The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 62

Hamlet.[13]

What should this meane? Are all the rest come backe?

[Sidenote: _King_. What]

[Footnote 1: 'would convert his fetters--if I imprisoned him--to graces, commending him yet more to their regard.']

[Footnote 2: _arm'd_ is certainly the right, and a true Shaksperean word:--it was no fault in the aim, but in the force of the flight--no matter of the eye, but of the arm, which could not give momentum enough to such slightly timbered arrows. The fault in the construction of the last line, I need not remark upon.

I think there is a hint of this the genuine meaning even in the blundered and partly unintelligible reading of the _Quarto_. If we leave out 'for so loued,' we have this: 'So that my arrows, too slightly timbered, would have reverted armed to my bow again, but not (_would not have gone_) where I have aimed them,'--implying that his arrows would have turned their armed heads against himself.

What the king says here is true, but far from _the_ truth: he feared driving Hamlet, and giving him at the same time opportunity, to speak in his own defence and render his reasons.]

[Footnote 3: _extremes_? or _conditions_?]

[Footnote 4: 'With many a tempest hadde his berd ben schake.'--_Chaucer_, of the Schipman, in _The Prologue_ to _The Canterbury Tales_.]

[Footnote 5: --hear of Hamlet's death in England, he means.

At this point in the _1st Q._ comes a scene between Horatio and the queen, in which he informs her of a letter he had just received from Hamlet,

Whereas he writes how he escap't the danger, And subtle treason that the king had plotted, Being crossed by the contention of the windes, He found the Packet &c.

Horatio does not mention the pirates, but speaks of Hamlet 'being set ash.o.r.e,' and of _Gilderstone_ and _Rossencraft_ going on to their fate.

The queen a.s.sures Horatio that she is but temporizing with the king, and shows herself anxious for the success of her son's design against his life. The Poet's intent was not yet clear to himself.]

[Footnote 6: Here his crow cracks.]

[Footnote 7: _From_ 'How now' _to_ 'Hamlet' is _not in Q._]

[Footnote 8: Horatio has given the sailors' letters to Claudio, he to another.]

[Footnote 9: He wants to show him that he has nothing behind--that he is open with him: he will read without having pre-read.]

[Footnote 10: _Not in Q._]

[Footnote 11: He makes this request for an interview with the intent of killing him. The king takes care he does not have it.]

[Footnote 12: '_more strange than sudden_.']

[Footnote 13: _Not in Q._]

[Page 216]

Or is it some abuse?[1] Or no such thing?[2]

[Sidenote: abuse, and no[2]]

_Laer_. Know you the hand?[3]

_Kin_. 'Tis _Hamlets_ Character, naked and in a Postscript here he sayes alone:[4] Can you aduise [Sidenote: deuise me?]

me?[5]

_Laer_. I'm lost in it my Lord; but let him come, [Sidenote: I am]

It warmes the very sicknesse in my heart, That I shall liue and tell him to his teeth; [Sidenote: That I liue and]

Thus diddest thou. [Sidenote: didst]

_Kin_. If it be so _Laertes_, as how should it be so:[6]

How otherwise will you be rul'd by me?

_Laer_. If so[7] you'l not o'rerule me to a peace.

[Sidenote: I my Lord, so you will not]

_Kin_. To thine owne peace: if he be now return'd, [Sidenote: 195] As checking[8] at his Voyage, and that he meanes [Sidenote: As the King[8] at his]

No more to vndertake it; I will worke him To an exployt now ripe in my Deuice, [Sidenote: deuise,]

Vnder the which he shall not choose but fall; And for his death no winde of blame shall breath, [Sidenote: 221] But euen his Mother shall vncharge the practice,[9]

And call it accident: [A] Some two Monthes hence[10]

[Sidenote: two months since]

Here was a Gentleman of _Normandy_, I'ue seene my selfe, and seru'd against the French, [Sidenote: I haue]

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

_Laer_. My Lord I will be rul'd, The rather if you could deuise it so That I might be the organ.

_King_. It falls right, You haue beene talkt of since your trauaile[11] much, And that in _Hamlets_ hearing, for a qualitie Wherein they say you s.h.i.+ne, your summe of parts[12]

Did not together plucke such enuie from him As did that one, and that in my regard Of the vnworthiest siedge.[13]

_Laer_. What part is that my Lord?

_King_. A very ribaud[14] in the cap of youth, Yet needfull to, for youth no lesse becomes[15]

The light and carelesse liuery that it weares Then setled age, his sables, and his weedes[16]

Importing health[17] and grauenes;]

[Footnote 1: 'some trick played on me?' Compare _K. Lear_, act v. sc. 7: 'I am mightily abused.']

[Footnote 2: I incline to the _Q._ reading here: 'or is it some trick, and no reality in it?']

[Footnote 3: --following the king's suggestion.]

[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'Tis _Hamlets_ Character. 'Naked'!--And, in a Postscript here, he sayes 'alone'! Can &c.

'_Alone_'--to allay suspicion of his having brought a.s.sistance with him.]

[Footnote 5: Fine flattery--preparing the way for the instigation he is about to commence.]

[Footnote 6: _Point thus_: '--as how should it be so? how otherwise?--will' &c. The king cannot tell what to think--either how it can be, or how it might be otherwise--for here is Hamlet's own hand!]

[Footnote 7: provided.]

[Footnote 8: A hawk was said _to check_ when it forsook its proper game for some other bird that crossed its flight. The blunder in the _Quarto_ is odd, plainly from ma.n.u.script copy, and is not likely to have been set right by any but the author.]

[Footnote 9: 'shall not give the _practice'--artifice, cunning attempt, chicane_, or _trick_--but a word not necessarily offensive--'the name it deserves, but call it _accident_:' 221.]