The Tragedie of Hamlet

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_SCENA TERTIA_[1]

Enter Laertes and Ophelia. [Sidenote: Ophelia his Sister.]

Laer. My necessaries are imbark't; Farewell: [Sidenote: inbarckt,] And Sister, as the Winds giue Benefit, And Conuoy is assistant: doe not sleepe,

But let me heare from you.

Ophel. Doe you doubt that?

Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his fauours,

Hold it a fashion and a toy in Bloud; A Violet in the youth of Primy Nature; Froward,[2] not permanent; sweet not lasting The suppliance of a minute? No more.[3]

Ophel. No more but so.[4]

Laer. Thinke it no more.
For nature cressant does not grow alone, [Sidenote: 172] In thewes[5] and Bulke: but as his Temple waxes,[6]

The inward seruice of the Minde and Soule Growes wide withall. Perhaps he loues you now,[7] And now no soyle nor cautell[8] doth besmerch The vertue of his feare: but you must feare

[Sidenote: of his will, but]
His greatnesse weigh'd, his will is not his owne;[9] [Sidenote: wayd]

For hee himselfe is subiect to his Birth:[10] Hee may not, as vnuallued persons doe, Carue for himselfe; for, on his choyce depends The sanctity and health of the weole State.

[Sidenote: The safty and | this whole]

And therefore must his choyce be circumscrib'd[11] Vnto the voyce and yeelding[12] of that Body, Whereof he is the Head. Then if he sayes he loues you, It fits your wisedome so farre to beleeue it; As he in his peculiar Sect and force[13]

May giue his saying deed: which is no further,

[Footnote 1: Not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 2: Same as forward.]

[Footnote 3: 'No more' makes a new line in the Quarto.]

[Footnote 4: I think this speech should end with a point of interrogation.]

[Footnote 5: muscles.]

[Footnote 6: The body is the temple, in which the mind and soul are the worshippers: their service grows with the temple--wide, changing and increasing its objects. The degraded use of the grand image is after the character of him who makes it.]

[Footnote 7: The studied contrast between Laertes and Hamlet begins already to appear: the dishonest man, honestly judging after his own dishonesty, warns his sister against the honest man.]

[Footnote 8: deceit.]

[Footnote 9: 'You have cause to fear when you consider his greatness: his will &c.' 'You must fear, his greatness being weighed; for because of that greatness, his will is not his own.']

[Footnote 10: This line not in Quarto.]

[Footnote 11: limited.]

[Footnote 12: allowance.]

[Footnote 13: This change from the Quarto seems to me to bear the mark of Shakspere's hand. The meaning is the same, but the words are more individual and choice: the sect, the head in relation to the body, is more pregnant than place; and force, that is power, is a fuller word than act, or even action, for which it plainly appears to stand.]

[Page 36]

Then the maine voyce of Denmarke goes withall. Then weigh what losse your Honour may sustaine, If with too credent eare you list his Songs; Or lose your Heart; or your chast Treasure open [Sidenote: Or loose] To his vnmastred[1] importunity.
Feare it Ophelia, feare it my deare Sister, And keepe within the reare of your Affection;[2]

[Sidenote: keepe you in the]
Out of the shot and danger of Desire.
The chariest Maid is Prodigall enough, [Sidenote: The]
If she vnmaske her beauty to the Moone:[3]
Vertue it selfe scapes not calumnious stroakes, [Sidenote: Vertue]
The Canker Galls, the Infants of the Spring
[Sidenote: The canker gaules the]
Too oft before the buttons[6] be disclos'd, [Sidenote: their buttons]
And in the Morne and liquid dew of Youth,

Contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary then, best safety lies in feare; Youth to it selfe rebels, though none else neere.[6]

Ophe. I shall th'effect of this good Lesson keepe,
As watchmen to my heart: but good my Brother [Sidenote: watchman]
Doe not as some vngracious Pastors doe,
Shew me the steepe and thorny way to Heauen;
Whilst like a puft and recklesse Libertine
Himselfe, the Primrose path of dalliance treads,

And reaks not his owne reade.[7][8][9]

Laer. Oh, feare me not.[10]

Enter Polonius.

I stay too long; but here my Father comes: A double blessing is a double grace; Occasion smiles vpon a second leaue.[11]

Polon. Yet heere Laertes? Aboord, aboord for shame, The winde sits in the shoulder of your saile, And you are staid for there: my blessing with you;

[Sidenote: for, there my | with thee]

[Footnote 1: Without a master; lawless.]

[Footnote 2: Do not go so far as inclination would lead you. Keep behind your liking. Do not go to the front with your impulse.]

[Footnote 3: --but to the moon--which can show it so little.]

[Footnote 4: Opened but not closed quotations in the Quarto.]

[Footnote 5: The French bouton is also both button and bud.]

[Footnote 6: 'Inclination is enough to have to deal with, let alone added temptation.' Like his father, Laertes is wise for another--a man of maxims, not behaviour. His morality is in his intellect and for self-ends, not in his will, and for the sake of truth and righteousness.]

[Footnote 7: 1st Q.

But my deere brother, do not you Like to a cunning Sophister,
Teach me the path and ready way to heauen, While you forgetting what is said to me, Your selfe, like to a carelesse libertine Doth giue his heart, his appetite at ful, And little recks how that his honour dies.

'The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.' --Macbeth, ii. 3:

'The flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.' All's Well, iv. 5.]

[Footnote 8: 'heeds not his own counsel.']

[Footnote 9: Here in Quarto, Enter Polonius.]

