The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 16

[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 s.h.i.+ft for grownd, [Sidenote: s.h.i.+ft 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?

[Sidenote: it'h' earth]

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 s.h.i.+ft 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 encompa.s.s 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 p.r.o.nouncing of some doubtfull Phrase; As well, we know, or we could and if we would, [Sidenote: As well, well, we]

Or if we list to speake; or there be and if there might, [Sidenote: if they might]

Or such ambiguous giuing out to note, [Sidenote: note]

That you know ought of me; this not to doe: [Sidenote: me, this doe sweare,]

So grace and mercy at your most neede helpe you: Sweare.[1]

_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, G.o.d 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]

SUMMARY OF ACT I.

This much of Hamlet we have now learned: he is a thoughtful man, a genuine student, little acquainted with the world save through books, and a lover of his kind. His university life at Wittenberg is suddenly interrupted by a call to the funeral of his father, whom he dearly loves and honours. Ere he reaches Denmark, his uncle Claudius has contrived, in an election (202, 250, 272) probably hastened and secretly influenced, to gain the voice of the representatives at least of the people, and ascend the throne. Hence his position must have been an irksome one from the first; but, within a month of his father's death, his mother's marriage with his uncle--a relation universally regarded as incestuous--plunges him in the deepest misery. The play introduces him at the first court held after the wedding. He is attired in the mourning of his father's funeral, which he had not laid aside for the wedding.

His aspect is of absolute dejection, and he appears in a company for which he is so unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave the court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.[A] Left to himself, he breaks out in agonized and indignant lamentation over his mother's conduct, dwelling mainly on her disregard of his father's memory. Her conduct and his partial discovery of her character, is the sole cause of his misery. In such his mood, Horatio, a fellow-student, brings him word that his father's spirit walks at night. He watches for the Ghost, and receives from him a frightful report of his present condition, into which, he tells him, he was cast by the murderous hand of his brother, with whom his wife had been guilty of adultery. He enjoins him to put a stop to the crime in which they are now living, by taking vengeance on his uncle. Uncertain at the moment how to act, and dreading the consequences of rousing suspicion by the perturbation which he could not but betray, he grasps at the sudden idea of affecting madness. We have learned also Hamlet's relation to Ophelia, the daughter of the selfish, prating, busy Polonius, who, with his son Laertes, is destined to work out the earthly fate of Hamlet. Of Laertes, as yet, we only know that he prates like his father, is self-confident, and was educated at Paris, whither he has returned. Of Ophelia we know nothing but that she is gentle, and that she is fond of Hamlet, whose attentions she has encouraged, but with whom, upon her father's severe remonstrance, she is ready, outwardly at least, to break.