Ham. Players, what Players be they?
Ross. My Lord, the Tragedians of the Citty,Those that you tooke delight to see so often.
Ham. How comes it that they trauell? Do they grow restie?
Gil. No my Lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.
Ham. How then?
Gil. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away,For the principall publike audience thatCame to them, are turned to priuate playes,[19]And to the humour[20] of children.
Ham. I doe not greatly wonder of it,For those that would make mops and moesAt my vncle, when my father liued, &c.]
[Footnote 2:a nest of children. The acting of the children of two or three of the chief choirs had become the rage.]
[Footnote 3:Eyases—unfledged hawks.]
[Footnote 4: Childrencry outrather thanspeakon the stage.]
[Footnote 5: 'cry out beyond dispute'—unquestionably; 'cry out and no mistake.' 'He does not top his part.'The Rehearsal, iii. 1.—'He is not up to it.' But perhaps here is intendedabove reason: 'they cry out excessively, excruciatingly.' 103.
This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,—A Lover's Complaint.]
[Footnote 6: I presume it should be the present tense,beratle—except theareof the preceding member be understood: 'and so beratledarethe common stages.' If thepresent, then the children 'so abuse the grown players,'—in the pieces they acted, particularly in the newarguments, written for them—whence the reference togoose-quills.]
[Footnote 7: —of the play-going public.]
[Footnote 8: —for dread of sharing in the ridicule.]
[Footnote 9:paid—from the Frenchescot, a shot or reckoning:Dr.Johnson.]
[Footnote 10: —the quality of players; the profession of the stage.]
[Footnote 11: 'Will they cease playing when their voices change?']
[Footnote 12: Eitherwillshould follow here, orlikeandmostmust change places.]
[Footnote 13: 'those that write for them'.]
[Footnote 14: —what they had had to come to themselves.]
[Footnote 15: 'to incite the children and the grown players to controversy':to tarre them on like dogs: seeKing John, iv. 1.]
[Footnote 16: 'No stage-manager would buy a new argument, or prologue, to a play, unless the dramatist and one of the actors were therein represented as falling out on the question of the relative claims of the children and adult actors.']
[Footnote 17: 'Have the boys the best of it?']
[Footnote 18: 'That they have, out and away.' Steevens suggests that allusion is here made to the sign of the Globe Theatre—Hercules bearing the world for Atlas.]
[Footnote 19: amateur-plays.]
[Footnote 20: whimsical fashion.]
[Page 98]
forty, an hundred Ducates a peece, for his picture[1] [Sidenote: fortie, fifty, a hundred] in Little.[2] There is something in this more then [Sidenote: little, s'bloud there is] Naturall, if Philosophic could finde it out.
Flourish for tke Players.[3] [Sidenote:A Florish.]
Guil. There are the Players.
Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcom toElsonower: your hands, come: The appurtenance of [Sidenote: come then, th'] Welcome, is Fashion and Ceremony. Let me [Sidenote: 260] comply with you in the Garbe,[4] lest my extent[5] to [Sidenote: in this garb: let me extent] the Players (which I tell you must shew fairely outward) should more appeare like entertainment[6] [Sidenote: outwards,] then yours.[7] You are welcome: but my Vnckle Father, and Aunt Mother are deceiu'd.
Guil. In what my deere Lord?
Ham. I am but mad North, North-West: when the Winde is Southerly, I know a Hawke from a Handsaw.[8]
Enter Polonius.
Pol. Well[9] be with you Gentlemen.
Ham. Hearke youGuildensterne, and you too: at each eare a hearer: that great Baby you see there, is not yet out of his swathing clouts. [Sidenote: swadling clouts.]
Rosin. Happily he's the second time come to [Sidenote: he is] them: for they say, an old man is twice a childe.
Ham. I will Prophesie. Hee comes to tell me of the Players. Mark it, you say right Sir: for a [Sidenote: sir, a Monday] Monday morning 'twas so indeed.[10] [Sidenote: t'was then indeede.]
Pol. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you.
