become wild; ere the king enters he has donned his cloak of madness. Here he confesses to ambition—will favour any notion concerning himself rather than give ground for suspecting the real state of his mind and feeling.

In the 1st Q. 'the Camelions dish' almost appears to mean the play, not the king's promises.]

[Footnote 9: In some places they push food down the throats of the poultry they want to fatten, which is technically, I believe, called cramming them.]

[Footnote 10: 'You have not taken me with you; I have not laid hold of your meaning; I have nothing by your answer.' 'Your words have not become my property; they have not given themselves to me in their meaning.']

[Footnote 11: Point thus: 'No, nor mine now.—My Lord,' &c. '—not mine, now I have uttered them, for so I have given them away.' Or does he mean to disclaim their purport?]

[Page 138]

Ham. And[1] what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Iulius Caesar, I was kill'd i'th'Capitol: Brutus kill'd me.

Ham. It was a bruite part of him, to kill so Capitall a Calfe there.[2] Be the Players ready?

Rosin. I my Lord, they stay vpon your patience.

Qu. Come hither my good Hamlet, sit by me. [Sidenote: my deere]

Ham. No good Mother, here's Mettle more attractiue.[3]

Pol. Oh ho, do you marke that?[4]

Ham. Ladie, shall I lye in your Lap?

Ophe. No my Lord.

Ham. I meane, my Head vpon your Lap?[5]

Ophe. I my Lord.[6]

Ham. Do you thinke I meant Country[7] matters?

Ophe. I thinke nothing, my Lord.

Ham. That's a faire thought to ly between Maids legs.

Ophe. What is my Lord?

Ham. Nothing.

Ophe. You are merrie, my Lord?

Ham. Who I?

Ophe. I my Lord.[8]

Ham. Oh God, your onely Iigge-maker[9]: what should a man do, but be merrie. For looke you how cheerefully my Mother lookes, and my Father dyed within's two Houres.

[Sidenote: 65] Ophe. Nay, 'tis twice two moneths, my Lord.[10]

Ham. So long? Nay then let the Diuel weare [Sidenote: 32] blacke, for Ile haue a suite of Sables.[11] Oh Heauens! dye two moneths ago, and not forgotten yet?[12] Then there's hope, a great mans Memorie, may out-liue his life halfe a yeare: But byrlady [Sidenote: ber Lady a] he must builde Churches then: or else shall he [Sidenote: shall a]

[Footnote 1: 'And ' not in Q.]

[Footnote 2: Emphasis on there. 'There' is not in 1st Q. Hamlet means it was a desecration of the Capitol.]

[Footnote 3: He cannot be familiar with his mother, so avoids her—will not sit by her, cannot, indeed, bear to be near her. But he loves and hopes in Ophelia still.]

[Footnote 4: '—Did I not tell you so?']

[Footnote 5: This speech and the next are not in the Q., but are shadowed in the 1st Q.]

[Footnote 6: —consenting.]

[Footnote 7: In 1st Quarto, 'contrary.'

Hamlet hints, probing her character—hoping her unable to understand. It is the festering soreness of his feeling concerning his mother, making him doubt with the haunting agony of a loathed possibility, that prompts, urges, forces from him his ugly speeches—nowise to be justified, only to be largely excused in his sickening consciousness of his mother's presence. Such pain as Hamlet's, the ferment of subverted love and reverence, may lightly bear the blame of hideous manners, seeing, they spring from no wantonness, but from the writhing of tortured and helpless Purity. Good manners may be as impossible as out of place in the presence of shameless evil.]

