The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 5

For they are actions that a man might[10] play: But I haue that Within, which pa.s.seth show; [Sidenote: pa.s.ses]

These, but the Trappings, and the Suites of woe.

_King._ 'Tis sweet and commendable In your Nature _Hamlet_, To giue these mourning duties to your Father:[11]

But you must know, your Father lost a Father, That Father lost, lost his, and the Suruiuer bound In filiall Obligation, for some terme To do obsequious[12] Sorrow. But to perseuer In obstinate Condolement, is a course

[Footnote 1: An _aside_. Hamlet's first utterance is of dislike to his uncle. He is more than _kin_ through his unwelcome marriage--less than _kind_ by the difference in their natures. To be _kind_ is to behave as one _kinned_ or related. But the word here is the noun, and means _nature_, or sort by birth.]

[Footnote 2: A word-play may be here intended between _sun_ and _son_: _a little more than kin--too much i' th' Son_. So George Herbert:

For when he sees my ways, I die; But I have got his _Son_, and he hath none;

and Dr. Donne:

at my death thy Son Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore.]

[Footnote 3: 'Wintred garments'--_As You Like It_, iii. 2.]

[Footnote 4: He is the only one who has not for the wedding put off his mourning.]

[Footnote 5: _lowered_, or cast down: _Fr. avaler_, to lower.]

[Footnote 6: 'Plainly you treat it as a common matter--a thing of no significance!' _I_ is constantly used for _ay_, _yes_.]

[Footnote 7: He pounces on the word _seems_.]

[Footnote 8: Not unfrequently the type would appear to have been set up from dictation.]

[Footnote 9: They are things of the outside, and must _seem_, for they are capable of being imitated; they are the natural _shows_ of grief.

But he has that in him which cannot _show_ or _seem_, because nothing can represent it. These are 'the Trappings and the Suites of _woe_;'

they fitly represent woe, but they cannot shadow forth that which is within him--a something different from woe, far beyond it and worse, pa.s.sing all reach of embodiment and manifestation. What this something is, comes out the moment he is left by himself.]

[Footnote 10: The emphasis is on _might_.]

[Footnote 11: Both his uncle and his mother decline to understand him.

They will have it he mourns the death of his father, though they must at least suspect another cause for his grief. Note the intellectual mastery of the hypocrite--which accounts for his success.]

[Footnote 12: belonging to _obsequies_.]

[Page 22]

Of impious stubbornnesse. Tis vnmanly greefe, It shewes a will most incorrect to Heauen, A Heart vnfortified, a Minde impatient, [Sidenote: or minde]

An Vnderstanding simple, and vnschool'd: For, what we know must be, and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sence, Why should we in our peeuish Opposition Take it to heart? Fye, 'tis a fault to Heauen, A fault against the Dead, a fault to Nature, To Reason most absurd, whose common Theame Is death of Fathers, and who still hath cried, From the first Coa.r.s.e,[1] till he that dyed to day, [Sidenote: course]

This must be so. We pray you throw to earth This vnpreuayling woe, and thinke of vs As of a Father; For let the world take note, You are the most immediate to our Throne,[2]

And with no lesse n.o.bility of Loue, Then that which deerest Father beares his Sonne, Do I impart towards you. For your intent [Sidenote: toward]

[Sidenote: 18] In going backe to Schoole in Wittenberg,[3]

It is most retrograde to our desire: [Sidenote: retrogard]

And we beseech you, bend you to remaine Heere in the cheere and comfort of our eye, Our cheefest Courtier Cosin, and our Sonne.

_Qu._ Let not thy Mother lose her Prayers _Hamlet_: [Sidenote: loose]

I prythee stay with vs, go not to Wittenberg. [Sidenote: pray thee]

_Ham._ I shall in all my best Obey you Madam.[4]

_King._ Why 'tis a louing, and a faire Reply, Be as our selfe in Denmarke. Madam come, This gentle and vnforc'd accord of _Hamlet_[5]

Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof, No iocond health that Denmarke drinkes to day, [Sidenote: 44] But the great Cannon to the Clowds shall tell,

[Footnote 1: _Corpse_.]

[Footnote 2: --seeking to propitiate him with the hope that his succession had been but postponed by his uncle's election.]