Ham. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you. WhenRossiusan Actor in Rome——[11] [Sidenote:Rossiuswas an]
Pol. The Actors are come hither my Lord.
Ham. Buzze, buzze.[12]
Pol. Vpon mine Honor.[13] [Sidenote: my]
Ham. Then can each Actor on his Asse—— [Sidenote: came each]
[Footnote 1: If there be any logical link here, except that, after the instance adduced, no change in social fashion—nothing at all indeed, is to be wondered at, I fail to see it. Perhaps the speech is intended to belong to the simulation. The last sentence of it appears meant to convey the impression that he suspects nothing—is only bewildered by the course of things.]
[Footnote 2: his miniature.]
[Footnote 3: —to indicate their approach.]
[Footnote 4:com'ply—accent on first syllable—'pass compliments with you' (260)—in the garb, either 'in appearance,' or 'in the fashion of the hour.']
[Footnote 5: 'the amount of courteous reception I extend'—'my advances to the players.']
[Footnote 6: reception, welcome.]
[Footnote 7: He seems to desire that they shall no more be on the footing of fellow-students, and thus to rid himself of the old relation. Perhaps he hints that they are players too. From any further show of friendliness he takes refuge in convention—and professed convention—supplying a reason in order to escape a dangerous interpretation of his sudden formality—'lest you should suppose me more cordial to the players than to you.' The speech is full of inwoven irony, doubtful, and refusing to be ravelled out. With what merely half-shown, yet scathing satire it should be spoken and accompanied!]
[Footnote 8: A proverb of the time comically corrupted—handsaw for hernshaw—a heron, the quarry of the hawk. He denies his madness as madmen do—and in terms themselves not unbefitting madness—so making it seem the more genuine. Yet every now and then, urged by the commotion of his being, he treads perilously on the border of self-betrayal.]
[Footnote 9: used as a noun.]
[Footnote 10:Point thus: 'Mark it.—You say right, sir; &c.' He takes up a speech that means nothing, and might mean anything, to turn aside the suspicion their whispering might suggest to Polonius that they had been talking about him—so better to lay his trap for him.]
[Footnote 11: He mentions theactorto lead Polonius so that his prophecy of him shall come true.]
[Footnote 12: An interjection of mockery: he had made a fool of him.]
[Footnote 13: Polonius thinks he is refusing to believe him.]
[Page 100]
Polon. The best Actors in the world, either forTragedie, Comedie, Historic, Pastorall: Pastoricall-Comicall-Historicall-Pastorall: [1] Tragicall-Historicall:Tragicall-Comicall—Historicall-Pastorall[1]:Scene indiuible,[2] or Poem vnlimited.[3]Senecacannot[Sidenote: scene indeuidible,[2]]be too heauy, norPlautustoo light, for the law ofWrit, and the Liberty. These are the onely men.[4]
Ham. OIephtaIudge of Israel, what a Treasure had'st thou?
Pol. What a Treasure had he, my Lord?[5]
Ham. Why one faire Daughter, and no more,[6] The which he loued passing well.[6]
[Sidenote: 86]Pol. Still on my Daughter.
Ham. Am I not i'th'right oldIephta?
Polon. If you call meIephtamy Lord, I haue a daughter that I loue passing well.
Ham. Nay that followes not.[7]
Polon. What followes then, my Lord?
Ham. Why, As by lot, God wot:[6] and then you know, It came to passe, as most like it was:[6] The first rowe of thePons[8] Chansonwill shew you more, [Sidenote: pious chanson] For looke where my Abridgements[9] come. [Sidenote: abridgment[9] comes]
Enter foure or fiue Players.[Sidenote:Enter the Players.]