[Footnote 8: Ophelia bears with him for his own and his madness' sake, and is less uneasy because of the presence of his mother. To account satisfactorily for Hamlet's speeches to her, is not easy. The freer custom of the age, freer to an extent hardly credible in this, will not satisfy the lovers of Hamlet, although it must have some weight. The necessity for talking madly, because he is in the presence of his uncle, and perhaps, to that end, for uttering whatever comes to him, without pause for choice, might give us another hair's-weight. Also he may be supposed confident that Ophelia would not understand him, while his uncle would naturally set such worse than improprieties down to wildest madness. But I suspect that here as before (123), Shakepere would show Hamlet's soul full of bitterest, passionate loathing; his mother has compelled him to think of horrors and women together, so turning their preciousness into a disgust; and this feeling, his assumed madhess allows him to indulge and partly relieve by utterance. Could he have provoked Ophelia to rebuke him with the severity he courted, such rebuke would have been joy to him. Perhaps yet a small addition of weight to the scale of his excuse may be found in his excitement about his play, and the necessity for keeping down that excitement. Suggestion is easier than judgment.]

[Footnote 9: 'here's for the jig-maker! he's the right man!' Or perhaps he is claiming the part as his own: 'I am your only jig-maker!']

[Footnote 10: This needs not be taken for the exact time. The statement notwithstanding suggests something like two months between the first and second acts, for in the first, Hamlet says his father has not been dead two months. 24. We are not bound to take it for more than a rough approximation; Ophelia would make the best of things for the queen, who is very kind to her.]

[Footnote 11: the fur of the sable.]

[Footnote 12: 1st Q.

nay then there's some Likelyhood, a gentlemans death may outliue memorie, But by my faith &c.]

[Page 140]

suffer not thinking on, with the Hoby-horsse, whose Epitaph is, For o, For o, the Hoby-horse is forgot.

Hoboyes play. The dumbe shew enters. [Sidenote: The Trumpets sounds. Dumbe show followes.]

_Enter a King and Queene, very louingly; the Queene [Sidenote: _and a Queene, the queen_] embracing him. She kneeles, and makes shew of [Sidenote: _embracing him, and he her, he takes her up, and_] Protestation vnto him. He takes her vp, and declines his head vpon her neck. Layes him downe [Sidenote: _necke, he lyes_] vpon a Banke of Flowers. She seeing him a-sleepe, leaues him. Anon comes in a Fellow, [Sidenote: _anon come in an other man_,] takes off his Crowne, kisses it, and powres poyson [Sidenote: _it, pours_] in the Kings eares, and Exits. The Queene returnes, [Sidenote: _the sleepers eares, and leaues him:_] findes the King dead, and makes passionate [Sidenote: dead, makes] Action. The Poysoner, with some two or [Sidenote: _some three or foure come in againe, seeme to condole_] three Mutes comes in againe, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away: The [Sidenote: _with her, the_] Poysoner Wooes the Queene with Gifts, she [Sidenote: 54] seemes loath and vnwilling awhile, but in the end, [Sidenote: _seemes harsh awhile_,] accepts his loue.[1] _Exeunt[2]_ [Sidenote: _accepts loue._]

Ophe. What meanes this, my Lord?

Ham. Marry this is Miching Malicho[3] that [Sidenote: this munching Mallico] meanes Mischeefe.

Ophe. Belike this shew imports the Argument of the Play?

Ham. We shall know by these Fellowes: [Sidenote: this fellow, Enter Prologue] the Players cannot keepe counsell, they'l tell [Sidenote: keepe, they'le] all.[4]

Ophe. Will they tell vs what this shew meant? [Sidenote: Will a tell]

Ham. I, or any shew that you'l shew him. Bee [Sidenote: you will] not you asham'd to shew, hee'l not shame to tell you what it meanes.

Ophe. You are naught,[5] you are naught, Ile marke the Play.

[Footnote 1: The king, not the queen, is aimed at. Hamlet does not forget the injunction of the Ghost to spare his mother. 54.

The king should be represented throughout as struggling not to betray himself.]

[Footnote 2: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 3: skulking mischief: the latter word is Spanish, To mich is to play truant.

How tenderly her tender hands betweene In yvorie cage she did the micher bind.

The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, page 84.

My Reader tells me the word is still in use among printers, with the pronunciation mike, and the meaning to skulk or idle.]

[Footnote 4: —their part being speech, that of the others only dumb show.]

[Footnote 5: naughty: persons who do not behave well are treated as if they were not—are made nought of—are set at nought; hence our word naughty.

