The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 48

[B]

O Shame! where is thy Blush? Rebellious h.e.l.l, If thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones,

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

sence sure youe haue Els could you not haue motion, but sure that sence Is appoplext, for madnesse would not erre Nor sence to extacie[6] was nere so thral'd But it reseru'd some quant.i.ty of choise[7]

To serue in such[8] a difference,]

[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight.

Eares without hands, or eyes, smelling sance[9] all, Or but a sickly part of one true sence Could not so mope:[10]]

[Footnote 1: He points to the portraits of the two brothers, side by side on the wall.]

[Footnote 2: See _Julius Caesar_, act v. sc. 5,--speech of _Antony_ at the end.]

[Footnote 3: --perhaps an allusion as well to the complexion of Claudius, both moral and physical.]

[Footnote 4: --perhaps allied to the German _heida_, and possibly the English _hoyden_ and _hoity-toity_. Or is it merely _high-day--noontide_?]

[Footnote 5: 'played tricks with you while hooded in the game of _blind-man's-bluff_?' The omitted pa.s.sage of the _Quarto_ enlarges the figure.

_1st Q._ 'hob-man blinde.']

[Footnote 6: madness.]

[Footnote 7: Attributing soul to sense, he calls its distinguishment _choice_.]

[Footnote 8: --emphasis on _such_.]

[Footnote 9: This spelling seems to show how the English word _sans_ should be p.r.o.nounced.]

[Footnote 10: --'be so dull.']

[Page 172]

To flaming youth, let Vertue be as waxe, And melt in her owne fire. Proclaime no shame, When the compulsiue Ardure giues the charge, Since Frost it selfe,[1] as actiuely doth burne, As Reason panders Will. [Sidenote: And reason pardons will.]

_Qu._ O Hamlet, speake no more.[2] [Sidenote: _Ger._]

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soule, [Sidenote: my very eyes into my soule,]

And there I see such blacke and grained[3] spots, [Sidenote: greeued spots]

As will not leaue their Tinct.[4] [Sidenote: will leaue there their]

_Ham._ Nay, but to liue[5]

In the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed, [Sidenote: inseemed]

Stew'd in Corruption; honying and making loue [Sidenote: 34] Ouer the nasty Stye.[6]

_Qu._ Oh speake to me, no more, [Sidenote: _Ger._]

[Sidenote: 158] These words like Daggers enter in mine eares.

[Sidenote: my]

No more sweet _Hamlet_.

_Ham._ A Murderer, and a Villaine: A Slaue, that is not twentieth part the tythe [Sidenote: part the kyth]

Of your precedent Lord. A vice[7] of Kings, A Cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule.

That from a shelfe, the precious Diadem stole, And put it in his Pocket.

_Qu._ No more.[8] [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Enter Ghost._[9]

_Ham._ A King of shreds and patches.

[Sidenote: 44] Saue me; and houer o're me with your wings[10]

You heauenly Guards. What would you gracious figure?

[Sidenote: your gracious]

_Qu._ Alas he's mad.[11] [Sidenote: _Ger._]

_Ham._ Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide, That laps't in Time and Pa.s.sion, lets go by[12]

Th'important acting of your dread command? Oh say.[13]

[Footnote 1: --his mother's matronly age.]

[Footnote 2: She gives way at last.]

[Footnote 3: --spots whose blackness has sunk into the grain, or final particles of the substance.]

[Footnote 4: --transition form of tint:--'will never give up their colour;' 'will never be cleansed.']

[Footnote 5: He persists.]

[Footnote 6: --Claudius himself--his body no 'temple of the Holy Ghost,'

but a pig-sty. 3.]

[Footnote 7: The clown of the old Moral Play.]

[Footnote 8: She seems neither surprised nor indignant at any point in the accusation: her consciousness of her own guiit has overwhelmed her.]

[Footnote 9: The _1st Q._ has _Enter the ghost in his night gowne_. It was then from the first intended that he should not at this point appear in armour--in which, indeed, the epithet _gracious figure_ could hardly be applied to him, though it might well enough in one of the costumes in which Hamlet was accustomed to see him--as this dressing-gown of the _1st Q._ A ghost would appear in the costume in which he naturally imagined himself, and in his wife's room would not show himself clothed as when walking among the fortifications of the castle. But by the words lower down (174)--

My Father in his habite, as he liued,

the Poet indicates, not his dressing-gown, but his usual habit, _i.e._ attire.]

[Footnote 10: --almost the same invocation as when first he saw the apparition.]

[Footnote 11: The queen cannot see the Ghost. Her conduct has built such a wall between her and her husband that I doubt whether, were she a ghost also, she could see him. Her heart had left him, so they are no more together in the sphere of mutual vision. Neither does the Ghost wish to show himself to her. As his presence is not corporeal, a ghost may be present to but one of a company.]

[Footnote 12: 1. 'Who, lapsed (_fallen, guilty_), lets action slip in delay and suffering.' 2. 'Who, lapsed in (_fallen in, overwhelmed by_) delay and suffering, omits' &c. 3. 'lapsed in respect of time, and because of pa.s.sion'--the meaning of the preposition _in_, common to both, reacted upon by the word it governs. 4. 'faulty both in delaying, and in yielding to suffering, when action is required.' 5. 'lapsed through having too much time and great suffering.' 6. 'allowing himself to be swept along by time and grief.'