The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 11

I was inclined to take _Prodigall_ for a noun, a proper name or epithet given to the soul, as in a moral play: _Prodigall, the soul_; but I conclude it only an adjective used as an adverb, and the capital P a blunder.]

[Footnote 3: --in both light and heat.]

[Footnote 4: The _Quarto_ has not 'Daughter.']

[Footnote 5: _To be entreated_ is _to yield_: 'he would nowise be entreated:' _entreatments, yieldings_: 'you are not to see him just because he chooses to command a parley.']

[Footnote 6: 'In few words'; in brief.]

[Footnote 7: I suspect a misprint in the Folio here--that an _e_ has got in for a _d_, and that the change from the _Quarto_ should be _Not of the dye_. Then the line would mean, using the antecedent word _brokers_ in the bad sense, 'Not themselves of the same colour as their garments (_investments_); his vows are clothed in innocence, but are not innocent; they are mere panders.' The pa.s.sage is rendered yet more obscure to the modern sense by the accidental propinquity of _bonds, brokers_, and _investments_--which have nothing to do with _stocks_.]

[Footnote 8: 'This means in sum:'.]

[Footnote 9: 'so slander any moment with the name of leisure as to': to call it leisure, if leisure stood for talk with Hamlet, would be to slander the time. We might say, 'so slander any man friend as to expect him to do this or that unworthy thing for you.']

[Footnote 10: _1st Q_.

_Ofelia_, receiue none of his letters, For louers lines are snares to intrap the heart; [Sidenote: 82] Refuse his tokens, both of them are keyes To vnlocke Chast.i.tie vnto Desire; Come in _Ofelia_; such men often proue, Great in their wordes, but little in their loue.

'_men often prove such_--great &c.'--Compare _Twelfth Night_, act ii.

sc. 4, lines 120, 121, _Globe ed.]

[Footnote 11: Fresh trouble for Hamlet_.]

[Footnote 12: _1st Q._

The ayre bites shrewd; it is an eager and An nipping winde, what houre i'st?]

[Footnote 13: Again the cold.]

[Footnote 14: The stage-direction of the _Q_. is necessary here.]

[Page 44]

[Sidenote: 22, 25] _Ham_. The King doth wake to night, and takes his rouse, Keepes wa.s.sels and the swaggering vpspring reeles,[1]

[Sidenote: wa.s.sell up-spring]

And as he dreines his draughts of Renish downe, The kettle Drum and Trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his Pledge.

_Horat_. Is it a custome?

_Ham_. I marry ist; And to my mind, though I am natiue heere, [Sidenote: But to]

And to the manner borne: It is a Custome More honour'd in the breach, then the obseruance.

[A]

_Enter Ghost._

_Hor_. Looke my Lord, it comes.

[Sidenote: 172] _Ham_. Angels and Ministers of Grace defend vs: [Sidenote: 32] Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin d.a.m.n'd, Bring with thee ayres from Heauen, or blasts from h.e.l.l,[2]

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:--_

This heauy headed reueale east and west[3]

Makes vs tradust, and taxed of other nations, They clip[4] vs drunkards, and with Swinish phrase Soyle our addition,[5] and indeede it takes From our atchieuements, though perform'd at height[6]

The pith and marrow of our attribute, So oft it chaunces in particuler men,[7]

That for some vicious mole[8] of nature in them As in their birth wherein they are not guilty,[8]

(Since nature cannot choose his origin) By their ore-grow'th of some complextion[10]

Oft breaking downe the pales and forts of reason Or by[11] some habit, that too much ore-leauens The forme of plausiue[12] manners, that[13] these men Carrying I say the stamp of one defect Being Natures liuery, or Fortunes starre,[14]

His[15] vertues els[16] be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may vndergoe,[17]

Shall in the generall censure[18] take corruption From that particuler fault:[19] the dram of eale[20]

Doth all the n.o.ble substance of a doubt[21]

To his[22] owne scandle.]

[Footnote 1: Does Hamlet here call his uncle an _upspring_, an _upstart_? or is the _upspring_ a dance, the English equivalent of 'the high _lavolt_' of _Troil. and Cress_. iv. 4, and governed by _reels_--'keeps wa.s.sels, and reels the swaggering upspring'--a dance that needed all the steadiness as well as agility available, if, as I suspect, it was that in which each gentleman lifted the lady high, and kissed her before setting her down? I cannot answer, I can only put the question. The word _swaggering_ makes me lean to the former interpretation.]

[Footnote 2: Observe again Hamlet's uncertainty. He does not take it for granted that it is _his father's_ spirit, though it is plainly his form.]

[Footnote 3: The Quarto surely came too early for this pa.s.sage to have been suggested by the shameful habits which invaded the court through the example of Anne of Denmark! Perhaps Shakspere cancelled it both because he would not have it supposed he had meant to reflect on the queen, and because he came to think it too diffuse.]

[Footnote 4: clepe, _call_.]

[Footnote 5: Same as _attribute_, two lines lower--the thing imputed to, or added to us--our reputation, our t.i.tle or epithet.]

[Footnote 6: performed to perfection.]

[Footnote 7: individuals.]

[Footnote 8: A mole on the body, according to the place where it appeared, was regarded as significant of character: in that relation, a _vicious mole_ would be one that indicated some special vice; but here the allusion is to a live mole of const.i.tutional fault, burrowing within, whose presence the mole-_heap_ on the skin indicates.]

[Footnote 9: The order here would be: 'for some vicious mole of nature in them, as by their o'er-growth, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty, since nature cannot choose his origin (or parentage)--their o'ergrowth of (their being overgrown or possessed by) some complexion, &c.']

[Footnote 10: _Complexion_, as the exponent of the _temperament_, or masterful tendency of the nature, stands here for _temperament_--'oft breaking down &c.' Both words have in them the element of _mingling_--a mingling to certain results.]

[Footnote 11: The connection is:

That for some vicious mole-- As by their o'ergrowth-- Or by some habit, &c.]

[Footnote 12: pleasing.]

[Footnote 13: Repeat from above '--so oft it chaunces,' before 'that these men.']

[Footnote 14: 'whether the thing come by Nature or by Destiny,'

_Fortune's star_: the mark set on a man by fortune to prove her share in him. 83.]

[Footnote 15: A change to the singular.]

[Footnote l6: 'be his virtues besides as pure &c.']

[Footnote 17: _walk under; carry_.]