The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 39

[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, pa.s.sionate loathing; his mother has compelled him to think of horrors and women together, so turning their preciousness into a disgust; and this feeling, his a.s.sumed 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.]

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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 pa.s.sionate [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 p.r.o.nunciation _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 n.o.body;' 'put yourself in the corner.']

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_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 quant.i.tie, [Sidenote: And womens hold]

In neither ought, or in extremity:[7]

[Sidenote: Eyther none, in neither]