'Be naught awhile' (As You Like It, i. 1)—'take yourself away;' 'be nobody;' 'put yourself in the corner.']

[Page 142]

Enter[1] Prologue.

For vs, and for our Tragedie, Heere stooping to your Clemencie: We begge your hearing Patientlie.

Ham. Is this a Prologue, or the Poesie[2] of a [Sidenote: posie] Ring?

Ophe. 'Tis[3] briefe my Lord.

Ham. As Womans loue.

[4] Enter King and his Queene. [Sidenote: and Queene]

[Sidenote: 234] King. Full thirtie times[5] hath Phoebus Cart gon round, Neptunes salt Wash, and Tellus Orbed ground: [Sidenote: orb'd the] And thirtie dozen Moones with borrowed sheene, About the World haue times twelue thirties beene, Since loue our hearts, and Hymen did our hands Vnite comutuall, in most sacred Bands.[6]

Bap. So many iournies may the Sunne and Moone [Sidenote: Quee.] Make vs againe count o're, ere loue be done. But woe is me, you are so sicke of late, So farre from cheere, and from your forme state, [Sidenote: from our former state,] That I distrust you: yet though I distrust, Discomfort you (my Lord) it nothing must: [A] For womens Feare and Loue, holds quantitie, [Sidenote: And womens hold] In neither ought, or in extremity:[7] [Sidenote: Eyther none, in neither] Now what my loue is, proofe hath made you know, [Sidenote: my Lord is proofe] And as my Loue is siz'd, my Feare is so. [Sidenote: ciz'd,] [B]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

For women feare too much, euen as they loue,]

[Footnote B: Here in the Quarto:—

Where loue is great, the litlest doubts are feare, Where little feares grow great, great loue growes there.]

[Footnote 1: Enter not in Q.]

[Footnote 2: Commonly posy: a little sentence engraved inside a ring—perhaps originally a tiny couplet, therefore poesy, 1st Q., 'a poesie for a ring?']

[Footnote 3: Emphasis on ''Tis.']

[Footnote 4: Very little blank verse of any kind was written before Shakspere's; the usual form of dramatic verse was long, irregular, rimed lines: the Poet here uses the heroic couplet, which gives a resemblance to the older plays by its rimes, while also by its stately and monotonous movement the play-play is differenced from the play into which it is introduced, and caused to look intrinsically like a play in relation to the rest of the play of which it is part. In other words, it stands off from the surrounding play, slightly elevated both by form and formality. 103.]

[Footnote 5: 1st Q.

Duke. Full fortie yeares are past, their date is gone, Since happy time ioyn'd both our hearts as one: And now the blood that fill'd my youthfull veines, Ruunes weakely in their pipes, and all the straines Of musicke, which whilome pleasde mine eare, Is now a burthen that Age cannot beare: And therefore sweete Nature must pay his due, To heauen must I, and leaue the earth with you.]

[Footnote 6: Here Hamlet gives the time his father and mother had been married, and Shakspere points at Hamlet's age. 234. The Poet takes pains to show his hero's years.]

[Footnote 7: This line, whose form in the Quarto is very careless, seems but a careless correction, leaving the sense as well as the construction obscure: 'Women's fear and love keep the scales level; in neither is there ought, or in both there is fulness;' or: 'there is no moderation in their fear and their love; either they have none of either, or they have excess of both.' Perhaps he tried to express both ideas at once. But compression is always in danger of confusion.]

[Page 144]

King. Faith I must leaue thee Loue, and shortly too: My operant Powers my Functions leaue to do: [Sidenote: their functions] And thou shall liue in this faire world behinde, Honour'd, belou'd, and haply, one as kinde. For Husband shalt thou——

Bap. Oh confound the rest: [Sidenote: Quee.] Such Loue, must needs be Treason in my brest: In second Husband, let me be accurst, None wed the second, but who kill'd the first.[1]

Ham. Wormwood, Wormwood. [Sidenote: Ham. That's wormwood[2]]

Bapt. The instances[3] that second Marriage moue, Are base respects of Thrift,[4] but none of Loue. A second time, I kill my Husband dead, When second Husband kisses me in Bed.

