King. Set me the Stopes of wine vpon that Table:IfHamletgiue the first, or second hit,Or quit in answer of the third exchange,[4]Let all the Battlements their Ordinance fire,[Sidenote: 268] The King shal drinke toHamletsbetter breath,And in the Cup an vnion[5] shal he throw [Sidenote: an Vince]Richer then that,[6] which foure successiue KingsIn Denmarkes Crowne haue worne.Giue me the Cups,And let the Kettle to the Trumpets speake, [Sidenote: trumpet]The Trumpet to the Cannoneer without,The Cannons to the Heauens, the Heauen to Earth,Now the King drinkes toHamlet. Come, begin,[Sidenote:Trumpets the while.]And you the Iudges[7] beare a wary eye.
Ham. Come on sir.
Laer. Come on sir.They play.[8] [Sidenote: Come my Lord.]
Ham. One.
Laer. No.
Ham. Iudgement.[9]
Osr. A hit, a very palpable hit. [Sidenote:Ostrick.]
Laer. Well: againe. [Sidenote:Drum, trumpets and a shot. Florish, a peece goes off.]
King. Stay, giue me drinke.Hamlet, this Pearle is thine, Here's to thy health. Giue him the cup,[10]
Trumpets sound, and shot goes off.[11]
Ham. Ile play this bout first, set by a-while.[12] [Sidenote: set it by] Come: Another hit; what say you?
Laer. A touch, a touch, I do confesse.[13] [Sidenote:Laer. | doe confest.]
King. Our Sonne shall win.
[Footnote 1: —to make it look as if he were choosing.]
[Footnote 2: —asked in an offhand way. The fencers must not measure weapons, because how then could the unbated point escape discovery? It is quite like Hamlet to take even Osricke's word for their equal length.]
[Footnote 3:Not in Q.]
[Footnote 4: 'or be quits with Laertes the third bout':—in any case, whatever the probabilities, even if Hamlet be wounded, the king, who has not perfect confidence in the 'unction,' will fall back on his second line of ambush—in which he has more trust: he will drink to Hamlet, when Hamlet will be bound to drink also.]
[Footnote 5: The Latinuniowas a large pearl. The king'sunionI take to be poison made up like a pearl.]
[Footnote 6: —a well-known one in the crown.]
[Footnote 7: —of whom Osricke was one.]
[Footnote 8:Not in Q.]
[Footnote 9: —appealing to the judges.]
[Footnote 10: He throws in thepearl, and drinks—for it will take some moments to dissolve and make the wine poisonous—then sends the cup to Hamlet.]
[Footnote 11:Not in Q.]
[Footnote 12: He does not refuse to drink, but puts it by, neither showing nor entertaining suspicion, fearing only the effect of the draught on his play. He is bent on winning the wager—perhaps with further intent.]
[Footnote 13: Laertes has little interest in the match, but much in his own play.]
[Page 268]
[Sidenote: 266]Qu. He's fat, and scant of breath.[1]Heere's a Napkin, rub thy browes,[Sidenote: HeereHamlettake my napkin]The Queene Carowses to thy fortune,Hamlet.
Ham. Good Madam.[2]
King.Gertrude, do not drinke.
Qu. I will my Lord; I pray you pardon me.[3]
[Sidenote: 222]King. It is the poyson'd Cup, it is too late.[4]
Ham. I dare not drinke yet Madam, By and by.[5]
Qu. Come, let me wipe thy face.[6]
Laer. My Lord, Ile hit him now.
King. I do not thinke't.
Laer. And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.[7] [Sidenote: it is | against]
Ham. Come for the third.Laertes, you but dally, [Sidenote: you doe but] I pray you passe with your best violence, I am affear'd you make a wanton of me.[8] [Sidenote: I am sure you]
Laer. Say you so? Come on.Play.
Osr. Nothing neither way. [Sidenote:Ostr.]
Laer. Haue at you now.[9]
In scuffling they change Rapiers.[10]
King. Part them, they are incens'd.[11]
Ham. Nay come, againe.[12]
Osr. Looke to the Queene there hoa. [Sidenote:Ostr.| there howe.]
