The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 77

[Footnote 2: '_Com'ply_,' with accent on first syllable: _comply with_ means _pay compliments to, compliment_. See _Q._ reading: 'A did sir with':--_sir_ here is a verb--_sir with_ means _say sir to_: 'he _sirred, complied_ with his nurse's breast before &c.' Hamlet speaks in mockery of the affected court-modes of speech and address, the fashion of euphuism--a mechanical attempt at the poetic.]

[Footnote 3: _a flock of birds_--suggested by '_This Lapwing_.']

[Footnote 4: 'the mere mode.']

[Footnote 5: 'and external custom of intercourse.' But here too I rather take the _Q._ to be right: 'They have only got the fashion of the time; and, out of a habit of wordy conflict, (they have got) a collection of tricks of speech,--a yesty, frothy ma.s.s, with nothing in it, which carries them in triumph through the most foolish and fastidious (nice, choice, punctilious, whimsical) judgments.' _Yesty_ I take to be right, and _prophane_ (vulgar) to have been altered by the Poet to _fond_ (foolish); of _trennowed_ I can make nothing beyond a misprint.]

[Footnote 6: Hamlet had just blown Osricke to his trial in his chosen kind, and the bubble had burst. The braggart gentleman had no faculty to generate after the dominant fashion, no invention to support his ambition--had but a yesty collection, which failing him the moment something unconventional was wanted, the fool had to look a discovered fool.]

[Footnote 7: 'I shall win by the odds allowed me; he will not exceed me three hits.']

[Footnote 8: He has a presentiment of what is coming.]

[Footnote 9: Nothing in this world is of much consequence to him now.

Also, he believes in 'a special Providence.']

[Footnote 10: 'a yielding, a sinking' at the heart? The _Sh. Lex._ says _misgiving_.]

[Footnote 11: 'obey the warning.']

[Footnote 12: 'go to them before they come here'--'_prevent_ their coming.']

[Footnote 13: The knowledge, even, of what is to come could never, any more than ordinary expediency, be the _law_ of a man's conduct. St.

Paul, informed by the prophet Agabus of the troubles that awaited him at Jerusalem, and entreated by his friends not to go thither, believed the prophet, and went on to Jerusalem to be delivered into the hands of the Gentiles.]

[Footnote 14: One of Shakspere's many allusions to sayings of the Lord.]

[Footnote 15: Osricke does not come back: he has begged off but ventures later, under the wing of the king.]

[Footnote 16: May not this form of the name suggest that in it is intended the 'foolish' ostrich?]

[Footnote 17: The king is making delay: he has to have his 'union'

ready.]

[Footnote 18: 'if he feels ready, I am.']

[Footnote 19: 'They are _well-come_.']

[Footnote 20: 'to be polite to Laertes.' The print shows where _to_ has slipped out.

The queen is anxious; she distrusts Laertes, and the king's influence over him.]

[Page 262]

it[1] be now, 'tis not to come: if it bee not to come, [Sidenote: be, tis]

it will bee now: if it be not now; yet it will come; [Sidenote: it well come,]

[Sidenote: 54, 164] the readinesse is all,[2] since no man ha's ought of [Sidenote: man of ought he leaues, knowes what ist to leaue betimes, let be.]

[Sidenote: 252] what he leaues. What is't to leaue betimes?[3]

_Enter King, Queene, Laertes and Lords, with other Attendants with Foyles, and Gauntlets, a Table and Flagons of Wine on it._ [Sidenote: _A table prepard, Trumpets, Drums and officers with cushion, King, Queene, and all the state, Foiles, Daggers, and Laertes._]

_Kin_. Come _Hamlet_ come, and take this hand from me.

[Sidenote: 245] _Ham_.[4] Giue me your pardon Sir, I'ue done you wrong,[5] [Sidenote: I haue]

But pardon't as you are a Gentleman.

This presence[6] knowes, And you must needs haue heard how I am punisht With sore distraction?[7] What I haue done [Sidenote: With a sore]

That might your nature honour, and exception [Sidenote: 242, 252] Roughly awake,[8] heere proclaime was madnesse:[9]

Was't _Hamlet_ wrong'd _Laertes_? Neuer _Hamlet_.