King. I do beleeue you. Think what now you speak: But what we do determine, oft we breake: Purpose is but the slaue to Memorie,[5] Of violent Birth, but poore validitie:[6] Which now like Fruite vnripe stickes on the Tree, [Sidenote: now the fruite] But fall vnshaken, when they mellow bee.[7] Most necessary[8] 'tis, that we forget To pay our selues, what to our selues is debt: What to our selues in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of other Greefe or Ioy, [Sidenote: eyther,] Their owne ennactors with themselues destroy: [Sidenote: ennactures] Where Ioy most Reuels, Greefe doth most lament; Greefe ioyes, Ioy greeues on slender accident.[9] [Sidenote: Greefe ioy ioy griefes] This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange That euen our Loues should with our Fortunes change. For 'tis a question left vs yet to proue, Whether Loue lead Fortune, or else Fortune Loue.

[Footnote 1: Is this to be supposed in the original play, or inserted by Hamlet, embodying an unuttered and yet more fearful doubt with regard to his mother?]

[Footnote 2: This speech is on the margin in the Quarto, and the Queene's speech runs on without break.]

[Footnote 3: the urgencies; the motives.]

[Footnote 4: worldly advantage.]

[Footnote 5: 'Purpose holds but while Memory holds.']

[Footnote 6: 'Purpose is born in haste, but is of poor strength to live.']

[Footnote 7: Here again there is carelessness of construction, as if the Poet had not thought it worth his while to correct this subsidiary portion of the drama. I do not see how to lay the blame on the printer.—'Purpose is a mere fruit, which holds on or falls only as it must. The element of persistency is not in it.']

[Footnote 8: unavoidable—coming of necessity.]

[Footnote 9: 'Grief turns into joy, and joy into grief, on a slight chance.']

[Page 146]

The great man downe, you marke his fauourites flies, [Sidenote: fauourite] The poore aduanc'd, makes Friends of Enemies: And hitherto doth Loue on Fortune tend, For who not needs, shall neuer lacke a Frend: And who in want a hollow Friend doth try, Directly seasons him his Enemie.[1] But orderly to end, where I begun, Our Willes and Fates do so contrary run, That our Deuices still are ouerthrowne, Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our owne.[2] [Sidenote: 246] So thinke thou wilt no second Husband wed. But die thy thoughts, when thy first Lord is dead.

Bap. Nor Earth to giue me food, nor Heauen light, [Sidenote: Quee.] Sport and repose locke from me day and night:[3] [A] Each opposite that blankes the face of ioy, Meet what I would haue well, and it destroy: Both heere, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,[4] If once a Widdow, euer I be Wife.[5] [Sidenote: once I be a be a wife]

Ham. If she should breake it now.[6]

King. 'Tis deepely sworne: Sweet, leaue me heere a while, My spirits grow dull, and faine I would beguile The tedious day with sleepe.

Qu. Sleepe rocke thy Braine, [Sidenote: Sleepes[7]] And neuer come mischance betweene vs twaine, Exit [Sidenote: Exeunt.]

Ham. Madam, how like you this Play?

Qu. The Lady protests to much me thinkes, [Sidenote: doth protest]

Ham. Oh but shee'l keepe her word.

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:—

To desperation turne my trust and hope,[8] And Anchors[9] cheere in prison be my scope]

[Footnote 1: All that is wanted to make a real enemy of an unreal friend is the seasoning of a requested favour.]

[Footnote 2: 'Our thoughts are ours, but what will come of them we cannot tell.']

[Footnote 3: 'May Day and Night lock from me sport and repose.']

[Footnote 4: 'May strife pursue me in the world and out of it.']

[Footnote 5: In all this, there is nothing to reflect on his mother beyond what everybody knew.]

[Footnote 6: This speech is in the margin of the Quarto.]

[Footnote 7: Not in Q.]

[Footnote 8: 'May my trust and hope turn to despair.']