Hor. They bleed on both sides. How is't my [Sidenote: is it] Lord?
Osr. How is'tLaertes? [Sidenote:Ostr.]
Laer. Why as a Woodcocke[13] To mine Sprindge,Osricke, [Sidenote: mine owne sprindgeOstrick,] I am iustly kill'd with mine owne Treacherie.[14]
Ham. How does the Queene?
King. She sounds[15] to see them bleede.
Qu. No, no, the drinke, the drinke[16]
[Footnote 1: She is anxious about him. It may be that this speech, and that of the king before (266), were fitted to the person of the actor who first represented Hamlet.]
[Footnote 2: —a simple acknowledgment of her politeness: he can no more be familiarly loving with his mother.]
[Footnote 3: She drinks, and offers the cup to Hamlet.]
[Footnote 4: He is too much afraid of exposing his villainy to be prompt enough to prevent her.]
[Footnote 5: This is not meant by the Poet to show suspicion: he does not mean Hamlet to die so.]
[Footnote 6: The actor should not allow her: she approaches Hamlet; he recoils a little.]
[Footnote 7: He has compunctions, but it needs failure to make them potent.]
[Footnote 8: 'treat me as an effeminate creature.']
[Footnote 9: He makes a sudden attack, without warning of the fourth bout.]
[Footnote 10:Not in Q.
The 1st Q. directs:—They catch one anothers Rapiers, find both are wounded, &c.
The thing, as I understand it, goes thus: With the words 'Have at you now!' Laertes stabs Hamlet; Hamlet, apprised thus of his treachery, lays hold of his rapier, wrenches it from him, and stabs him with it in return.]
[Footnote 11: 'they have lost their temper.']
[Footnote 12: —said with indignation and scorn, but without suspicion of the worst.]
[Footnote 13: —the proverbially foolish bird. The speech must be spoken with breaks. Its construction is broken.]
[Footnote 14: His conscience starts up, awake and strong, at the approach of Death. As the show of the world withdraws, the realities assert themselves. He repents, and makes confession of his sin, seeing it now in its true nature, and calling it by its own name. It is a compensation of the weakness of some that they cannot be strong in wickedness. The king did not so repent, and with his strength was the more to blame.]
[Footnote 15:swounds, swoons.]
[Footnote 16: She is true to her son. The maternal outlasts the adulterous.]
[Page 270]
Oh my deereHamlet, the drinke, the drinke,I am poyson'd.
Ham. Oh Villany! How? Let the doore be lock'd. Treacherie, seeke it out.[1]
Laer. It is heereHamlet.[2]Hamlet,[3] thou art slaine,No Medicine in the world can do thee good.In thee, there is not halfe an houre of life; [Sidenote: houres life,]The Treacherous Instrument is in thy hand, [Sidenote: in my]Vnbated and envenom'd: the foule practise[4]Hath turn'd it selfe on me. Loe, heere I lye,Neuer to rise againe: Thy Mothers poyson'd:I can no more, the King, the King's too blame.[5]
Ham. The point envenom'd too, Then venome to thy worke.[6]Hurts the King.[7]
All. Treason, Treason.
King. O yet defend me Friends, I am but hurt.
Ham. Heere thou incestuous, murdrous,[Sidenote: Heare thou incestious damned Dane,]Damned Dane,Drinke off this Potion: Is thy Vnion heere?[Sidenote: of this | is the Onixe heere?]Follow my Mother.[8]King Dyes.[9]
Laer. He is iustly seru'd.It is a poyson temp'red by himselfe:Exchange forgiuenesse with me, NobleHamlet;Mine and my Fathers death come not vpon thee,Nor thine on me.[10]Dyes.[11]
Ham. Heauen make thee free of it,[12] I follow thee.I am deadHoratio, wretched Queene adiew.You that looke pale, and tremble at this chance,That are but Mutes[13] or audience to this acte:Had I but time (as this fell Sergeant deathIs strick'd in his Arrest) oh I could tell you. [Sidenote: strict]
[Footnote 1: The thing must be ended now. The door must be locked, to keep all in that are in, and all out that are out. Then he can do as he will.]