Y'are welcome Masters, welcome all. I am glad [Sidenote: You are] to see thee well: Welcome good Friends. O my [Sidenote: oh old friend, why thy face is valanct[10]] olde Friend? Thy face is valiant[10] since I saw thee last: Com'st thou to beard me in Denmarke? What, my yong Lady and Mistris?[11] Byrlady [Sidenote: by lady] your Ladiship is neerer Heauen then when I saw [Sidenote: nerer to] you last, by the altitude of a Choppine.[12] Pray God your voice like a peece of vncurrant Gold be not crack'd within the ring.[13] Masters, you are all welcome: wee'l e'ne to't like French Faulconers,[14] [Sidenote: like friendly Fankner] flie at any thing we see: wee'l haue a Speech
[Footnote 1: From [1] to [1] is not in theQuarto.]
[Footnote 2: Does this phrase meanall in one scene?]
[Footnote 3: A poem to be recited only—one notlimited, ordividedinto speeches.]
[Footnote 4:Point thus: 'too light. For the law of Writ, and the Liberty, these are the onely men':—either for written plays, that is,or for those in which the players extemporized their speeches.
1st Q. 'For the law hath writ those are the onely men.']
[Footnote 5: Polonius would lead him on to talk of his daughter.]
[Footnote 6: These are lines of the first stanza of an old ballad still in existence. Does Hamlet suggest that as Jephthah so Polonius had sacrificed his daughter? Or is he only desirous of making him talk about her?]
[Footnote 7: 'That is not as the ballad goes.']
[Footnote 8: That this is a corruption of thepiousin theQuarto, is made clearer from the1st Quarto: 'the first verse of the godly Ballet wil tel you all.']
[Footnote 9:abridgment—that whichabridges, or cuts short. His'Abridgements' were the Players.]
[Footnote 10:1st Q. 'Vallanced'—with a beard, that is. Both readings may be correct.]
[Footnote 11: A boy of course: no women had yet appeared on the stage.]
[Footnote 12: A Venetian boot, stilted, sometimes very high.]
[Footnote 13: —because then it would be unfit for a woman-part. A piece of gold so worn that it had a crack reaching within the inner circle was no longer current.1st Q. 'in the ring:'—was a pun intended?]
[Footnote 14: —like French sportsmen of the present day too.]
[Page 102]
straight. Come giue vs a tast of your quality: come, a passionate speech.
1. Play.What speech, my Lord? [Sidenote: my good Lord?]
Ham.I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was neuer Acted: or if it was, not aboue once, for the Play I remember pleas'd not the Million, 'twasCauiarieto the Generall[1]: but it was (as I receiu'd it, and others, whose iudgement in such matters, cried in the top of mine)[2] an excellent Play; well digested in the Scoenes, set downe with as much modestie, as cunning.[3] I remember one said there was no Sallets[4] in the lines, to make the [Sidenote: were] matter sauoury; nor no matter in the phrase,[5] that might indite the Author of affectation, but cal'd it [Sidenote: affection,] an honest method[A]. One cheefe Speech in it, I [Sidenote: one speech in't I] cheefely lou'd, 'twasÆneasTale toDido, and [Sidenote:Aeneastalke to] thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of [Sidenote: when]Priams[6] slaughter. If it liue in your memory, begin at this Line, let me see, let me see: The ruggedPyrrhuslike th'HyrcanianBeast.[7] It is [Sidenote: tis not] not so: it begins[8] withPyrrhus.[9]
[10] The ruggedPyrrhus, he whose Sable Armes[11]Blacke as his purpose, did the night resembleWhen he lay couched in the Ominous[12] Horse,Hath now this dread and blacke Complexion smear'dWith Heraldry more dismall: Head to footeNow is he to take Geulles,[13] horridly Trick'd[Sidenote: is he totall Gules [18]]With blood of Fathers, Mothers, Daughters, Sonnes,[14] Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,That lend a tyrannous, and damned light [Sidenote: and a damned]
[Footnote A:Here in the Quarto:— as wholesome as sweete, and by very much, more handsome then fine:]
[Footnote 1: The salted roe of the sturgeon is a delicacy disliked by most people.]
[Footnote 2: 'were superior to mine.'
The1st Quartohas,
'Cried in the toppe of their iudgements, an excellent play,'—that is,pronounced it, to the best of their judgments, an excellent play.
Note the difference between 'the top ofmyjudgment', and 'the top oftheirjudgments'. 97.]
[Footnote 3: skill.]
[Footnote 4: coarse jests. 25, 67.]
[Footnote 5:style.]
[Footnote 6:1st Q. 'Princes slaughter.']
[Footnote 7:1st Q. 'th'arganian beast:' 'the Hyrcan tiger,' Macbeth, iii. 4.]
[Footnote 8: 'itbegins': emphasis on begins.]
[Footnote 9: A pause; then having recollected, he starts afresh.]
[Footnote 10: These passages are Shakspere's own, not quotations: the Quartos differ. But when he wrote them he had in his mind a phantom of Marlowe'sDido, Queen of Carthage. I find Steevens has made a similar conjecture, and quotes from Marlowe two of the passages I had marked as being like passages here.]
[Footnote 11: The poetry is admirable in its kind—intentionallycharged, to raise it to the second stage-level, above the blank verse, that is, of the drama in which it is set, as that blank verse is raised above the ordinary level of speech. 143.
The correspondent passage in1st Q. runs nearly parallel for a few lines.]
[Footnote 12:—likeportentous.]
[Footnote 13: 'all red',1st Q. 'totall guise.']
[Footnote 14: Here the1st Quartohas:—
Back't and imparched in calagulate gore,Rifted in earth and fire, olde grandsirePryamseekes:So goe on.]
[Page 104]
To their vilde Murthers, roasted in wrath and fire,[Sidenote: their Lords murther,]And thus o're-sized with coagulate gore,With eyes like Carbuncles, the hellishPyrrhusOld GrandsirePriamseekes.[1][Sidenote: seekes; so proceede you.[2]]
Pol. Fore God, my Lord, well spoken, with good accent, and good discretion.[3]
1. Player. Anon he findes him, [Sidenote:Play]Striking too short at Greekes.[4] His anticke Sword,Rebellious to his Arme, lyes where it fallesRepugnant to command[4]: vnequall match, [Sidenote: matcht,]PyrrhusatPriamdriues, in Rage strikes wide:But with the whiffe and winde of his fell Sword,Th'vnnerued Father fals.[5] Then senselesse Illium,[6]Seeming to feele his blow, with flaming top[Sidenote: seele[7] this blowe,]Stoopes to his Bace, and with a hideous crashTakes PrisonerPyrrhuseare. For loe, his SwordWhich was declining on the Milkie headOf ReuerendPriam, seem'd i'th'Ayre to sticke:So as a painted TyrantPyrrhusstood,[8] [Sidenote: stood Like]And like a Newtrall to his will and matter,[9] did nothing.[10][11] But as we often see against some storme,A silence in the Heauens, the Racke stand still,The bold windes speechlesse, and the Orbe belowAs hush as death: Anon the dreadfull Thunder[Sidenote: 110] Doth rend the Region.[11] So afterPyrrhuspause,Arowsed Vengeance sets him new a-worke,And neuer did the Cyclops hammers fallOn Mars his Armours, forg'd for proofe Eterne,[Sidenote:MarsesArmor]With lesse remorse thenPyrrhusbleeding swordNow falles onPriam.[12] Out, out, thou Strumpet-Fortune, all you Gods,In generall Synod take away her power:Breake all the Spokes and Fallies from her wheele, [Sidenote: follies]
[Footnote 1: This, though horrid enough, is in degree below the description inDido.]
[Footnote 2: He is directing the player to take up the speech there where he leaves it. See last quotation from1st Q.]
[Footnote 3:judgment.]
[Footnote 4: —with an old man's under-reaching blows—till his arm is so jarred by a missed blow, that he cannot raise his sword again.]
[Footnote 5:
Whereat he lifted up his bedrid limbs,And would have grappled with Achilles' son,
* * * * *
Which he, disdaining, whisk'd his sword about,And with the wound[13] thereof the king fell down.
Marlowe'sDido, Queen of Carthage.]
[Footnote 6: TheQuartohas omitted 'Then senselesse Illium,' or something else.]
[Footnote 7: Printed with the long f[symbol for archaic long s].]
[Footnote 8: —motionless as a tyrant in a picture.]
[Footnote 9: 'standing between his will and its object as if he had no relation to either.']
[Footnote 10:
And then in triumph ran into the streets,Through which he could not pass for slaughtered men;So, leaning on his sword, he stood stone still,Viewing the fire wherewith rich Ilion burnt.
Marlowe'sDido, Queen of Carthage.]
[Footnote 11: Who does not feel this passage, down to 'Region,' thoroughly Shaksperean!]
[Footnote 12: Is not the rest of this speech very plainly Shakspere's?]
[Footnote 13:wind, I think it should be.]
[Page 106]
And boule the round Naue downe the hill of Heauen,As low as to the Fiends.
Pol. This is too long.
Ham. It shall to'th Barbars, with your beard. [Sidenote: to the] Prythee say on: He's for a Iigge, or a tale of Baudry, or hee sleepes. Say on; come toHecuba.
1. Play. But who, O who, had seen the inobled[1] Queen. [Sidenote: But who, a woe, had | mobled[1]]
Ham. The inobled[1] Queene? [Sidenote: mobled]
Pol. That's good: Inobled[1] Queene is good.[2]
1. Play. Run bare-foot vp and downe,Threatning the flame [Sidenote: flames]With Bisson Rheume:[3] A clout about that head, [Sidenote: clout vppon]Where late the Diadem stood, and for a RobeAbout her lanke and all ore-teamed Loines,[4]A blanket in th'Alarum of feare caught vp. [Sidenote: the alarme]Who this had seene, with tongue in Venome steep'd,'Gainst Fortunes State, would Treason haue pronounc'd?[5]But if the Gods themselues did see her then,When she sawPyrrhusmake malicious sportIn mincing with his Sword her Husbands limbes,[6] [Sidenote: husband]The instant Burst of Clamour that she made(Vnlesse things mortall moue them not at all)Would haue made milche[7] the Burning eyes of Heauen,And passion in the Gods.[8]
Pol. Looke where[9] he ha's not turn'd his colour, and ha's teares in's eyes. Pray you no more. [Sidenote: prethee]
Ham. 'Tis well, He haue thee speake out the rest, soone. Good my Lord, will you see the [Sidenote: rest of this] Players wel bestow'd. Do ye heare, let them be [Sidenote: you] well vs'd: for they are the Abstracts and breefe [Sidenote: abstract] Chronicles of the time. After your death, you
[Footnote 1: 'mobled'—also in1st Q.—may be the word:muffledseems a corruption of it: comparemob-cap, and
'The moon does mobble up herself'
—Shirley, quoted byFarmer;
but I incline to 'inobled,' thrice in theFolio—once with a capital: I take it to stand for'ignobled,' degraded.]
[Footnote 2: 'Inobled Queene is good.'Not in Quarto.]
[Footnote 3: —threatening to put the flames out with blind tears: 'bisen,' blind—Ang. Sax.]
[Footnote 4: —she had had so many children.]
[Footnote 5: There should of course be no point of interrogation here.]
[Footnote 6:
This butcher, whilst his hands were yet held up,Treading upon his breast, struck off his hands.
Marlowe'sDido, Queen of Carthage.]
[Footnote 7: 'milche'—capable of giving milk: herecapable of tears, which the burning eyes of the gods were not before.]
[Footnote 8: 'And would have made passion in the Gods.']
[Footnote 9: 'whether'.]
[Page 108]
were better haue a bad Epitaph, then their ill report while you liued.[1] [Sidenote: live]
Pol. My Lord, I will vse them according to their desart.
Ham. Gods bodykins man, better. Vse euerie [Sidenote: bodkin man, much better,] man after his desart, and who should scape whipping: [Sidenote: shall] vse them after your own Honor and Dignity. The lesse they deserue, the more merit is in your bountie. Take them in.
Pol. Come sirs.Exit Polon.[2]
Ham. Follow him Friends: wee'l heare a play to morrow.[3] Dost thou heare me old Friend, can you play the murther ofGonzago?
Play. I my Lord.
Ham. Wee'l ha't to morrow night. You could for a need[4] study[5] a speech of some dosen or sixteene [Sidenote: for neede | dosen lines, or] lines, which I would set downe, and insert in't? Could ye not?[6] [Sidenote: you]
Play. I my Lord.
Ham. Very well. Follow that Lord, and looke you mock him not.[7] My good Friends, Ile leaue you til night you are welcome toElsonower? [Sidenote:Exeuent Pol. and Players.]
Rosin. Good my Lord.Exeunt.
Manet Hamlet.[8]
Ham. I so, God buy'ye[9]: Now I am alone. [Sidenote: buy to you,[9]]Oh what a Rogue and Pesant slaue am I?[10]Is it not monstrous that this Player heere,[11]But in a Fixion, in a dreame of Passion,Could force his soule so to his whole conceit,[12][Sidenote: his own conceit]That from her working, all his visage warm'd;[Sidenote: all the visage wand,]Teares in his eyes, distraction in's Aspect, [Sidenote: in his]A broken voyce, and his whole Function suiting [Sidenote: an his]With Formes, to his Conceit?[13] And all for nothing?
[Footnote 1: Why do the editors choose the present tense of theQuarto? Hamlet does not mean, 'It is worse to have the ill report of the Players while you live, than a bad epitaph after your death.' The order of the sentence has provided against that meaning. What he means is, that their ill report in life will be more against your reputation after death than a bad epitaph.]
[Footnote 2:Not in Quarto.]
[Footnote 3: He detains their leader.]
[Footnote 4: 'for a special reason'.]
[Footnote 5:Studyis still the Player's word forcommit to memory.]
[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's quick resolve, made clearer towards the end of the following soliloquy.]
[Footnote 7: Polonius is waiting at the door: this is intended for his hearing.]
[Footnote 8:Not in Q.]
[Footnote 9: Note the varying forms ofGod be with you.]
[Footnote 10:1st Q.
Why what a dunghill idiote slaue am I?Why these Players here draw water from eyes:For Hecuba, why what is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?]
[Footnote 11: Everything rings on the one hard, fixed idea that possesses him; but this one idea has many sides. Of late he has been thinking more upon the woman-side of it; but the Player with his speech has brought his father to his memory, and he feels he has been forgetting him: the rage of the actor recalls his own 'cue for passion.' Always more ready to blame than justify himself, he feels as if he ought to have done more, and so falls to abusing himself.]
[Footnote 12:imagination.]
[Footnote 13: 'his whole operative nature providing fit forms for the embodiment of his imagined idea'—of which forms he has already mentioned hiswarmed visage, histears, hisdistracted look, hisbroken voice.
In this passage we have the true idea of the operation of the genuineacting faculty. Actor as well as dramatist, the Poet gives us here his own notion of his second calling.]
[Page 110]
ForHecuba?What'sHecubato him, or he toHecuba,[1][Sidenote: or he to her,]That he should weepe for her? What would he doe,Had he the Motiue and the Cue[2] for passion[Sidenote: , and that for]That I haue? He would drowne the Stage with teares,And cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech:Make mad the guilty, and apale[3] the free,[4]Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,The very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I, [Sidenote: faculties]A dull and muddy-metled[5] Rascall, peakeLike Iohn a-dreames, vnpregnant of my cause,[6]And can say nothing: No, not for a King,Vpon whose property,[7] and most deere life,A damn'd defeate[8] was made. Am I a Coward?[9]Who calles me Villaine? breakes my pate a-crosse?Pluckes off my Beard, and blowes it in my face?Tweakes me by'th'Nose?[10] giues me the Lye i'th' Throate,[Sidenote: by the]As deepe as to the Lungs? Who does me this?Ha? Why I should take it: for it cannot be,[Sidenote: Hah, s'wounds I]But I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke Gall[11]To make Oppression bitter, or ere this,[Sidenote: 104] I should haue fatted all the Region Kites[Sidenote: should a fatted]With this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine,[Sidenote: bloody, baudy]Remorselesse,[12] Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles[13] villaine!Oh Vengeance![14]Who? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue,[Sidenote: Why what an Asse am I, this]That I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered, [Sidenote: a deere]Prompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell,Must (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with words,And fall a Cursing like a very Drab,[15]A Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine.[16][Sidenote: a stallyon, | braines; hum,]
[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1stQ.
What would he do and if he had my losse?His father murdred, and a Crowne bereft him,[Sidenote: 174] He would turne all his teares to droppes of blood,Amaze the standers by with his laments,
&c. &c.]
[Footnote 2: Speaking of the Player, he uses the player-word.]
[Footnote 3:make pale—appal.]
[Footnote 4:the innocent.]
[Footnote 5:Mettleis spirit—rather in the sense ofanimal-spirit:mettlesome—spirited,as a horse.]
[Footnote 6: 'unpossessed bymy cause'.]
[Footnote 7:personality, proper person.]
[Footnote 8:undoing, destruction—from Frenchdéfaire.]
[Footnote 9: In this mood he no more understands, and altogether doubts himself, as he has previously come to doubt the world.]
[Footnote 10:1st Q. 'or twites my nose.']
[Footnote 11: It was supposed that pigeons had no gall—I presume from their livers not tasting bitter like those of perhaps most birds.]
[Footnote 12:pitiless.]
[Footnote 13:unnatural.]
[Footnote 14: This line is not in theQuarto.]
[Footnote 15: Here inQ.the line runs on to includeFoh. The next line ends withheard.]
[Footnote 16:Point thus: 'About! my brain.' He apostrophizes his brain, telling it to set to work.]
[Page 112]
I haue heard, that guilty Creatures sitting at a Play,Haue by the very cunning of the Scoene,[1]Bene strooke so to the soule, that presentlyThey haue proclaim'd their Malefactions.For Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speakeWith most myraculous Organ.[2] Ile haue these Players,Play something like the murder of my Father,Before mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes,[Sidenote: 137] Ile tent him to the quicke: If he but blench[3][Sidenote: if a doe blench]I know my course. The Spirit that I haue seene[Sidenote: 48] May[4] be the Diuell, and the Diuel hath power[Sidenote: May be a deale, and the deale]T'assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhapsOut of my Weaknesse, and my Melancholly,[5]As he is very potent with such Spirits,[6][Sidenote: 46] Abuses me to damne me.[7] Ile haue groundsMore Relatiue then this: The Play's the thing,Wherein Ile catch the Conscience of the King.Exit.
* * * * *
The division between the second and third acts is by common consent placed here. The third act occupies the afternoon, evening, and night of the same day with the second.
This soliloquy is Hamlet's first, and perhaps we may find it correct to sayonlyoutbreak of self-accusation. He charges himself with lack of feeling, spirit, and courage, in that he has not yet taken vengeance on his uncle. But unless we are prepared to accept and justify to the full his own hardest words against himself, and grant him a muddy-mettled, pigeon-livered rascal, we must examine and understand him, so as to account for his conduct better than he could himself. If we allow that perhaps he accuses himself too much, we may find on reflection that he accuses himself altogether wrongfully. If a man is content to think the worst of Hamlet, I care to hold no argument with that man.
We must not look forexpressedlogical sequence in a soliloquy, which is a vocal mind. The mind is seldom conscious of the links or transitions of a yet perfectly logical process developed in it. This remark, however, is more necessary in regard to the famous soliloquy to follow.