[Footnote 9: an anchoret's.]

[Page 148]

King. Haue you heard the Argument, is there no Offence in't?[1]

Ham. No, no, they do but iest, poyson in iest, no Offence i'th'world.[2]

King. What do you call the Play?

Ham. The Mouse-trap: Marry how? Tropically:[3] This Play is the Image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the Dukes name, his wife Baptista: you shall see anon: 'tis a knauish peece of worke: But what o'that? Your Maiestie, and [Sidenote: of that?] wee that haue free soules, it touches vs not: let the gall'd iade winch: our withers are vnrung.[4]

Enter Lucianus.[5]

This is one Lucianus nephew to the King.

Ophe. You are a good Chorus, my Lord. [Sidenote: are as good as a Chorus]

Ham. I could interpret betweene you and your loue: if I could see the Puppets dallying.[6]

Ophe. You are keene my Lord, you are keene.

Ham. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge. [Sidenote: mine]

Ophe. Still better and worse.

Ham. So you mistake Husbands.[7] [Sidenote: mistake your] Begin Murderer. Pox, leaue thy damnable Faces, [Sidenote: murtherer, leave] and begin. Come, the croaking Rauen doth bellow for Reuenge.[8]

Lucian. Thoughts blacke, hands apt, Drugges fit, and Time agreeing: Confederate season, else, no Creature seeing:[9] [Sidenote: Considerat] Thou mixture ranke, of Midnight Weeds collected, With Hecats Ban, thrice blasted, thrice infected, [Sidenote: invected] Thy naturall Magicke, and dire propertie, On wholsome life, vsurpe immediately. [Sidenote: vsurps]

Powres the poyson in his eares.[10]

Ham. He poysons him i'th Garden for's estate: [Sidenote: A poysons for his]

[Footnote 1: —said, perhaps, to Polonius. Is there a lapse here in the king's self-possession? or is this speech only an outcome of its completeness—a pretence of fearing the play may glance at the queen for marrying him?]

[Footnote 2: 'It is but jest; don't be afraid: there is no reality in it'—as one might say to a child seeing a play.]

[Footnote 3: Figuratively: from trope. In the 1st Q. the passage stands thus:

Ham. Mouse-trap: mary how trapically: this play is The image of a murder done in guyana,]

[Footnote 4: Here Hamlet endangers himself to force the king to self-betrayal.]

[Footnote 5: In Q. after next line.]

[Footnote 6: In a puppet-play, if she and her love were the puppets, he could supply the speeches.]

[Footnote 7: Is this a misprint for 'so you must take husbands'—for better and worse, namely? or is it a thrust at his mother—'So you mis-take husbands, going from the better to a worse'? In 1st Q.: 'So you must take your husband, begin.']

[Footnote 8: Probably a mocking parody or burlesque of some well-known exaggeration—such as not a few of Marlowe's lines.]

[Footnote 9: 'none beholding save the accomplice hour:'.]

[Footnote 10: Not in Q.]

[Page 150]

His name's Gonzago: the Story is extant and writ [Sidenote: and written] in choyce Italian. You shall see anon how the [Sidenote: in very choice] Murtherer gets the loue of Gonzago's wife.

Ophe. The King rises.[1]

Ham. What, frighted with false fire.[2]

Qu. How fares my Lord?

Pol. Giue o're the Play.

King. Giue me some Light. Away.[3]

All. Lights, Lights, Lights. Exeunt [Sidenote: Pol. Exeunt all but Ham. & Horatio.]

Manet Hamlet & Horatio.

Ham.[4] Why let the strucken Deere go weepe, The Hart vngalled play: For some must watch, while some must sleepe; So runnes the world away. Would not this[5] Sir, and a Forrest of Feathers, if the rest of my Fortunes turne Turke with me; with two Prouinciall Roses[6] on my rac'd[7] Shooes, get me [Sidenote: with prouinciall raz'd] a Fellowship[8] in a crie[9] of Players sir. [Sidenote: Players?]

Hor. Halfe a share.

