The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 55

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

_Enter Hamlet, Rosencraus, &c._

_Ham_. Good sir whose powers are these?

_Cap_. They are of _Norway_ sir.

_Ham_. How purposd sir I pray you?

_Cap_. Against some part of _Poland_.

_Ham_. Who commaunds them sir?

_Cap_. The Nephew to old _Norway, Fortenbra.s.se_.

_Ham_. Goes it against the maine of _Poland_ sir, Or for some frontire?

_Cap_. Truly to speake, and with no addition,[6]

We goe to gaine a little patch of ground[7]

That hath in it no profit but the name To pay fiue duckets, fiue I would not farme it; Nor will it yeeld to _Norway_ or the _Pole_ A rancker rate, should it be sold in fee.

_Ham_. Why then the Pollacke neuer will defend it.

_Cap_. Yes, it is already garisond.

_Ham_. Two thousand soules, and twenty thousand duckets Will not debate the question of this straw This is th'Impostume of much wealth and peace, That inward breakes, and showes no cause without Why the man dies.[8] I humbly thanke you sir.

_Cap_. G.o.d buy you sir.

_Ros_. Wil't please you goe my Lord?

[Sidenote: 187, 195] _Ham_. Ile be with you straight, goe a little before.[9]

[10]How all occasions[11] doe informe against me,

[Continued on next text page.]]

[Footnote 1: 'we shall pay our respects, waiting upon his person.']

[Footnote 2: 'let,' _imperative mood_.]

[Footnote 3: 'with proper precaution,' _said to his attendant officers._]

[Footnote 4: This was originally intended, I repeat, for the commencement of the act. But when the greater part of the foregoing scene was omitted, and the third act made to end with the scene before that, then the small part left of the all-but-cancelled scene must open the fourth act.]

[Footnote 5: Hamlet absent, we find his friend looking after Ophelia.

Gertrude seems less friendly towards her.]

[Footnote 6: exaggeration.]

[Footnote 7: --probably a small outlying island or coast-fortress, _not far off_, else why should Norway care about it at all? If the word _frontier_ has the meaning, as the _Shakespeare Lexicon_ says, of 'an outwork in fortification,' its use two lines back would, taken figuratively, tend to support this.]

[Footnote 8: The meaning may be as in the following paraphrase: 'This quarrelling about nothing is (the breaking of) the abscess caused by wealth and peace--which breaking inward (in general corruption), would show no outward sore in sign of why death came.' Or it might be _forced_ thus:--

This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace.

That (which) inward breaks, and shows no cause without-- Why, the man dies!

But it may mean:--'The war is an imposthume, which will break within, and cause much affliction to the people that make the war.' On the other hand, Hamlet seems to regard it as a process for, almost a sign of health.]

[Footnote 9: Note his freedom.]

[Footnote 10: _See_ 'examples grosse as earth' _below_.]

[Footnote 11: While every word that Shakspere wrote we may well take pains to grasp thoroughly, my endeavour to cast light on this pa.s.sage is made with the distinct understanding in my own mind that the author himself disapproved of and omitted it, and that good reason is not wanting why he should have done so. At the same time, if my student, for this book is for those who would have help and will take pains to the true understanding of the play, would yet retain the pa.s.sage, I protest against the acceptance of Hamlet's judgment of himself, except as revealing the simplicity and humility of his nature and character. That as often as a vivid memory of either interview with the Ghost came back upon him, he should feel rebuked and ashamed, and vexed with himself, is, in the morally, intellectually, and emotionally troubled state of his mind, nowise the less natural that he had the best of reasons for the delay because of which he _here_ so unmercifully abuses himself. A man of self-satisfied temperament would never in similar circ.u.mstances have done so. But Hamlet was, by nature and education, far from such self-satisfaction; and there is in him besides such a strife and turmoil of opposing pa.s.sions and feelings and apparent duties, as can but rarely rise in a human soul. With which he ought to side, his conscience is not sure--sides therefore now with one, now with another. At the same time it is by no means the long delay the critics imagine of which he is accusing himself--it is only that the thing _is not done_.