[Footnote 2: —laying his hand on his heart, I think.]
[Footnote 3: In Q.Hamletonly once.]
[Footnote 4:scheme, artifice, deceitful contrivance; in modern slang,dodge.]
[Footnote 5: He turns on the prompter of his sin—crowning the justice of the king's capital punishment.]
[Footnote 6:Point: 'too!'
1st Q.Then venome to thy venome, die damn'd villaine.]
[Footnote 7:Not in Quarto.
The true moment, now only, has at last come. Hamlet has lived to do his duty with a clear conscience, and is thereupon permitted to go. The man who asks whether this be poetic justice or no, is unworthy of an answer. 'The Tragedie of Hamlet' isThe Drama of Moral Perplexity.]
[Footnote 8: A grim play on the wordUnion: 'follow my mother'. It suggests a terrible meeting below.]
[Footnote 9:Not in Quarto.]
[Footnote 10: His better nature triumphs. The moment he was wounded, knowing he must die, he began to change. Defeat is a mighty aid to repentance; and processes grow rapid in the presence of Death: he forgives and desires forgiveness.]
[Footnote 11:Not in Quarto.]
[Footnote 12: Note how heartily Hamlet pardons the wrong done to himself—the only wrong of course which a man has to pardon.]
[Footnote 13:supernumeraries. Note the other figures too—audience, act—all of the theatre.]
[Page 272]
But let it be:Horatio, I am dead,Thou liu'st, report me and my causes right [Sidenote: cause a right]To the vnsatisfied.[1]
Hor. Neuer beleeue it. [Sidenote: 134] I am more an Antike Roman then a Dane: [Sidenote: 135] Heere's yet some Liquor left.[2]
Ham. As th'art a man, giue me the Cup.Let go, by Heauen Ile haue't. [Sidenote: hate,][Sidenote: 114, 251] Oh goodHoratio, what a wounded name,[3][Sidenote: O godHoratio,](Things standing thus vnknowne) shall liue behind me.[Sidenote: shall I leaue behind me?]If thou did'st euer hold me in thy heart,Absent thee from felicitie awhile,And in this harsh world draw thy breath in paine,[1][Sidenote:A march a farre off.]To tell my Storie.[4]March afarre off, and shout within.[5]What warlike noyse is this?
Enter Osricke.
Osr. YongFortinbras, with conquest come from Poland To th'Ambassadors of England giues this warlike volly.[6]
Ham. O I dyeHoratio:The potent poyson quite ore-crowes my spirit,I cannot liue to heare the Newes from England,[Sidenote: 62] But I do prophesie[7] th'election lights[Sidenote: 276] OnFortinbras, he ha's my dying voyce,[8]So tell him with the occurrents more and lesse,[9] [Sidenote: th']Which haue solicited.[10] The rest is silence. O, o, o, o.[11]Dyes[12]
Hora. Now cracke a Noble heart: [Sidenote: cracks a]Goodnight sweet Prince,And flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest,Why do's the Drumme come hither?
[Footnote 1: His care over his reputation with the people is princely, and casts a true light on his delay. No good man can be willing to seem bad, except thebeing goodnecessitates it. A man must be willing to appear a villain if that is the consequence of being a true man, but he cannot be indifferent to that appearance. He cannot be indifferent to wearing the look of the thing he hates. Hamlet, that he may be understood by the nation, makes, with noble confidence in his friendship, the large demand on Horatio, to live and suffer for his sake.]
[Footnote 2: Here first we see plainly the love of Horatio for Hamlet: here first is Hamlet's judgment of Horatio (134) justified.]
[Footnote 3: —for having killed his uncle:—what, then, if he had slain him at once?]
[Footnote 4: Horatio must be represented as here giving sign of assent.
1st Q.
Ham. Vpon my loue I charge thee let it goe,O fieHoratio, and if thou shouldst die,What a scandale wouldst thou leaue behinde?What tongue should tell the story of our deaths,If not from thee?]
[Footnote 5:Not in Q.]
[Footnote 6: The frame is closing round the picture. 9.]
[Footnote 7: Shakspere more than once or twice makes the dying prophesy.]
