The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 49

Surely there is not another writer whose words would so often admit of such multiform and varied interpretation--each form good, and true, and suitable to the context! He seems to see at once all the relations of a thing, and to try to convey them at once, in an utterance single as the thing itself. He would condense the infinite soul of the meaning into the trembling, overtaxed body of the phrase!]

[Footnote 13: In the renewed presence of the Ghost, all its former influence and all the former conviction of its truth, return upon him.

He knows also how his behaviour must appear to the Ghost, and sees himself as the Ghost sees him. Confronted with the gracious figure, how should he think of self-justification! So far from being able to explain things, he even forgets the doubt that had held him back--it has vanished from the n.o.ble presence! He is now in the world of belief; the world of doubt is nowhere!--Note the masterly opposition of moods.]

[Page 174]

_Ghost._ Do not forget: this Visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.[1]

But looke, Amazement on thy Mother sits;[2]

[Sidenote: 30, 54] O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule,[3]

[Sidenote: 198] Conceit[4] in weakest bodies, strongest workes.

Speake to her _Hamlet_.[5]

_Ham._ How is it with you Lady?[6]

_Qu._ Alas, how is't with you? [Sidenote: _Ger._]

That you bend your eye on vacancie, [Sidenote: you do bend]

And with their corporall ayre do hold discourse.

[Sidenote: with th'incorporall ayre]

Forth at your eyes, your spirits wildely peepe, And as the sleeping Soldiours in th'Alarme, Your bedded haire, like life in excrements,[7]

Start vp, and stand an end.[8] Oh gentle Sonne, Vpon the heate and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle coole patience. Whereon do you looke?[9]

_Ham._ On him, on him: look you how pale he glares, His forme and cause conioyn'd, preaching to stones, Would make them capeable.[10] Do not looke vpon me,[11]

Least with this pitteous action you conuert My sterne effects: then what I haue to do,[12]

[Sidenote: 111] Will want true colour; teares perchance for blood.[13]

_Qu._ To who do you speake this? [Sidenote: _Ger._ To whom]

_Ham._ Do you see nothing there?

_Qu._ Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.[14] [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ Nor did you nothing heare?

_Qu._ No, nothing but our selues. [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ Why look you there: looke how it steals away: [Sidenote: 173] My Father in his habite, as he liued, Looke where he goes euen now out at the Portall.

_Exit._ [Sidenote: _Exit Ghost._]

[Sidenote: 114] _Qu._ This is the very coynage of your Braine, [Sidenote: _Ger._]

[Footnote 1: The Ghost here judges, as alone is possible to him, from what he knows--from the fact that his brother Claudius has not yet made his appearance in the ghost-world. Not understanding Hamlet's difficulties, he mistakes Hamlet himself.]

[Footnote 2: He mistakes also, through his tenderness, the condition of his wife--imagining, it would seem, that she feels his presence, though she cannot see him, or recognize the source of the influence which he supposes to be moving her conscience: she is only perturbed by Hamlet's behaviour.]

[Footnote 3: --fighting within itself, as the sea in a storm may be said to fight.

He is careful as ever over the wife he had loved and loves still; careful no less of the behaviour of the son to his mother.

In the _1st Q._ we have:--

But I perceiue by thy distracted lookes, Thy mother's fearefull, and she stands amazde: Speake to her Hamlet, for her s.e.x is weake, Comfort thy mother, Hamlet, thinke on me.]

[Footnote 4: --not used here for bare _imagination_, but imagination with its concomitant feeling:--_conception_. 198.]

[Footnote 5: His last word ere he vanishes utterly, concerns his queen; he is tender and gracious still to her who sent him to h.e.l.l. This att.i.tude of the Ghost towards his faithless wife, is one of the profoundest things in the play. All the time she is not thinking of him any more than seeing him--for 'is he not dead!'--is looking straight at where he stands, but is all unaware of him.]

[Footnote 6: I understand him to speak this with a kind of lost, mechanical obedience. The description his mother gives of him makes it seem as if the Ghost were drawing his ghost out to himself, and turning his body thereby half dead.]

[Footnote 7: 'as if there were life in excrements.' The nails and hair were 'excrements'--things _growing out_.]

[Footnote 8: Note the form _an end_--not _on end_. 51, 71.]

[Footnote 9: --all spoken coaxingly, as to one in a mad fit. She regards his perturbation as a sudden a.s.sault of his ever present malady. One who sees what others cannot see they are always ready to count mad.]

[Footnote 10: able to _take_, that is, to _understand_.]

[Footnote 11: --_to the Ghost_.]

[Footnote 12: 'what is in my power to do.']

[Footnote 13: Note ant.i.thesis here: '_your piteous action_;' '_my stern effects_'--the things, that is, 'which I have to effect.' 'Lest your piteous show convert--change--my stern doing; then what I do will lack true colour; the result may be tears instead of blood; I shall weep instead of striking.']

[Footnote 14: It is one of the constantly recurring delusions of humanity that we see all there is.]

[Page 176]

[Sidenote: 114] This bodilesse Creation extasie[1] is very cunning in.[2]

_Ham._ Extasie?[3]

My Pulse as yours doth temperately keepe time, And makes as healthfull Musicke.[4] It is not madnesse That I haue vttered; bring me to the Test And I the matter will re-word: which madnesse [Sidenote: And the]

Would gamboll from. Mother, for loue of Grace, Lay not a flattering Vnction to your soule, [Sidenote: not that flattering]

That not your trespa.s.se, but my madnesse speakes: [Sidenote: 182] It will but skin and filme the Vlcerous place, Whil'st ranke Corruption mining all within, [Sidenote: whiles]

Infects vnseene, Confesse your selfe to Heauen, Repent what's past, auoyd what is to come, And do not spred the Compost or the Weedes, [Sidenote: compost on the]

To make them ranke. Forgiue me this my Vertue, [Sidenote: ranker,]

For in the fatnesse of this pursie[5] times, [Sidenote: these]

Vertue it selfe, of Vice must pardon begge, Yea courb,[6] and woe, for leaue to do him good.

[Sidenote: curbe and wooe]

_Qu._ Oh Hamlet, [Sidenote: _Ger._]

Thou hast cleft my heart in twaine.

_Ham._ O throw away the worser part of it, And Liue the purer with the other halfe. [Sidenote: And leaue the]

Good night, but go not to mine Vnkles bed, [Sidenote: my]

a.s.sume a Vertue, if you haue it not,[7][A] refraine to night [Sidenote: a.s.sune to refraine night,]

And that shall lend a kinde of easinesse

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

[8]That monster custome, who all sence doth eate Of habits deuill,[9] is angell yet in this That to the vse of actions faire and good, He likewise giues a frock or Liuery That aptly is put on]