[Footnote 3: Note that Hamlet was educated in Germany--at Wittenberg, the university where in 1508 Luther was appointed professor of Philosophy. Compare 19. There was love of study as well as disgust with home in his desire to return to _Schoole_: this from what we know of him afterwards.]

[Footnote 4: Emphasis on _obey_. A light on the character of Hamlet.]

[Footnote 5: He takes it, or pretends to take it, for far more than it was. He desires friendly relations with Hamlet.]

[Page 24]

And the Kings Rouce,[1] the Heauens shall bruite againe, Respeaking earthly Thunder. Come away.

_Exeunt_ [Sidenote: _Florish. Exeunt all but Hamlet._]

_Manet Hamlet._

[2]_Ham._ Oh that this too too solid Flesh, would melt, [Sidenote: sallied flesh[3]]

Thaw, and resolue it selfe into a Dew: [Sidenote: 125,247,260] Or that the Euerlasting had not fixt [Sidenote: 121 _bis_] His Cannon 'gainst Selfe-slaughter. O G.o.d, O G.o.d!

[Sidenote: seale slaughter, o G.o.d, G.o.d,]

How weary, stale, flat, and vnprofitable [Sidenote: wary]

Seemes to me all the vses of this world? [Sidenote: seeme]

Fie on't? Oh fie, fie, 'tis an vnweeded Garden [Sidenote: ah fie,]

That growes to Seed: Things rank, and grosse in Nature Possesse it meerely. That it should come to this: [Sidenote: meerely that it should come thus]

But two months dead[4]: Nay, not so much; not two, So excellent a King, that was to this _Hiperion_ to a Satyre: so louing to my Mother, That he might not beteene the windes of heauen [Sidenote: beteeme[5]]

Visit her face too roughly. Heauen and Earth Must I remember: why she would hang on him, [Sidenote: should]

As if encrease of Appet.i.te had growne By what it fed on; and yet within a month?

Let me not thinke on't: Frailty, thy name is woman.[6]

A little Month, or ere those shooes were old, With which she followed my poore Fathers body Like _Niobe_, all teares. Why she, euen she.[7]

(O Heauen! A beast that wants discourse[8] of Reason [Sidenote: O G.o.d]

Would haue mourn'd longer) married with mine Vnkle, [Sidenote: my]

[Footnote 1: German _Rausch_, _drunkenness_. 44, 68]

[Footnote 2: A soliloquy is as the drawing called a section of a thing: it shows the inside of the man. Soliloquy is only rare, not unnatural, and in art serves to reveal more of nature. In the drama it is the lifting of a veil through which dialogue pa.s.ses. The scene is for the moment shifted into the lonely spiritual world, and here we begin to know Hamlet. Such is his wretchedness, both in mind and circ.u.mstance, that he could well wish to vanish from the world. The suggestion of suicide, however, he dismisses at once--with a momentary regret, it is true--but he dismisses it--as against the will of G.o.d to whom he appeals in his misery. The cause of his misery is now made plain to us--his trouble that pa.s.ses show, deprives life of its interest, and renders the world a disgust to him. There is no lamentation over his father's death, so dwelt upon by the king; for loving grief does not crush. Far less could his uncle's sharp practice, in scheming for his own election during Hamlet's absence, have wrought in a philosopher like him such an effect. The one makes him sorrowful, the other might well annoy him, but neither could render him unhappy: his misery lies at his mother's door; it is her conduct that has put out the light of her son's life. She who had been to him the type of all excellence, she whom his father had idolized, has within a month of his death married his uncle, and is living in habitual incest--for as such, a marriage of the kind was then unanimously regarded. To Hamlet's condition and behaviour, his mother, her past and her present, is the only and sufficing key. His very idea of unity had been rent in twain.]

[Footnote 3: _1st Q_. 'too much grieu'd and sallied flesh.' _Sallied_, sullied: compare _sallets_, 67, 103. I have a strong suspicion that _sallied_ and not _solid_ is the true word. It comes nearer the depth of Hamlet's mood.]

[Footnote 4: Two months at the present moment.]

[Footnote 5: This is the word all the editors take: which is right, I do not know; I doubt if either is. The word in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, act i. sc. 1--

Belike for want of rain; which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes--