The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 51

_Ham._ [A] This man shall set me packing:[3]

Ile lugge the Guts into the Neighbor roome,[4]

Mother goodnight. Indeede this Counsellor [Sidenote: night indeed, this]

Is now most still, most secret, and most graue, [Sidenote: 84] Who was in life, a foolish prating Knaue.

[Sidenote: a most foolish]

Come sir, to draw toward an end with you.[5]

Good night Mother.

_Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius._[6] [Sidenote: _Exit._]

[7]

_Enter King._ [Sidenote: Enter King, and Queene, with Rosencraus and Guyldensterne.]

_King._ There's matters in these sighes.

These profound heaues You must translate; Tis fit we vnderstand them.

Where is your Sonne?[8]

_Qu._ [B] Ah my good Lord, what haue I seene to night?

[Sidenote: _Ger._ Ah mine owne Lord,]

_King._ What _Gertrude_? How do's _Hamlet_?

_Qu._ Mad as the Seas, and winde, when both contend [Sidenote: _Ger._ sea and]

Which is the Mightier, in his lawlesse fit[9]

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

[10]Ther's letters seald, and my two Schoolefellowes, Whom I will trust as I will Adders fang'd, They beare the mandat, they must sweep my way And marshall me to knauery[11]: let it worke, For tis the sport to haue the enginer Hoist[12] with his owne petar,[13] an't shall goe hard But I will delue one yard belowe their mines, And blowe them at the Moone: o tis most sweete When in one line two crafts directly meete,]

[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--

Bestow this place on vs a little while.[14]]

[Footnote 1: _1st Q._

O mother, if euer you did my deare father loue, Forbeare the adulterous bed to night, And win your selfe by little as you may, In time it may be you wil lothe him quite: And mother, but a.s.sist mee in reuenge, And in his death your infamy shall die.

_Queene. Hamlet_, I vow by that maiesty, That knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts, I will conceale, consent, and doe my best, What stratagem soe're thou shalt deuise.]

[Footnote 2: The king had spoken of it both before and after the play: Horatio might have heard of it and told Hamlet.]

[Footnote 3: 'My banishment will be laid to this deed of mine.']

[Footnote 4: --to rid his mother of it.]

[Footnote 5: It may cross him, as he says this, dragging the body out by one end of it, and toward the end of its history, that he is himself drawing toward an end along with Polonius.]

[Footnote 6: --_and weeping_. 182. See _note_ 5, 183.]

[Footnote 7: Here, according to the editors, comes 'Act IV.' For this there is no authority, and the point of division seems to me very objectionable. The scene remains the same, as noted from Capell in _Cam.

Sh._, and the entrance of the king follows immediately on the exit of Hamlet. He finds his wife greatly perturbed; she has not had time to compose herself.

From the beginning of Act II., on to where I would place the end of Act III., there is continuity.]

[Footnote 8: I would have this speech uttered with pauses and growing urgency, mingled at length with displeasure.]

[Footnote 9: She is faithful to her son, declaring him mad, and attributing the death of 'the unseen' Polonius to his madness.]

[Footnote 10: This pa.s.sage, like the rest, I hold to be omitted by Shakspere himself. It represents Hamlet as divining the plot with whose execution his false friends were entrusted. The Poet had at first intended Hamlet to go on board the vessel with a design formed upon this for the out-witting of his companions, and to work out that design.

Afterwards, however, he alters his plan, and represents his escape as more plainly providential: probably he did not see how to manage it by any scheme of Hamlet so well as by the attack of a pirate; possibly he wished to write the pa.s.sage (246) in which Hamlet, so consistently with his character, attributes his return to the divine shaping of the end rough-hewn by himself. He had designs--'dear plots'--but they were other than fell out--a rough-hewing that was shaped to a different end. The discomfiture of his enemies was not such as he had designed: it was brought about by no previous plot, but through a discovery. At the same time his deliverance was not effected by the fingering of the packet, but by the attack of the pirate: even the re-writing of the commission did nothing towards his deliverance, resulted only in the punishment of his traitorous companions. In revising the Quarto, the Poet sees that the pa.s.sage before us, in which is expressed the strongest suspicion of his companions, with a determination to outwit and punish them, is inconsistent with the representation Hamlet gives afterwards of a restlessness and suspicion newly come upon him, which he attributes to the Divinity.

Neither was it likely he would say so much to his mother while so little sure of her as to warn her, on the ground of danger to herself, against revealing his sanity to the king. As to this, however, the portion omitted might, I grant, be regarded as an _aside_.]

[Footnote 11: --to be done _to_ him.]

[Footnote 12: _Hoised_, from verb _hoise_--still used in Scotland.]

[Footnote 13: a kind of explosive sh.e.l.l, which was fixed to the object meant to be destroyed. Note once more Hamlet's delight in action.]

[Footnote 14: --_said to Ros. and Guild._: in plain speech, 'Leave us a little while.']

[Page 182]

Behinde the Arras, hearing something stirre, He whips his Rapier out, and cries a Rat, a Rat, [Sidenote: Whyps out his Rapier, cryes a]

And in his brainish apprehension killes [Sidenote: in this]

The vnseene good old man.

_King._ Oh heauy deed: It had bin so with vs[1] had we beene there: His Liberty is full of threats to all,[2]

To you your selfe, to vs, to euery one.

Alas, how shall this b.l.o.o.d.y deede be answered?

It will be laide to vs, whose prouidence Should haue kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt, This mad yong man.[2] But so much was our loue, We would not vnderstand what was most fit, But like the Owner of a foule disease, [Sidenote: 176] To keepe it from divulging, let's it feede [Sidenote: let it]

Euen on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

_Qu._ To draw apart the body he hath kild, [Sidenote: Ger.]

O're whom his very madnesse[3] like some Oare Among a Minerall of Mettels base [Sidenote: 181] Shewes it selfe pure.[4] He weepes for what is done.[5]

[Sidenote: pure, a weeepes]

_King:_ Oh _Gertrude_, come away: The Sun no sooner shall the Mountaines touch, But we will ship him hence, and this vilde deed, We must with all our Maiesty and Skill [Sidenote: 200] Both countenance, and excuse.[6]

_Enter Ros. & Guild_.[7]

Ho _Guildenstern_: Friends both go ioyne you with some further ayde: _Hamlet_ in madnesse hath Polonius slaine, And from his Mother Clossets hath he drag'd him.

[Sidenote: closet dreg'd]

Go seeke him out, speake faire, and bring the body Into the Chappell. I pray you hast in this.

_Exit Gent_[8]

Come _Gertrude_, wee'l call vp our wisest friends, To let them know both what we meane to do, [Sidenote: And let]

[Footnote 1: the royal plural.]

[Footnote 2: He knows the thrust was meant for him. But he would not have it so understood; he too lays it to his madness, though he too knows better.]