Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher Part 21

"The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns."

Theobald's note in defence of the supposed contradiction of this in the apparition of the Ghost.

O miserable defender! If it be necessary to remove the apparent contradiction,-if it be not rather a great beauty,-surely, it were easy to say, that no traveller returns to this world, as to his home, or abiding-place.

_Ib._-

"_Ham._ Ha, ha! are you honest?

_Oph._ My lord?

_Ham._ Are you fair?"

Here it is evident that the penetrating Hamlet perceives, from the strange and forced manner of Ophelia, that the sweet girl was not acting a part of her own, but was a decoy; and his after speeches are not so much directed to her as to the listeners and spies. Such a discovery in a mood so anxious and irritable accounts for a certain harshness in him;-and yet a wild up-working of love, sporting with opposites in a wilful self-tormenting strain of irony, is perceptible throughout. "I did love you once:"-"I lov'd you not:"-and particularly in his enumeration of the faults of the s.e.x from which Ophelia is so free, that the mere freedom therefrom const.i.tutes her character. Note Shakespeare's charm of composing the female character by the absence of characters, that is, marks and out-juttings.

_Ib._ Hamlet's speech:-

"I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live: the rest shall keep as they are."

Observe this dallying with the inward purpose, characteristic of one who had not brought his mind to the steady acting point. He would fain sting the uncle's mind;-but to stab his body!-The soliloquy of Ophelia, which follows, is the perfection of love-so exquisitely unselfis.h.!.+

_Ib._ sc. 2. This dialogue of Hamlet with the players is one of the happiest instances of Shakespeare's power of diversifying the scene while he is carrying on the plot.

_Ib._-

"_Ham._ My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?"

(_To Polonius._)

To have kept Hamlet's love for Ophelia before the audience in any direct form, would have made a breach in the unity of the interest;-but yet to the thoughtful reader it is suggested by his spite to poor Polonius, whom he cannot let rest.

_Ib._ The style of the interlude here is distinguished from the real dialogue by rhyme, as in the first interview with the players by epic verse.

_Ib._-

"_Ros._ My lord, you once did love me.

_Ham._ _So_ I do still, by these pickers and stealers."

I never heard an actor give this word "so" its proper emphasis.

Shakespeare's meaning is-"lov'd you? Hum!-_so_ I do still," &c. There has been no change in my opinion:-I think as ill of you as I did. Else Hamlet tells an ign.o.ble falsehood, and a useless one, as the last speech to Guildenstern-"Why look you now," &c.-proves.

_Ib._ Hamlet's soliloquy:-

"Now could I drink hot blood, And do such business as the bitter day Would quake to look on."

The utmost at which Hamlet arrives, is a disposition, a mood, to do something:-but what to do, is still left undecided, while every word he utters tends to betray his disguise. Yet observe how perfectly equal to any call of the moment is Hamlet, let it only not be for the future.

_Ib._ sc. 3. Speech of Polonius. Polonius's volunteer obtrusion of himself into this business, while it is appropriate to his character, still itching after former importance, removes all likelihood that Hamlet should suspect his presence, and prevents us from making his death injure Hamlet in our opinion.

_Ib._ The king's speech:-

"O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven," &c.

This speech well marks the difference between crime and guilt of habit.

The conscience here is still admitted to audience. Nay, even as an audible soliloquy, it is far less improbable than is supposed by such as have watched men only in the beaten road of their feelings. But the final-"all may be well!" is remarkable;-the degree of merit attributed by the self-flattering soul to its own struggle, though baffled, and to the indefinite half-promise, half-command, to persevere in religious duties.

The solution is in the divine _medium_ of the Christian doctrine of expiation:-not what you have done, but what you are, must determine.

_Ib._ Hamlet's speech:-

"Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying: And now I'll do't:-And so he goes to heaven: And so am I revenged? That would be scann'd," &c.

Dr. Johnson's mistaking of the marks of reluctance and procrastination for impetuous, horror-striking, fiendishness!-Of such importance is it to understand the germ of a character. But the interval taken by Hamlet's speech is truly awful! And then-

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go."

O what a lesson concerning the essential difference between wis.h.i.+ng and willing, and the folly of all motive-mongering, while the individual self remains!

_Ib._ sc. 4.-

"_Ham._ A b.l.o.o.d.y deed;-almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

_Queen._ As kill a king?"

I confess that Shakespeare has left the character of the Queen in an unpleasant perplexity. Was she, or was she not, conscious of the fratricide?

Act iv. sc. 2.-

"_Ros._ Take you me for a spunge, my lord?

_Ham._ Ay, Sir; that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards, his authorities," &c.

Hamlet's madness is made to consist in the free utterance of all the thoughts that had pa.s.sed through his mind before;-in fact, in telling home-truths.

Act iv. sc. 5. Ophelia's singing. O, note the conjunction here of these two thoughts that had never subsisted in disjunction, the love for Hamlet, and her filial love, with the guileless floating on the surface of her pure imagination of the cautions so lately expressed, and the fears not too delicately avowed, by her father and brother, concerning the dangers to which her honour lay exposed. Thought, affliction, pa.s.sion, murder itself-she turns to favour and prettiness. This play of a.s.sociation is instanced in the close:-

"My brother shall know of it, and I thank you for your good counsel."

_Ib._ Gentleman's speech:-

"And as the world were now but to begin Antiquity forgot, custom not known, The ratifiers and props of every word- They cry," &c.

Fearful and self-suspicious as I always feel, when I seem to see an error of judgment in Shakespeare, yet I cannot reconcile the cool, and, as Warburton calls it, "rational and consequential," reflection in these lines with the anonymousness, or the alarm, of this Gentleman or Messenger, as he is called in other editions.

_Ib._ King's speech:-