[Footnote 10: With the fitting arrogance and impertinence of a libertine brother, he has read his sister a lecture on propriety of behaviour; but when she gently suggests that what is good for her is good for him too,--'Oh, fear me not!--I stay too long.']

[Footnote 11: 'A second leave-taking is a happy chance': the chance, or occasion, because it is happy, smiles. It does not mean that occasion smiles upon a second leave, but that, upon a second leave, occasion smiles. There should be a comma after smiles.]

[Footnote 12: As many of Polonius' aphorismic utterances as are given in the 1st Quarto have there inverted commas; but whether intended as gleanings from books or as fruits of experience, the light they throw on the character of him who speaks them is the same: they show it altogether selfish. He is a man of the world, wise in his generation, his principles the best of their bad sort. Of these his son is a fit recipient and retailer, passing on to his sister their father's grand doctrine of self-protection. But, wise in maxim, Polonius is foolish in practice--not from senility, but from vanity.]

[Page 38]

And these few Precepts in thy memory,[1] See thou Character.[2] Giue thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any vnproportion'd[3] thought his Act: Be thou familiar; but by no meanes vulgar:[4] The friends thou hast, and their adoption tride,[5]

[Sidenote: Those friends]
Grapple them to thy Soule, with hoopes of Steele: [Sidenote: unto]
But doe not dull thy palme, with entertainment
Of each vnhatch't, vnfledg'd Comrade.[6] Beware
[Sidenote: each new hatcht unfledgd courage,]
Of entrance to a quarrell: but being in
Bear't that th'opposed may beware of thee.
Giue euery man thine eare; but few thy voyce: [Sidenote: thy eare,]
Take each mans censure[7]; but reserue thy Judgement;
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy;
But not exprest in fancie; rich, not gawdie:
For the Apparell oft proclaimes the man.
And they in France of the best ranck and station,
Are of a most select and generous[8] cheff in that.[10]
[Sidenote: Or of a generous, chiefe[9]]
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; [Sidenote: lender boy,]
For lone oft loses both it selfe and friend: [Sidenote: loue]
And borrowing duls the edge of Husbandry.[11]
[Sidenote: dulleth edge]
This aboue all; to thine owne selfe be true:
And it must follow, as the Night the Day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.[12] Farewell: my Blessing season[13] this in thee.

Laer. Most humbly doe I take my leaue, my Lord.

Polon. The time inuites you, goe, your seruants tend.

Laer. Farewell Ophelia, and remember well What I haue said to you.[14]

Ophe. Tis in my memory lockt,
And you your selfe shall keepe the key of it,

Laer. Farewell. Exit Laer.

Polon. What ist Ophelia he hath said to you?

[Footnote 1: He hurries him to go, yet immediately begins to prose.]

[Footnote 2: Engrave.]

[Footnote 3: Not settled into its true shape (?) or, out of proportion with its occasions (?)--I cannot say which.]

[Footnote 4: 'Cultivate close relations, but do not lie open to common access.' 'Have choice intimacies, but do not be hail, fellow! well met with everybody.' What follows is an expansion of the lesson.]

[Footnote 5: 'The friends thou hast--and the choice of them justified by trial--'_equal to_: 'provided their choice be justified &c.']

[Footnote 6: 'Do not make the palm hard, and dull its touch of discrimination, by shaking hands in welcome with every one that turns up.']

[Footnote 7: judgment, opinion.]

[Footnote 8: Generosus, of good breed, a gentleman.]

[Footnote 9: 1st Q. 'generall chiefe.']

[Footnote 10: No doubt the omission of of a gives the right number of syllables to the verse, and makes room for the interpretation which a dash between generous and chief renders clearer: 'Are most select and generous--chief in that,'--'are most choice and well-bred--chief, indeed--at the head or top, in the matter of dress.' But without necessity or authority--one of the two, I would not throw away a word; and suggest therefore that Shakspere had here the French idiom de son chef in his mind, and qualifies the noun in it with adjectives of his own. The Academy Dictionary gives de son propre mouvement as one interpretation of the phrase. The meaning would be, 'they are of a most choice and developed instinct in dress.' Cheff or chief suggests the upper third of the heraldic shield, but I cannot persuade the suggestion to further development. The hypercatalectic syllables of a, swiftly spoken, matter little to the verse, especially as it is dramatic.]

[Footnote 11: Those that borrow, having to pay, lose heart for saving.

'There's husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out.'--Macbeth, ii. 1.]

[Footnote 12: Certainly a man cannot be true to himself without being true to others; neither can he be true to others without being true to himself; but if a man make himself the centre for the birth of action, it will follow, '_as the night the day_,' that he will be true neither to himself nor to any other man. In this regard note the history of Laertes, developed in the play.]

[Footnote 13: --as salt, to make the counsel keep.]

[Footnote 14: See note 9, page 37.]

[Page 40]

Ophe. So please you, somthing touching the L. Hamlet.

Polon. Marry, well bethought:
Tis told me he hath very oft of late Giuen priuate time to you; and you your selfe Haue of your audience beene most free and bounteous.[1] If it be so, as so tis put on me;[2] And that in way of caution: I must tell you, You doe not vnderstand your selfe so cleerely, As it behoues my Daughter, and your Honour What is betweene you, giue me vp the truth?

Ophe. He hath my Lord of late, made many tenders Of his affection to me.

Polon. Affection, puh. You speake like a greene Girle, Vnsifted in such perillous Circumstance. Doe you beleeue his tenders, as you call them?

Ophe. I do not know, my Lord, what I should thinke.

Polon. Marry Ile teach you; thinke your self a Baby,

Ophe. My Lord, he hath importun'd me with loue, In honourable fashion.

Polon. I, fashion you may call it, go too, go too.

Ophe. And hath giuen countenance to his speech, My Lord, with all the vowes of Heauen.

[Footnote 1: There had then been a good deal of intercourse between Hamlet and Ophelia: she had heartily encouraged him.]

[Footnote 2: 'as so I am informed, and that by way of caution,']

[Footnote 3: --making it, 'the poor phrase' tenders, gallop wildly about--as one might roam a horse; larking it.]

[Footnote 4: 'you will in your own person present me a fool.']

[Page 42]

Polon. I, Springes to catch Woodcocks.[1] I doe know

When the Bloud burnes, how Prodigall the Soule[2] Giues the tongue vowes: these blazes, Daughter, [Sidenote: Lends the] Giuing more light then heate; extinct in both,[3] Euen in their promise, as it is a making; You must not take for fire. For this time Daughter,[4]

[Sidenote: fire, from this]
Be somewhat scanter of your Maiden presence; [Sidenote: something]
Set your entreatments[5] at a higher rate,
Then a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet, [Sidenote: parle;]
Beleeue so much in him, that he is young,
And with a larger tether may he walke, [Sidenote: tider]
Then may be giuen you. In few,[6] Ophelia,
Doe not beleeue his vowes; for they are Broakers,
Not of the eye,[7] which their Inuestments show:
[Sidenote: of that die]
But meere implorators of vnholy Sutes, [Sidenote: imploratators]
Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:[8] [Sidenote: beguide]
I would not, in plaine tearmes, from this time forth,
Haue you so slander any moment leisure,[9]
[Sidenote: 70, 82] As to giue words or talke with the Lord Hamlet:[10]
Looke too't, I charge you; come your wayes.

Ophe. I shall obey my Lord.[11] Exeunt.

Enter Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus. [Sidenote: and Marcellus]

[Sidenote: 2] Ham. [12]The Ayre bites shrewdly: is it very cold?[13]

Hor. It is a nipping and an eager ayre.

Ham. What hower now?

Hor. I thinke it lacks of twelue.

Mar. No, it is strooke.

Hor. Indeed I heard it not: then it drawes neere the season,

Wherein the Spirit held his wont to walke. What does this meane my Lord? [14]

[Sidenote: _A flourish of trumpets and 2 peeces goes of._[14]]

[Footnote 1: Woodcocks were understood to have no brains.]

[Footnote 2: 1st Q. 'How prodigall the tongue lends the heart vowes.' I was inclined to take Prodigall for a noun, a proper name or epithet given to the soul, as in a moral play: Prodigall, the soul; but I conclude it only an adjective used as an adverb, and the capital P a blunder.]

[Footnote 3: --in both light and heat.]

[Footnote 4: The Quarto has not 'Daughter.']

[Footnote 5: To be entreated is to yield: 'he would nowise be entreated:' entreatments, yieldings: 'you are not to see him just because he chooses to command a parley.']

[Footnote 6: 'In few words'; in brief.]

[Footnote 7: I suspect a misprint in the Folio here--that an e has got in for a d, and that the change from the Quarto should be Not of the dye. Then the line would mean, using the antecedent word brokers in the bad sense, 'Not themselves of the same colour as their garments (investments); his vows are clothed in innocence, but are not innocent; they are mere panders.' The passage is rendered yet more obscure to the modern sense by the accidental propinquity of bonds, brokers, and investments--which have nothing to do with stocks.]

[Footnote 8: 'This means in sum:'.]

[Footnote 9: 'so slander any moment with the name of leisure as to': to call it leisure, if leisure stood for talk with Hamlet, would be to slander the time. We might say, 'so slander any man friend as to expect him to do this or that unworthy thing for you.']

[Footnote 10: 1st Q.

Ofelia, receiue none of his letters, For louers lines are snares to intrap the heart; [Sidenote: 82] Refuse his tokens, both of them are keyes To vnlocke Chastitie vnto Desire; Come in Ofelia; such men often proue, Great in their wordes, but little in their loue.

'_men often prove such_--great &c.'--Compare Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. 4, lines 120, 121, _Globe ed.]

[Footnote 11: Fresh trouble for Hamlet_.]

[Footnote 12: 1st Q.

The ayre bites shrewd; it is an eager and An nipping winde, what houre i'st?]

[Footnote 13: Again the cold.]

[Footnote 14: The stage-direction of the Q. is necessary here.]

[Page 44]

[Sidenote: 22, 25] Ham. The King doth wake to night, and takes his rouse,
Keepes wassels and the swaggering vpspring reeles,[1]

[Sidenote: wassell | up-spring]

And as he dreines his draughts of Renish downe, The kettle Drum and Trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his Pledge.

Horat. Is it a custome?

Enter Ghost.

Hor. Looke my Lord, it comes.

[Sidenote: 172] Ham. Angels and Ministers of Grace defend vs: [Sidenote: 32] Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin damn'd, Bring with thee ayres from Heauen, or blasts from Hell,[2]

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:--

This heauy headed reueale east and west[3] Makes vs tradust, and taxed of other nations, They clip[4] vs drunkards, and with Swinish phrase Soyle our addition,[5] and indeede it takes From our atchieuements, though perform'd at height[6] The pith and marrow of our attribute, So oft it chaunces in particuler men,[7] That for some vicious mole[8] of nature in them As in their birth wherein they are not guilty,[8] (Since nature cannot choose his origin) By their ore-grow'th of some complextion[10] Oft breaking downe the pales and forts of reason Or by[11] some habit, that too much ore-leauens The forme of plausiue[12] manners, that[13] these men Carrying I say the stamp of one defect Being Natures liuery, or Fortunes starre,[14] His[15] vertues els[16] be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may vndergoe,[17] Shall in the generall censure[18] take corruption From that particuler fault:[19] the dram of eale[20] Doth all the noble substance of a doubt[21] To his[22] owne scandle.]