Ham. A whole one I,[10] [11] For thou dost know: Oh Damon deere, This Realme dismantled was of Loue himselfe, And now reignes heere. A verie verie Paiocke.[12]

Hora. You might haue Rim'd.[13]

Ham. Oh good Horatio, Ile take the Ghosts word for a thousand pound. Did'st perceiue?

Hora. Verie well my Lord.

Ham. Vpon the talke of the poysoning?

Hora. I did verie well note him.

Enter Rosincrance and Guildensterne.[14]

Ham. Oh, ha? Come some Musick.[15] Come the Recorders: [Sidenote: Ah ha,]

[Footnote 1: —in ill suppressed agitation.]

[Footnote 2: This speech is not in the Quarto.—Is the 'false fire' what we now call stage-fire?—'What! frighted at a mere play?']

[Footnote 3: The stage—the stage-stage, that is—alone is lighted. Does the king stagger out blindly, madly, shaking them from him? I think not—but as if he were taken suddenly ill.]

[Footnote 4: —singing—that he may hide his agitation, restrain himself, and be regarded as careless-mad, until all are safely gone.]

[Footnote 5: —his success with the play.]

[Footnote 6: 'Roses of Provins,' we are told—probably artificial.]

[Footnote 7: The meaning is very doubtful. But for the raz'd of the Quarto, I should suggest lac'd. Could it mean cut low?]

[Footnote 8: a share, as immediately below.]

[Footnote 9: A cry of hounds is a pack. So in King Lear, act v. sc. 3, 'packs and sects of great ones.']

[Footnote 10: I for ay—that is, yes!—He insists on a whole share.]

[Footnote 11: Again he takes refuge in singing.]

[Footnote 12: The lines are properly measured in the Quarto:

For thou doost know oh Damon deere This Realme dismantled was Of Ioue himselfe, and now raignes heere A very very paiock.

By Jove, he of course intends his father. 170. What 'Paiocke' means, whether pagan, or peacock, or bajocco, matters nothing, since it is intended for nonsense.]

[Footnote 13: To rime with was, Horatio naturally expected ass to follow as the end of the last line: in the wanton humour of his excitement, Hamlet disappointed him.]

[Footnote 14: In Q. after next speech.]

[Footnote 15: He hears Rosincrance and Guildensterne coming, and changes his behaviour—calling for music to end the play with. Either he wants, under its cover, to finish his talk with Horatio in what is for the moment the safest place, or he would mask himself before his two false friends. Since the departure of the king—I would suggest—he has borne himself with evident apprehension, every now and then glancing about him, as fearful of what may follow his uncle's recognition of the intent of the play. Three times he has burst out singing.

Or might not his whole carriage, with the call for music, be the outcome of a grimly merry satisfaction at the success of his scheme?]

[Page 152]

For if the King like not the Comedie, Why then belike he likes it not perdie.[1] Come some Musicke.

Guild. Good my Lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

Ham. Sir, a whole History.

Guild. The King, sir.

Ham. I sir, what of him?

Guild. Is in his retyrement, maruellous distemper'd.

Ham. With drinke Sir?

Guild. No my Lord, rather with choller.[2] [Sidenote: Lord, with]

Ham. Your wisedome should shew it selfe more richer, to signifie this to his Doctor: for me to [Sidenote: the Doctor,] put him to his Purgation, would perhaps plundge him into farre more Choller.[2] [Sidenote: into more]

Guild. Good my Lord put your discourse into some frame,[3] and start not so wildely from my [Sidenote: stare] affayre.

Ham. I am tame Sir, pronounce.

Guild. The Queene your Mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Ham. You are welcome.[4]

Guild. Nay, good my Lord, this courtesie is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholsome answer, I will doe your Mothers command'ment: if not, your pardon, and my returne shall bee the end of my Businesse. [Sidenote: of busines.]

Ham. Sir, I cannot.

Guild. What, my Lord?

Ham. Make you a wholsome answere: my wits diseas'd. But sir, such answers as I can make, you [Sidenote: answere] shal command: or rather you say, my Mother: [Sidenote: rather as you] therfore no more but to the matter. My Mother you say.