If _Hamlet_ from himselfe be tane away: [Sidenote: fane away,]

And when he's not himselfe, do's wrong _Laertes_, Then _Hamlet_ does it not, _Hamlet_ denies it:[10]

Who does it then? His Madnesse? If't be so, _Hamlet_ is of the Faction that is wrong'd, His madnesse is poore _Hamlets_ Enemy.[11]

Sir, in this Audience,[12]

Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd euill,[13]

Free me so farre[14] in your most generous thoughts, That I haue shot mine Arrow o're the house, [Sidenote: my]

And hurt my Mother.[15] [Sidenote: brother.[15]]

[Footnote 1: 'it'--death, the end.]

[Footnote 2: His father had been taken unready. 54.]

[Footnote 3: _Point_: 'all. Since'; 'leaves, what'--'Since no man has anything of what he has left, those who left it late are in the same position as those who left it early.' Compare the common saying, 'It will be all the same in a hundred years.' The _Q._ reading comes much to the same thing--'knows of ought he leaves'--'has any knowledge of it, anything to do with it, in any sense possesses it.'

We may find a deeper meaning in the pa.s.sage, however--surely not too deep for Shakspere:--'Since nothing can be truly said to be possessed as his own which a man must at one time or another yield; since that which is _own_ can never be taken from the owner, but solely that which is lent him; since the nature of a thing that has to be left is not such that it _could_ be possessed, why should a man mind parting with it early?'--There is far more in this than merely that at the end of the day it will be all the same. The thing that ever was really a man's own, G.o.d has given, and G.o.d will not, and man cannot, take away. Note the unity of religion and philosophy in Hamlet: he takes the one true position. Note also his courage: he has a strong presentiment of death, but will not turn a step from his way. If Death be coming, he will confront him. He does not believe in chance. He is ready--that is willing. All that is needful is, that he should not go as one who cannot help it, but as one who is for G.o.d's will, who chooses that will as his own.

There is so much behind in Shakspere's characters--so much that can only be hinted at! The dramatist has not the _word_-scope of the novelist; his art gives him little _room_; he must effect in a phrase what the other may take pages to. He needs good seconding by his actors as sorely as the composer needs good rendering of his music by the orchestra. It is a lesson in unity that the greatest art can least work alone; that the greatest _finder_ most needs the help of others to show his _findings_. The dramatist has live men and women for the very instruments of his art--who must not be mere instruments, but fellow-workers; and upon them he is greatly dependent for final outcome.

Here the actor should show a marked calmness and elevation in Hamlet. He should have around him as it were a luminous cloud, the cloud of his coming end. A smile not all of this world should close the speech. He has given himself up, and is at peace.]

[Footnote 4: Note in this apology the sweetness of Hamlet's nature. How few are alive enough, that is unselfish and true enough, to be capable of genuine apology! The low nature always feels, not the wrong, but the confession of it, degrading.]

[Footnote 5: --the wrong of his rudeness at the funeral.]

[Footnote 6: all present.]

[Footnote 7: --true in a deeper sense than they would understand.]

[Footnote 8: 'that might roughly awake your nature, honour, and exception,':--consider the phrase--_to take exception at a thing_.]

[Footnote 9: It was by cause of madness, not by cause of evil intent.

For all purpose of excuse it was madness, if only pretended madness; it was there of another necessity, and excused offence like real madness.

What he said was true, not merely expedient, to the end he meant it to serve. But all pa.s.sion may be called madness, because therein the mind is absorbed with one idea; 'anger is a brief madness,' and he was in a 'towering pa.s.sion': he proclaims it madness and so abjures it.]

[Footnote 10: 'refuses the wrong altogether--will in his true self have nothing to do with it.' No evil thing comes of our true selves, and confession is the casting of it from us, the only true denial. He who will not confess a wrong, holds to the wrong.]

[Footnote 11: All here depends on the expression in the utterance.]

[Footnote 12: _This line not in Q._]

[Footnote 13: This is Hamlet's summing up of the whole--his explanation of the speech.]