The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 36

[Sidenote: unmatched]

_Exeunt_.

_Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players_.

[Sidenote: _and three_]

_Ham_.[7] Speake the Speech I pray you, as I p.r.o.nounc'd it to you trippingly[8] on the Tongue: But if you mouth it, as many of your Players do, [Sidenote: of our Players]

I had as liue[9] the Town-Cryer had spoke my [Sidenote: cryer spoke]

Lines:[10] Nor do not saw the Ayre too much your [Sidenote: much with]

hand thus, but vse all gently; for in the verie Torrent, Tempest, and (as I may say) the Whirlewinde [Sidenote: say, whirlwind]

of Pa.s.sion, you must acquire and beget a [Sidenote: of your]

Temperance that may giue it Smoothnesse.[11] O it offends mee to the Soule, to see a robustious Perywig-pated [Sidenote: to heare a]

Fellow, teare a Pa.s.sion to tatters, to [Sidenote: totters,]

verie ragges, to split the eares of the Groundlings:[12]

[Sidenote: spleet]

who (for the most part) are capeable[13] of nothing, but inexplicable dumbe shewes,[14] and noise:[15] I could haue such a Fellow whipt for o're-doing [Sidenote: would]

[Footnote 1: 'something of settled matter'--_idee fixe_.]

[Footnote 2: '_away from_ his own true likeness'; 'makes him so unlike himself.']

[Footnote 3: Polonius is crestfallen, but positive.]

[Footnote 4: This supports the notion of Ophelia's ignorance of the espial. Polonius thinks she is about to disclose what has pa.s.sed, and _informs_ her of its needlessness. But it _might_ well enough be taken as only an a.s.surance of the success of their listening--that they had heard without difficulty.]

[Footnote 5: 'If she do not find him out': a comparable phrase, common at the time, was, _Take me with you_, meaning, _Let me understand you_.

Polonius, for his daughter's sake, and his own in her, begs for him another chance.]

[Footnote 6: 'in the insignificant, madness may roam the country, but in the great it must be watched.' The _unmatcht_ of the _Quarto_ might bear the meaning of _countermatched_.]

[Footnote 7: I should suggest this exhortation to the Players introduced with the express purpose of showing how absolutely sane Hamlet was, could I believe that Shakspere saw the least danger of Hamlet's pretence being mistaken for reality.]

[Footnote 8: He would have neither blundering nor emphasis such as might rouse too soon the king's suspicion, or turn it into certainty.]

[Footnote 9: 'liue'--_lief_]

[Footnote 10: 1st Q.:--

I'de rather heare a towne bull bellow, Then such a fellow speake my lines.

_Lines_ is a player-word still.]

[Footnote 11: --smoothness such as belongs to the domain of Art, and will both save from absurdity, and allow the relations with surroundings to manifest themselves;--harmoniousness, which is the possibility of co-existence.]

[Footnote 12: those on the ground--that is, in the pit; there was no gallery then.]

[Footnote 13: _receptive_.]

[Footnote 14: --gestures extravagant and unintelligible as those of a dumb show that could not by the beholder be interpreted; gestures incorrespondent to the words.

A _dumb show_ was a stage-action without words.]

[Footnote 15: Speech that is little but rant, and scarce related to the sense, is hardly better than a noise; it might, for the purposes of art, as well be a sound inarticulate.]

[Page 132]

Termagant[1]: it out-Herod's Herod[2] Pray you auoid it.

_Player._ I warrant your Honor.

_Ham._ Be not too tame neyther: but let your owne Discretion be your Tutor. Sute the Action to the Word, the Word to the Action, with this speciall obseruance: That you ore-stop not the [Sidenote: ore-steppe]

modestie of Nature; for any thing so ouer-done, [Sidenote ore-doone]

is fro[3] the purpose of Playing, whose end both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twer the Mirrour vp to Nature; to shew Vertue her owne [Sidenote: her feature;]

Feature, Scorne[4] her owne Image, and the verie Age and Bodie of the Time, his forme and pressure.[5]

Now, this ouer-done, or come tardie off,[6] though it make the vnskilfull laugh, cannot but make the [Sidenote: it makes]

Iudicious greeue; The censure of the which One,[7]

[Sidenote: of which one]

must in your allowance[8] o're-way a whole Theater of Others. Oh, there bee Players that I haue scene Play, and heard others praise, and that highly [Sidenote: praysd,]

(not to speake it prophanely) that neyther hauing the accent of Christians, nor the gate of Christian, Pagan, or Norman, haue so strutted and bellowed, [Sidenote: Pagan, nor man, haue]

that I haue thought some of Natures Iouerney-men had made men, and not made them well, they imitated Humanity so abhominably.[9]

[Sidenote: 126] _Play._ I hope we haue reform'd that indifferently[10]

with vs, Sir.

_Ham._ O reforme it altogether. And let those that play your Clownes, speake no more then is set downe for them.[12] For there be of them, that will themselues laugh, to set on some quant.i.tie of barren Spectators to laugh too, though in the meane time, some necessary Question of the Play be then to be considered:[12] that's Villanous, and shewes a most pittifull Ambition in the Fool that vses it.[13] Go make you readie. _Exit Players_

[Footnote 1: 'An imaginary G.o.d of the Mahometans, represented as a most violent character in the old Miracle-plays and Moralities.'--_Sh. Lex._]

[Footnote 2: 'represented as a swaggering tyrant in the old dramatic performances.'--_Sh. Lex._]

[Footnote 3: _away from_: inconsistent with.]

[Footnote 4: --that which is deserving of scorn.]

[Footnote 5: _impression_, as on wax. Some would persuade us that Shakspere's own plays do not do this; but such critics take the _accidents_ or circ.u.mstances of a time for the _body_ of it--the clothes for the person. _Human_ nature is 'Nature,' however _dressed_.

There should be a comma after 'Age.']

[Footnote 6: 'laggingly represented'--A word belonging to _time_ is subst.i.tuted for a word belonging to _s.p.a.ce_:--'this over-done, or inadequately effected'; 'this over-done, or under-done.']

[Footnote 7: 'and the judgment of such a one.' '_the which_' seems equivalent to _and--such_.]

[Footnote 8: 'must, you will grant.']

[Footnote 9: Shakspere may here be playing with a false derivation, as I was myself when the true was pointed out to me--fancying _abominable_ derived from _ab_ and _h.o.m.o_. If so, then he means by the phrase: 'they imitated humanity so from the nature of man, so _inhumanly_.']

[Footnote 10: tolerably.]

[Footnote 11: 'Sir' _not in Q._]