[Footnote 1: These two lines he may be supposed to sing.]

[Footnote 2: Choler means bile, and thence anger. Hamlet in his answer plays on the two meanings:—'to give him the kind of medicine I think fit for him, would perhaps much increase his displeasure.']

[Footnote 3: some logical consistency.]

[Footnote 4: —with an exaggeration of courtesy.]

[Page 154]

Rosin. Then thus she sayes: your behauior hath stroke her into amazement, and admiration.[1]

Ham. Oh wonderfull Sonne, that can so astonish [Sidenote: stonish] a Mother. But is there no sequell at the heeles of this Mothers admiration? [Sidenote: admiration, impart.]

Rosin. She desires to speake with you in her Closset, ere you go to bed.

Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our Mother. Haue you any further Trade with vs?

Rosin. My Lord, you once did loue me.

Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and [Sidenote: And doe still] stealers.[2]

Rosin. Good my Lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do freely barre the doore of your [Sidenote: surely barre the door vpon your] owne Libertie, if you deny your greefes to your your Friend.

Ham. Sir I lacke Aduancement.

Rosin. How can that be, when you haue the [Sidenote: 136] voyce of the King himselfe, for your Succession in Denmarke?

[3]

Ham. I, but while the grasse growes,[4] the [Sidenote: I sir,] Prouerbe is something musty.

Enter one with a Recorder.[5]

O the Recorder. Let me see, to withdraw with, [Sidenote: o the Recorders, let mee see one, to] you,[6] why do you go about to recouer the winde of mee,[7] as if you would driue me into a toyle?[8]

Guild. O my Lord, if my Dutie be too bold, my loue is too vnmannerly.[9]

Ham. I do not well vnderstand that.[10] Will you, play vpon this Pipe?

Guild. My Lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Guild. Beleeue me, I cannot.

Ham. I do beseech you.

[Footnote 1: wonder, astonishment.]

[Footnote 2: He swears an oath that will not hold, being by the hand of a thief.

In the Catechism: 'Keep my hands from picking and stealing.']

[Footnote 3: Here in Quarto, Enter the Players with Recorders.]

[Footnote 4: '... the colt starves.']

[Footnote 5: Not in Q. The stage-direction of the Folio seems doubtful. Hamlet has called for the orchestra: we may either suppose one to precede the others, or that the rest are already scattered; but the Quarto direction and reading seem better.]

[Footnote 6: —taking Guildensterne aside.]

[Footnote 7: 'to get to windward of me.']

[Footnote 8: 'Why do you seek to get the advantage of me, as if you would drive me to betray myself?'—Hunters, by sending on the wind their scent to the game, drive it into their toils.]

[Footnote 9: Guildensterne tries euphuism, but hardly succeeds. He intends to plead that any fault in his approach must be laid to the charge of his love. Duty here means homage—so used still by the common people.]

[Footnote 10: —said with a smile of gentle contempt.]

[Page 156]

Guild. I know no touch of it, my Lord.

Ham. Tis as easie as lying: gouerne these [Sidenote: It is] Ventiges with your finger and thumbe, giue it [Sidenote: fingers, & the vmber, giue] breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most [Sidenote: most eloquent] excellent Musicke. Looke you, these are the stoppes.

Guild. But these cannot I command to any vtterance of hermony, I haue not the skill.

Ham. Why looke you now, how vnworthy a thing you make of me: you would play vpon mee; you would seeme to know my stops: you would pluck out the heart of my Mysterie; you would sound mee from my lowest Note, to the top of my [Sidenote: note to my compasse] Compasse: and there is much Musicke, excellent Voice, in this little Organe, yet cannot you make [Sidenote: it speak, s'hloud do you think I] it. Why do you thinke, that I am easier to bee plaid on, then a Pipe? Call me what Instrument you will, though you can fret[1] me, you cannot [Sidenote: you fret me not,] [Sidenote: 184] play vpon me. God blesse you Sir.[2]