[Footnote 1: Does Hamlet here call his uncle an upspring, an upstart? or is the upspring a dance, the English equivalent of 'the high lavolt' of Troil. and Cress. iv. 4, and governed by reels--'keeps wassels, and reels the swaggering upspring'--a dance that needed all the steadiness as well as agility available, if, as I suspect, it was that in which each gentleman lifted the lady high, and kissed her before setting her down? I cannot answer, I can only put the question. The word swaggering makes me lean to the former interpretation.]

[Footnote 2: Observe again Hamlet's uncertainty. He does not take it for granted that it is his father's spirit, though it is plainly his form.]

[Footnote 3: The Quarto surely came too early for this passage to have been suggested by the shameful habits which invaded the court through the example of Anne of Denmark! Perhaps Shakspere cancelled it both because he would not have it supposed he had meant to reflect on the queen, and because he came to think it too diffuse.]

[Footnote 4: clepe, call.]

[Footnote 5: Same as attribute, two lines lower--the thing imputed to, or added to us--our reputation, our title or epithet.]

[Footnote 6: performed to perfection.]

[Footnote 7: individuals.]

[Footnote 8: A mole on the body, according to the place where it appeared, was regarded as significant of character: in that relation, a vicious mole would be one that indicated some special vice; but here the allusion is to a live mole of constitutional fault, burrowing within, whose presence the mole-heap on the skin indicates.]

[Footnote 9: The order here would be: 'for some vicious mole of nature in them, as by their o'er-growth, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty, since nature cannot choose his origin (or parentage)--their o'ergrowth of (their being overgrown or possessed by) some complexion, &c.']

[Footnote 10: Complexion, as the exponent of the temperament, or masterful tendency of the nature, stands here for temperament--'oft breaking down &c.' Both words have in them the element of mingling--a mingling to certain results.]

[Footnote 11: The connection is:

That for some vicious mole--
As by their o'ergrowth--
Or by some habit, &c.]

[Footnote 12: pleasing.]

[Footnote 13: Repeat from above '--so oft it chaunces,' before 'that these men.']

[Footnote 14: 'whether the thing come by Nature or by Destiny,' Fortune's star: the mark set on a man by fortune to prove her share in him. 83.]

[Footnote 15: A change to the singular.]

[Footnote l6: 'be his virtues besides as pure &c.']

[Footnote 17: walk under; carry.]

[Footnote 18: the judgment of the many.]

[Footnote 19: 'Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.' Eccles. x. 1.]

[Footnote 20: Compare Quarto reading, page 112:

The spirit that I haue scene
May be a deale, and the deale hath power &c.

If deale here stand for devil, then eale may in the same edition be taken to stand for evil. It is hardly necessary to suspect a Scotch printer; evil is often used as a monosyllable, and eale may have been a pronunciation of it half-way towards ill, which is its contraction.]

[Footnote 21: I do not believe there is any corruption in the rest of the passage. 'Doth it of a doubt:' affects it with a doubt, brings it into doubt. The following from Measure for Measure, is like, though not the same.

I have on Angelo imposed the office, Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home And yet my nature never in the fight To do in slander.

'To do my nature in slander'; to affect it with slander; to bring it into slander, 'Angelo may punish in my name, but, not being present, I shall not be accused of cruelty, which would be to slander my nature.']

[Footnote 22: his--the man's; see note 13 above.]

[Page 46]

[Sidenote: 112] Be thy euents wicked or charitable,

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape[1] That I will speake to thee. Ile call thee Hamlet,[2] King, Father, Royall Dane: Oh, oh, answer me,

Let me not burst in Ignorance; but tell Why thy Canoniz'd bones Hearsed in death,[3] Haue burst their cerments; why the Sepulcher Wherein we saw thee quietly enurn'd,[4]

Hath op'd his ponderous and Marble iawes, To cast thee vp againe? What may this meane? That thou dead Coarse againe in compleat steele, Reuisits thus the glimpses of the Moone, Making Night hidious? And we fooles of Nature,[6] So horridly to shake our disposition,[7] With thoughts beyond thee; reaches of our Soules,[8]

Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we doe?[9]

Ghost beckens Hamlet.

Hor. It beckons you to goe away with it, [Sidenote: Beckins]
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

Mar. Looke with what courteous action
It wafts you to a more remoued ground: [Sidenote: waues]
But doe not goe with it.

Hor. No, by no meanes.

Ham. It will not speake: then will I follow it.

Hor. Doe not my Lord.

Ham. Why, what should be the feare? I doe not set my life at a pins fee; And for my Soule, what can it doe to that? Being a thing immortall as it selfe:[10] It waues me forth againe; Ile follow it.

Hor. What if it tempt you toward the Floud my Lord?[11]

[Footnote 1: --that of his father, so moving him to question it. Questionable does not mean doubtful, but fit to be questioned.]

[Footnote 2: 'I'll call thee'--for the nonce.]

[Footnote 3: I think hearse was originally the bier--French herse, a harrow--but came to be applied to the coffin: hearsed in death--coffined in death.]

[Footnote 4: There is no impropriety in the use of the word inurned. It is a figure--a word once-removed in its application: the sepulchre is the urn, the body the ashes. Interred Shakspere had concluded incorrect, for the body was not laid in the earth.]

[Footnote 5: So in 1st Q.]

[Footnote 6: 'fooles of Nature'--fools in the presence of her knowledge--to us no knowledge--of her action, to us inexplicable. A fact that looks unreasonable makes one feel like a fool. See Psalm lxxiii. 22: 'So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast before thee.' As some men are our fools, we are all Nature's fools; we are so far from knowing anything as it is.]

[Footnote 7: Even if Shakspere cared more about grammar than he does, a man in Hamlet's perturbation he might well present as making a breach in it; but we are not reduced even to justification. Toschaken (to as German zu intensive) is a recognized English word; it means to shake to pieces. The construction of the passage is, 'What may this mean, that thou revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon, and that we so horridly to-shake our disposition?' So in The Merry Wives,

And fairy-like to-pinch the unclean knight.

'our disposition': our cosmic structure.]

[Footnote 8: 'with thoughts that are too much for them, and as an earthquake to them.']

[Footnote 9: Like all true souls, Hamlet wants to know what he is to do. He looks out for the action required of him.]

[Footnote 10: Note here Hamlet's mood--dominated by his faith. His life in this world his mother has ruined; he does not care for it a pin: he is not the less confident of a nature that is immortal. In virtue of this belief in life, he is indifferent to the form of it. When, later in the play, he seems to fear death, it is death the consequence of an action of whose rightness he is not convinced.]

[Footnote 11: The Quarto has dropped out 'Lord.']

[Page 48]

Ham. It wafts me still; goe on, Ile follow thee.

[Sidenote: waues]

Mar. You shall not goe my Lord.

Ham. Hold off your hand. [Sidenote: hands]

Hor. Be rul'd, you shall not goe.

Ham. My fate cries out,
And makes each petty Artire[4] in this body, [Sidenote: arture[4]]
As hardy as the Nemian Lions nerue:
Still am I cal'd? Vnhand me Gentlemen:
By Heau'n, Ile make a Ghost of him that lets me:
I say away, goe on, Ile follow thee.

Exeunt Ghost & Hamlet.

Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.[5] [Sidenote: imagion]

Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

Hor. Haue after, to what issue will this come?

Mar. Something is rotten in the State of Denmarke.

Hor. Heauen will direct it.

Mar. Nay, let's follow him. Exeunt.

Enter Ghost and Hamlet.

Ham. Where wilt thou lead me? speak; Ile go no further.

Gho. Marke me.

Ham. I will.

[Footnote A: Here in the Quarto:--

The very place puts toyes of desperation Without more motiue, into euery braine That lookes so many fadoms to the sea And heares it rore beneath.]

[Footnote 1: 1st Q. 'beckles'--perhaps for buckles--bends.]

[Footnote 2: Note the unbelief in the Ghost.]

[Footnote 3: sovereignty--soul: so in Romeo and Juliet, act v. sc. 1, l. 3:--

My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.]

[Footnote 4: The word artery, invariably substituted by the editors, is without authority. In the first Quarto, the word is Artiue; in the second (see margin) arture. This latter I take to be the right one--corrupted into Artire in the Folio. It seems to have troubled the printers, and possibly the editors. The third Q. has followed the second; the fourth has artyre; the fifth Q. and the fourth F. have attire; the second and third Folios follow the first. Not until the sixth Q. does artery appear. See Cambridge Shakespeare. Arture was to all concerned, and to the language itself, a new word. That artery was not Shakspere's intention might be concluded from its unfitness: what propriety could there be in making an artery hardy? The sole, imperfect justification I was able to think of for such use of the word arose from the fact that, before the discovery of the circulation of the blood (published in 1628), it was believed that the arteries (found empty after death) served for the movements of the animal spirits: this might vaguely associate the arteries with courage. But the sight of the word arture in the second Quarto at once relieved me.

I do not know if a list has ever been gathered of the words made by Shakspere: here is one of them--arture, from the same root as artus, a joint--arcere, to hold together, adjective arctus, tight. Arture, then, stands for juncture. This perfectly fits. In terror the weakest parts are the joints, for their artures are not hardy. 'And you, my sinews, ... bear me stiffly up.' 55, 56.

Since writing as above, a friend informs me that arture is the exact equivalent of the [Greek: haphae] of Colossians ii. 19, as interpreted by Bishop Lightfoot--'the relation between contiguous limbs, not the parts of the limbs themselves in the neighbourhood of contact,'--for which relation 'there is no word in our language in common use.']

[Footnote 5: 'with the things he imagines.']

[Page 50]

Gho. My hower is almost come,[1]
When I to sulphurous and tormenting Flames Must render vp my selfe.

Ham. Alas poore Ghost.

Gho. Pitty me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall vnfold.

Ham. Speake, I am bound to heare.

Gho. So art thou to reuenge, when thou shalt heare.

Ham. What?

Gho. I am thy Fathers Spirit,
Doom'd for a certaine terme to walke the night;[2] And for the day confin'd to fast in Fiers,[3] Till the foule crimes done in my dayes of Nature Are burnt and purg'd away? But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my Prison-House; I could a Tale vnfold, whose lightest word[4] Would harrow vp thy soule, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes like Starres, start from their Spheres,
Thy knotty and combined locks to part, [Sidenote: knotted]
And each particular haire to stand an end,[5]
Like Quilles vpon the fretfull[6] Porpentine [Sidenote: fearefull[6]]
But this eternall blason[7] must not be
To eares of flesh and bloud; list Hamlet, oh list,
[Sidenote: blood, list, ô list;]
If thou didst euer thy deare Father loue.

Ham. Oh Heauen![8] [Sidenote: God]

Gho. Reuenge his foule and most vnnaturall Murther.[9]

Ham. Murther?

Ghost. Murther most foule, as in the best it is; But this most foule, strange, and vnnaturall.

[Footnote 1: The night is the Ghost's day.]

[Footnote 2: To walk the night, and see how things go, without being able to put a finger to them, is part of his cleansing.]

[Footnote 3: More horror yet for Hamlet.]

[Footnote 4: He would have him think of life and its doings as of awful import. He gives his son what warning he may.]

[Footnote 5: An end is like agape, an hungred. 71, 175.]

[Footnote 6: The word in the Q. suggests fretfull a misprint for frightful. It is fretfull in the 1st Q. as well.]

[Footnote 7: To blason is to read off in proper heraldic terms the arms blasoned upon a shield. A blason is such a reading, but is here used for a picture in words of other objects.]

[Footnote 8: --in appeal to God whether he had not loved his father.]

[Footnote 9: The horror still accumulates. The knowledge of evil--not evil in the abstract, but evil alive, and all about him--comes darkening down upon Hamlet's being. Not only is his father an inhabitant of the nether fires, but he is there by murder.]

[Page 52]

As meditation, or the thoughts of Loue, May sweepe to my Reuenge.[1]

Ghost. I finde thee apt,
And duller should'st thou be then the fat weede[2] [Sidenote: 194] That rots it selfe in ease, on Lethe Wharfe,[4]

[Sidenote: rootes[3]]
Would'st thou not stirre in this. Now Hamlet heare:
It's giuen out, that sleeping in mine Orchard, [Sidenote: 'Tis]
A Serpent stung me: so the whole eare of Denmarke,
Is by a forged processe of my death
Rankly abus'd: But know thou Noble youth,
The Serpent that did sting thy Fathers life,

Now weares his Crowne.

[Sidenote: 30,32] Ham. O my Propheticke soule: mine Vncle?[5]

[Sidenote: my]

Ghost. I that incestuous, that adulterate Beast[6] With witchcraft of his wits, hath Traitorous guifts.

[Sidenote: wits, with]
Oh wicked Wit, and Gifts, that haue the power
So to seduce? Won to to this shamefull Lust [Sidenote: wonne to his]
The will of my most seeming vertuous Queene:
Oh Hamlet, what a falling off was there, [Sidenote: what failing]
From me, whose loue was of that dignity,
That it went hand in hand, euen with[7] the Vow
I made to her in Marriage; and to decline
Vpon a wretch, whose Naturall gifts were poore

To those of mine. But Vertue, as it neuer wil be moued, Though Lewdnesse court it in a shape of Heauen: So Lust, though to a radiant Angell link'd, [Sidenote: so but though] Will sate it selfe in[8] a Celestiall bed, and prey on Garbage.[9]

[Footnote 1: Now, for the moment, he has no doubt, and vengeance is his first thought.]

[Footnote 2: Hamlet may be supposed to recall this, if we suppose him afterwards to accuse himself so bitterly and so unfairly as in the Quarto, 194.]

[Footnote 3: Also 1st Q.]

[Footnote 4: landing-place on the bank of Lethe, the hell-river of oblivion.]

[Footnote 5: This does not mean that he had suspected his uncle, but that his dislike to him was prophetic.]

[Footnote 6: How can it be doubted that in this speech the Ghost accuses his wife and brother of adultery? Their marriage was not adultery. See how the ghastly revelation grows on Hamlet--his father in hell--murdered by his brother--dishonoured by his wife!]

[Footnote 7: parallel with; correspondent to.]

[Footnote 8: 1st Q. 'fate itself from a'.]

[Footnote 9: This passage, from 'Oh Hamlet,' most indubitably asserts the adultery of Gertrude.]

[Page 54]

With iuyce of cursed Hebenon[1] in a Violl, [Sidenote: Hebona]
And in the Porches of mine eares did poure [Sidenote: my]
The leaperous Distilment;[2] whose effect
Holds such an enmity with bloud of Man,
That swift as Quick-siluer, it courses[3] through
The naturall Gates and Allies of the Body;
And with a sodaine vigour it doth posset [Sidenote: doth possesse]
And curd, like Aygre droppings into Milke, [Sidenote: eager[4]]
The thin and wholsome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant Tetter bak'd about, [Sidenote: barckt about[5]]
Most Lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth Body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a Brothers hand,
Of Life, of Crowne, and Queene at once dispatcht; [Sidenote: of Queene]

[Sidenote: 164] Cut off euen in the Blossomes of my Sinne, Vnhouzzled, disappointed, vnnaneld,[6] [Sidenote: Vnhuzled, | vnanueld,] [Sidenote: 262] No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head; Oh horrible, Oh horrible, most horrible: If thou hast nature in thee beare it not; Let not the Royall Bed of Denmarke be A Couch for Luxury and damned Incest.[7] But howsoeuer thou pursuest this Act,

[Sidenote: 30,174] Taint not thy mind; nor let thy Soule contriue [Sidenote: 140] Against thy Mother ought; leaue her to heauen, And to those Thornes that in her bosome lodge, To pricke and sting her. Fare thee well at once; The Glow-worme showes the Matine to be neere, And gins to pale his vneffectuall Fire: Adue, adue, Hamlet: remember me. Exit.

Ham. Oh all you host of Heauen! Oh Earth: what els? And shall I couple Hell?[9] Oh fie[10]: hold my heart;

And you my sinnewes, grow not instant Old;

[Footnote 1: Ebony.]

[Footnote 2: producing leprosy--as described in result below.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'posteth'.]

[Footnote 4: So also 1st Q.]

[Footnote 5: This barckt--meaning cased as a bark cases its tree--is used in 1st Q. also: 'And all my smoothe body, barked, and tetterd ouer.' The word is so used in Scotland still.]

[Footnote 6: Husel (Anglo-Saxon) is an offering, the sacrament. Disappointed, not appointed: Dr. Johnson. _Unaneled, unoiled, without the extreme unction.]

[Footnote 7: It is on public grounds, as a king and a Dane, rather than as a husband and a murdered man, that he urges on his son the execution of justice. Note the tenderness towards his wife that follows--more marked, 174; here it is mingled with predominating regard to his son to whose filial nature he dreads injury.]

[Footnote 8: Q. omits Exit.]

[Footnote 9: He must: his father is there!]

[Footnote 10: The interjection is addressed to heart and sinews, which forget their duty.]

[Page 56]

But beare me stiffely vp: Remember thee?[1] [Sidenote: swiftly vp]
I, thou poore Ghost, while memory holds a seate [Sidenote: whiles]
In this distracted Globe[2]: Remember thee?
Yea, from the Table of my Memory,[3]
Ile wipe away all triuiall fond Records,
All sawes[4] of Bookes, all formes, all presures past,

That youth and obseruation coppied there; And thy Commandment all alone shall liue Within the Booke and Volume of my Braine, Vnmixt with baser matter; yes, yes, by Heauen:

[Sidenote: 168] Oh most pernicious woman![5] Oh Villaine, Villaine, smiling damned Villaine! My Tables, my Tables; meet it is I set it downe,[6]

[Sidenote: My tables, meet]
That one may smile, and smile and be a Villaine;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmarke; [Sidenote: I am]
So Vnckle there you are: now to my word;[7]
It is; Adue, Adue, Remember me:[8] I haue sworn't.
[Sidenote: Enter Horatio, and Marcellus]

Hor. and Mar. within. My Lord, my Lord. [Sidenote: Hora. My]

Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

Mar. Lord Hamlet.

Hor. Heauen secure him. [Sidenote: Heauens]

Mar. So be it.

Hor. Illo, ho, ho, my Lord.

Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come bird, come.[9]

Mar. How ist't my Noble Lord?

Hor. What newes, my Lord?

Ham. Oh wonderfull![10]

Hor. Good my Lord tell it.

Ham. No you'l reueale it. [Sidenote: you will]

Hor. Not I, my Lord, by Heauen.

Mar. Nor I, my Lord.

Ham. How say you then, would heart of man once think it? But you'l be secret?

[Footnote 1: For the moment he has no doubt that he has seen and spoken with the ghost of his father.]

[Footnote 2: his head.]

[Footnote 3: The whole speech is that of a student, accustomed to books, to take notes, and to fix things in his memory. 'Table,' tablet.]

[Footnote 4: wise sayings.]

[Footnote 5: The Ghost has revealed her adultery: Hamlet suspects her of complicity in the murder, 168.]

[Footnote 6: It may well seem odd that Hamlet should be represented as, at such a moment, making a note in his tablets; but without further allusion to the student-habit, I would remark that, in cases where strongest passion is roused, the intellect has yet sometimes an automatic trick of working independently. For instance from Shakspere, see Constance in King John--how, in her agony over the loss of her son, both her fancy, playing with words, and her imagination, playing with forms, are busy.

Note the glimpse of Hamlet's character here given: he had been something of an optimist; at least had known villainy only from books; at thirty years of age it is to him a discovery that a man may smile and be a villain! Then think of the shock of such discoveries as are here forced upon him! Villainy is no longer a mere idea, but a fact! and of all villainous deeds those of his own mother and uncle are the worst! But note also his honesty, his justice to humanity, his philosophic temperament, in the qualification he sets to the memorandum, '--at least in Denmark!']

[Footnote 7: 'my word,'--the word he has to keep in mind; his cue.]

[Footnote 8: Should not the actor here make a pause, with hand uplifted, as taking a solemn though silent oath?]

[Footnote 9: --as if calling to a hawk.]

[Footnote 10: Here comes the test of the actor's possible: here Hamlet himself begins to act, and will at once assume a rôle, ere yet he well knows what it must be. One thing only is clear to him--that the communication of the Ghost is not a thing to be shared--that he must keep it with all his power of secrecy: the honour both of father and of mother is at stake. In order to do so, he must begin by putting on himself a cloak of darkness, and hiding his feelings--first of all the present agitation which threatens to overpower him. His immediate impulse or instinctive motion is to force an air, and throw a veil of grimmest humour over the occurrence. The agitation of the horror at his heart, ever working and constantly repressed, shows through the veil, and gives an excited uncertainty to his words, and a wild vacillation to his manner and behaviour.]

[Page 58]

Both. I, by Heau'n, my Lord.[1]

Ham. There's nere a villaine dwelling in all Denmarke But hee's an arrant knaue.

Hor. There needs no Ghost my Lord, come from the Graue, to tell vs this.

Hor. There's no offence my Lord.

Ham. Yes, by Saint Patricke, but there is my Lord,[6]

And much offence too, touching this Vision heere;[7] [Sidenote: 136] It is an honest Ghost, that let me tell you:[8] For your desire to know what is betweene vs, O'remaster't as you may. And now good friends, As you are Friends, Schollers and Soldiers, Giue me one poore request.

Hor. What is't my Lord? we will.

Ham. Neuer make known what you haue seen to night.[9]

Both. My Lord, we will not.

Ham. Nay, but swear't.

Hor. Infaith my Lord, not I.[10]

Mar. Nor I my Lord: in faith.

Ham. Vpon my sword.[11]

[Footnote 1: Q. has not 'my Lord.']

[Footnote 2: Here shows the philosopher.]

[Footnote 3: Q. has not 'Looke you.']

[Footnote 4: '--nothing else is left me.' This seems to me one of the finest touches in the revelation of Hamlet.]

[Footnote 5: 1st Q. 'wherling'.]

[Footnote 6: I take the change from the Quarto here to be no blunder.]

[Footnote 7: Point thus: 'too!--Touching.']

[Footnote 8: The struggle to command himself is plain throughout.]

[Footnote 9: He could not endure the thought of the resulting gossip;--which besides would interfere with, possibly frustrate, the carrying out of his part.]

[Footnote 10: This is not a refusal to swear; it is the oath itself: '_In faith I will not_!']

[Footnote 11: He would have them swear on the cross-hilt of his sword.]

[Page 60]

Marcell. We haue sworne my Lord already.[1]

Ham. Indeed, vpon my sword, Indeed.

Gho. Sweare.[2] _Ghost cries vnder the Stage._[3]

Ham. Ah ha boy, sayest thou so. Art thou [Sidenote: Ha, ha,]
there truepenny?[4] Come one you here this fellow
[Sidenote: Come on, you heare]
in the selleredge
Consent to sweare.

Hor. Propose the Oath my Lord.[5]

Ham. Neuer to speake of this that you haue seene. Sweare by my sword.

Gho. Sweare.

Ham. Hic & vbique? Then wee'l shift for grownd, [Sidenote: shift our] Come hither Gentlemen,
And lay your hands againe vpon my sword, Neuer to speake of this that you haue heard:[6] Sweare by my Sword.

Gho. Sweare.[7] [Sidenote: Sweare by his sword.]

Ham. Well said old Mole, can'st worke i'th' ground so fast?

A worthy Pioner, once more remoue good friends.

Hor. Oh day and night: but this is wondrous strange.

Ham. And therefore as a stranger giue it welcome.

There are more things in Heauen and Earth, Horatio,
Then are dream't of in our Philosophy But come, [Sidenote: in your]
Here as before, neuer so helpe you mercy,
How strange or odde so ere I beare my selfe; [Sidenote: How | so mere]
(As I perchance heereafter shall thinke meet [Sidenote: As]
[Sidenote: 136, 156, 178] To put an Anticke disposition on:)[8]
[Sidenote: on]
That you at such time seeing me, neuer shall [Sidenote: times]
With Armes encombred thus, or thus, head shake;
[Sidenote: or this head]

[Footnote 1: He feels his honour touched.]

[Footnote 2: The Ghost's interference heightens Hamlet's agitation. If he does not talk, laugh, jest, it will overcome him. Also he must not show that he believes it his father's ghost: that must be kept to himself--for the present at least. He shows it therefore no respect--treats the whole thing humorously, so avoiding, or at least parrying question. It is all he can do to keep the mastery of himself, dodging horror with half-forced, half-hysterical laughter. Yet is he all the time intellectually on the alert. See how, instantly active, he makes use of the voice from beneath to enforce his requisition of silence. Very speedily too he grows quiet: a glimmer of light as to the course of action necessary to him has begun to break upon him: it breaks from his own wild and disjointed behaviour in the attempt to hide the conflict of his feelings--which suggests to him the idea of shrouding himself, as did David at the court of the Philistines, in the cloak of madness: thereby protected from the full force of what suspicion any absorption of manner or outburst of feeling must occasion, he may win time to lay his plans. Note how, in the midst of his horror, he is yet able to think, plan, resolve.]

[Footnote 3: 1st Q. 'The Gost under the stage.']

[Footnote 4: While Hamlet seems to take it so coolly, the others have fled in terror from the spot. He goes to them. Their fear must be what, on the two occasions after, makes him shift to another place when the Ghost speaks.]

[Footnote 5: Now at once he consents.]

[Footnote 6: In the Quarto this and the next line are transposed.]

[Footnote 7: What idea is involved as the cause of the Ghost's thus interfering?--That he too sees what difficulties must encompass the carrying out of his behest, and what absolute secrecy is thereto essential.]

[Footnote 8: This idea, hardly yet a resolve, he afterwards carries out so well, that he deceives not only king and queen and court, but the most of his critics ever since: to this day they believe him mad. Such must have studied in the play a phantom of their own misconception, and can never have seen the Hamlet of Shakspere. Thus prejudiced, they mistake also the effects of moral and spiritual perturbation and misery for further sign of intellectual disorder--even for proof of moral weakness, placing them in the same category with the symptoms of the insanity which he simulates, and by which they are deluded.]

[Page 62]

Or by pronouncing of some doubtfull Phrase; As well, we know, or we could and if we would,

Ghost. Sweare.[2]

Ham. Rest, rest perturbed Spirit[3]: so Gentlemen, With all my loue I doe commend me to you; And what so poore a man as Hamlet is, May doe t'expresse his loue and friending to you, God willing shall not lacke: let vs goe in together, And still your fingers on your lippes I pray, The time is out of ioynt: Oh cursed spight,[4]

[Sidenote: 126] That euer I was borne to set it right.
Nay, come let's goe together.         _Exeunt._[5]

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