In certain moods the action a man dislikes will _therefore_ look to him the more like a duty; and this helps to prevent Hamlet from knowing always how great a part conscience bears in the omission because of which he condemns and even contemns himself. The conscience does not naturally examine itself--is not necessarily self-conscious. In any soliloquy, a man must speak from his present mood: we who are not suffering, and who have many of his moods before us, ought to understand Hamlet better than he understands himself. To himself, sitting in judgment on himself, it would hardly appear a decent cause of, not to say reason for, a moment's delay in punis.h.i.+ng his uncle, that he was so weighed down with misery because of his mother and Ophelia, that it seemed of no use to kill one villain out of the villainous world; it would seem but 'b.e.s.t.i.a.l oblivion'; and, although his reputation as a prince was deeply concerned, _any_ reflection on the consequences to himself would at times appear but a 'craven scruple'; while at times even the whispers of conscience might seem a 'thinking too precisely on the event.' A conscientious man of changeful mood wilt be very ready in either mood to condemn the other. The best and rightest men will sometimes accuse themselves in a manner that seems to those who know them best, unfounded, unreasonable, almost absurd. We must not, I say, take the hero's judgment of himself as the author's judgment of him. The two judgments, that of a man upon himself from within, and that of his beholder upon him from without, are not congeneric. They are different in origin and in kind, and cannot be adopted either of them into the source of the other without most serious and dangerous mistake. So adopted, each becomes another thing altogether. It is to me probable that, although it involves other unfitnesses, the Poet omitted the pa.s.sage chiefly from coming to see the danger of its giving occasion, or at least support, to an altogether mistaken and unjust idea of his Hamlet.]

[Page 194]

There's trickes i'th'world, and hems, and beats her heart, Spurnes enuiously at Strawes,[1] speakes things in doubt,[2]

That carry but halfe sense: Her speech is nothing,[3]

Yet the vnshaped vse of it[4] doth moue The hearers to Collection[5]; they ayme[6] at it, [Sidenote: they yawne at]

And botch the words[7] vp fit to their owne thoughts

[_Continuation of quote from Quarto from previous text page_:--

And spur my dull reuenge. [8]What is a man If his chiefe good and market of his time Be but to sleepe and feede, a beast, no more; Sure he that made vs with such large discourse[9]

Looking before and after, gaue vs not That capabilitie and G.o.d-like reason To fust in vs vnvsd,[8] now whether it be [Sidenote: 52, 120] b.e.s.t.i.a.ll obliuion,[10] or some crauen scruple Of thinking too precisely on th'euent,[11]

A thought which quarterd hath but one part wisedom, And euer three parts coward, I doe not know Why yet I liue to say this thing's to doe, Sith I haue cause, and will, and strength, and meanes To doo't;[12] examples grosse as earth exhort me, Witnes this Army of such ma.s.se and charge, [Sidenote: 235] Led by a delicate and tender Prince, Whose spirit with diuine ambition puft, Makes mouthes at the invisible euent, [Sidenote: 120] Exposing what is mortall, and vnsure, To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,[13]

Euen for an Egge-sh.e.l.l. Rightly to be great, Is not to stirre without great argument, But greatly to find quarrell in a straw When honour's at the stake, how stand I then That haue a father kild, a mother staind, Excytements of my reason, and my blood, And let all sleepe,[14] while to my shame I see The iminent death of twenty thousand men, That for a fantasie and tricke[15] of fame Goe to their graues like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,[16]

Which is not tombe enough and continent[17]

To hide the slaine,[18] o from this time forth, My thoughts be b.l.o.o.d.y, or be nothing worth.[19] _Exit._]

[Footnote 1: trifles.]

[Footnote 2: doubtfully.]

[Footnote 3: 'there is nothing in her speech.']

[Footnote 4: 'the formless mode of it.']

[Footnote 5: 'to gathering things and putting them together.']

[Footnote 6: guess.]

[Footnote 7: Ophelia's words.]