[Footnote 8: His last thought is for his country; his last effort at utterance goes to prevent a disputed succession.]
[Footnote 9: 'greater and less'—as in the psalm,
'The Lord preserves all, more and less,That bear to him a loving heart.']
[Footnote 10: led to the necessity.]
[Footnote 11:These interjections are not in the Quarto.]
[Footnote 12:Not in Q.
All Shakspere's tragedies suggest that no action ever ends, only goes off the stage of the world on to another.]
[Page 274]
[Sidenote: 190]Enter Fortinbras and English Ambassador, with[Sidenote:Enter Fortenbrasse, with the Embassadors.]Drumme, Colours, and Attendants.
Fortin. Where is this sight?
Hor. What is it ye would see; [Sidenote: you] If ought of woe, or wonder, cease your search.[1]
For. His quarry[2] cries on hauocke.[3] Oh proud death,[Sidenote: This quarry]What feast is toward[4] in thine eternall Cell.That thou so many Princes, at a shoote, [Sidenote: shot]So bloodily hast strooke.[5]
Amb. The sight is dismall,And our affaires from England come too late,The eares are senselesse that should giue vs hearing,[6]To tell him his command'ment is fulfill'd,ThatRosincranceandGuildensterneare dead:Where should we haue our thankes?[7]
Hor. Not from his mouth,[8]Had it[9] th'abilitie of life to thanke you:He neuer gaue command'ment for their death.[Sidenote: 6] But since so iumpe[10] vpon this bloodie question,[11]You from the Polake warres, and you from EnglandAre heere arriued. Giue order[12] that these bodiesHigh on a stage be placed to the view,And let me speake to th'yet vnknowing world, [Sidenote: , to yet]How these things came about. So shall you heareOf carnall, bloudie, and vnnaturall acts,[13]Of accidentall Judgements,[14] casuall slaughters[15]Of death's put on by cunning[16] and forc'd cause,[17][Sidenote: deaths | and for no cause]And in this vpshot, purposes mistooke,[18]Falne on the Inuentors heads. All this can I [Sidenote: th']Truly deliuer.
For. Let vs hast to heare it,And call the Noblest to the Audience.For me, with sorrow, I embrace my Fortune,I haue some Rites of memory[19] in this Kingdome,[Sidenote: rights of[19]]
[Footnote 1: —for here it is.]
[Footnote 2: the heap of game after a hunt.]
[Footnote 3: 'Havoc's victims cry out against him.']
[Footnote 4: in preparation.]
[Footnote 5: All the real actors in the tragedy, except Horatio, are dead.]
[Footnote 6: This line may be taken as a parenthesis; then—'come too late' joins itself with 'to tell him.' Or we may connect 'hearing' with 'to tell him':—'the ears that should give us hearing in order that we might tell him' etc.]
[Footnote 7: They thus inquire after the successor of Claudius.]
[Footnote 8: —the mouth of Claudius.]
[Footnote 9: —even if it had.]
[Footnote 10: 'so exactly,' or 'immediately'—perhapsopportunely—fittingly.]
[Footnote 11: dispute, strife.]
[Footnote 12: —addressed to Fortinbras, I should say. The state is disrupt, the household in disorder; there is no head; Horatio turns therefore to Fortinbras, who, besides having a claim to the crown, and being favoured by Hamlet, alone has power at the moment—for his army is with him.]
[Footnote 13: —those of Claudius.]
[Footnote 14: 'just judgments brought about by accident'—as in the case of all slain except the king, whose judgment was not accidental, and Hamlet, whose death was not a judgment.]
[Footnote 15: —those of the queen, Polonius, and Ophelia.]
[Footnote 16: 'put on,'indued, 'brought on themselves'—those ofRosincrance, Guildensterne, and Laertes.]
[Footnote 17: —those of the king and Polonius.]
[Footnote 18: 'and in this result'—pointing to the bodies—'purposes which have mistaken their way, and fallen on the inventors' heads.'I am mistakenormistook, meansI have mistaken; 'purposes mistooke'—purposes in themselves mistaken:—that of Laertes, which came back on himself; and that of the king in the matter of the poison, which, by falling on the queen, also came back on the inventor.]
[Footnote 19: TheQuartois correct here, I think: 'rights of the past'—'claims of descent.' Or 'rights of memory' might mean—'rights yet remembered.'
Fortinbras is not one to miss a chance: even in this shadowy 'person,' character is recognizably maintained.]
[Page 276]
Which are to claime,[1] my vantage doth [Sidenote: Which now to clame]Inuite me,
Hor. Of that I shall haue alwayes[2] cause to speake,[Sidenote: haue also cause[3]]And from his mouth[Sidenote: 272] Whose voyce will draw on more:[3][Sidenote: drawe no more,]But let this same be presently perform'd,Euen whiles mens mindes are wilde, [Sidenote: while]Lest more mischanceOn plots, and errors happen.[4]
For. Let foure CaptainesBeareHamletlike a Soldier to the Stage,For he was likely, had he beene put on[5]To haue prou'd most royally:[6] [Sidenote: royall;]And for his passage,[7]The Souldiours Musicke, and the rites of Warre[8] [Sidenote: right of]Speake[9] lowdly for him.Take vp the body; Such a sight as this [Sidenote: bodies,]Becomes the Field, but heere shewes much amis.Go, bid the Souldiers shoote.[10]
Exeunt Marching: after the which, a Peale[Sidenote:Exeunt.]of Ordenance are shot off.
[Footnote 1: 'which must now be claimed'—except theQuartobe right here also.]
[Footnote 2: TheQuartosurely is right here.]
[Footnote 3: —Hamlet's mouth. The message he entrusted to Horatio for Fortinbras, giving his voice, or vote, for him, was sure to 'draw on more' voices.]
[Footnote 4: 'lest more mischance happen in like manner, through plots and mistakes.']
[Footnote 5: 'had he been put forward'—had occasion sent him out.]
[Footnote 6: 'to have proved a most royal soldier:'—A soldier gives here his testimony to Hamlet's likelihood in the soldier's calling. Note the kind of regard in which the Poet would show him held.]
[Footnote 7: —the passage of his spirit to its place.]
[Footnote 8: —military mourning or funeral rites.]
[Footnote 9:imperative mood: 'let the soldier's music and the rites of war speak loudly for him.' 'Go, bid the souldiers shoote,' with which the drama closes, is a more definite initiatory order to the same effect.]
[Footnote 10: The end is a half-line after a riming couplet—as if there were more to come—as there must be after every tragedy. Mere poetic justice will not satisfy Shakspere in a tragedy, for tragedy islife; in a comedy it may do well enough, for that deals but with life-surfaces—and who then more careful of it! but in tragedy something far higher ought to be aimed at. The end of this drama is reached when Hamlet, having attained the possibility of doing so, performs his workin righteousness. The common critical mind would have him left the fatherless, motherless, loverless, almost friendless king of a justifiably distrusting nation—with an eternal grief for his father weighing him down to the abyss; with his mother's sin blackening for him all womankind, and blasting the face of both heaven and earth; and with the knowledge in his heart that he had sent the woman he loved, with her father and her brother, out of the world—maniac, spy, and traitor. Instead of according him such 'poetic justice,' the Poet gives Hamlet the only true success of doing his duty to the end—for it was as much his duty not to act before, as it was his duty to act at last—then sends him after his Ophelia—into a world where true heart will find true way of setting right what is wrong, and of atoning for every ill, wittingly or unwittingly done or occasioned in this.
It seems to me most admirable that Hamlet, being so great, is yet outwardly so like other people: the Poet never obtrudes his greatness. And just because he is modest, confessing weakness and perplexity, small people take him for yet smaller than themselves who never confess anything, and seldom feel anything amiss with them. Such will adduce even Hamlet's disparagement of himself to Ophelia when overwhelmed with a sense of human worthlessness (126), as proof that he was no hero! They call it weakness that he would not, foolishly and selfishly, make good his succession against the king, regardless of the law of election, and careless of the weal of the kingdom for which he shows himself so anxious even in the throes of death! To my mind he is the grandest hero in fiction—absolutely human—so troubled, yet so true!]