The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 30

_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, G.o.d 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 Pa.s.sion, 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 _G.o.d 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 pa.s.sion.'

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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sion [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 d.a.m.n'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: b.l.o.o.d.y, baudy]

Remorselesse,[12] Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles[13] villaine!

Oh Vengeance![14]

Who? What an a.s.se am I? I sure, this is most braue, [Sidenote: Why what an a.s.se am I, this]

That I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered, [Sidenote: a deere]

Prompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and h.e.l.l, Must (like a Wh.o.r.e) 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_.]