In Hamlet, misery has partly choked even vengeance; and although sure in his heart that his uncle is guilty, in his brain he is not sure. Bitterly accusing himself in an access of wretchedness and rage and credence, he forgets the doubt that has restrained him, with all besides which he might so well urge in righteous defence, not excuse, of his delay. But ungenerous criticism has, by all but universal consent, accepted his own verdict against himself. So in common life there are thousands on thousands who, upon the sad confession of a man immeasurably greater than themselves, and showing his greatness in the humility whose absence makes admission impossible to them, immediately pounce upon him with vituperation, as if he were one of the vile, and they infinitely better. Such should be indignant with St. Paul and say—if he was the chief of sinners, what insolence to lecturethem! and certainly the more justified publican would never by them have been allowed to touch the robe of the less justified Pharisee. Such critics surely take little or no pains to understand the object of their contempt: because Hamlet is troubled and blames himself, they without hesitation condemn him—and there where he is most commendable. It is the righteous man who is most ready to accuse himself; the unrighteous is least ready. Who is able when in deep trouble, rightly to analyze his feelings? Delay in action is not necessarily abandonment of duty; in Hamlet's case it is a due recognition of duty, which condemns precipitancy—and action in the face of doubt, so long as it is nowise compelled, is precipitancy. The first thing isto be sure: Hamlet has never been sure; he spies at length a chance of making himself sure; he seizes upon it; and while his sudden resolve to make use of the players, like the equally sudden resolve to shroud himself in pretended madness, manifests him fertile in expedient, the carrying out of both manifests him right capable and diligent in execution—a man of action in every true sense of the word.
The self-accusation of Hamlet has its ground in the lapse of weeks during which nothing has been done towards punishing the king. Suddenly roused to a keen sense of the fact, he feels as if surely he might have done something. The first act ends with a burning vow of righteous vengeance; the second shows him wandering about the palace in profoundest melancholy—such as makes it more than easy for him to assume the forms of madness the moment he marks any curious eye bent upon him. Let him who has never loved and revered a mother, call such melancholy weakness. He has indeed done nothing towards the fulfilment of his vow; but the way in which he made the vow, the terms in which he exacted from his companions their promise of silence, and his scheme for eluding suspicion, combine to show that from the first he perceived its fulfilment would be hard, saw the obstacles in his way, and knew it would require both time and caution. That even in the first rush of his wrath he should thus be aware of difficulty, indicates moral symmetry; but the full weight of what lay in his path could appear to him only upon reflection. Partly in the light of passages yet to come, I will imagine the further course of his thoughts, which the closing couplet of the first act shows as having already begun to apale 'the native hue of resolution.'
'But how shall I take vengeance on my uncle? Shall I publicly accuse him, or slay him at once? In the one case what answer can I make to his denial? in the other, what justification can I offer? If I say the spirit of my father accuses him, what proof can I bring? My companions only saw the apparition—heard no word from him; and my uncle's party will assert, with absolute likelihood to the minds of those who do not know me—and who here knows me but my mother!—that charge is a mere coinage of jealous disappointment, working upon the melancholy I have not cared to hide. (174-6.) When I act, it must be to kill him, and to what misconstruction shall I not expose myself! (272) If the thing must so be, I must brave all; but I could never present myself thereafter as successor to the crown of one whom I had first slain and then vilified on the accusation of an apparition whom no one heard but myself! I must findproof—such proof as will satisfy others as well as myself. My immediate duty isevidence, not vengeance.'
We have seen besides, that, when informed of the haunting presence of the Ghost, he expected the apparition with not a little doubt as to its authenticity—a doubt which, even when he saw it, did not immediately vanish: is it any wonder that when the apparition was gone, the doubt should return? Return it did, in accordance with the reaction which waits upon all high-strung experience. If he did not believe in the person who performed it, would any man long believe in any miracle? Hamlet soon begins to question whether he can with confidence accept the appearance for that which it appeared and asserted itself to be. He steps over to the stand-point of his judges, and doubts the only testimony he has to produce. Far more:—was he not bound in common humanity, not to sayfilialness, to doubt it? To doubt the Ghost, was to doubt a testimony which to accept was to believe his father in horrible suffering, his uncle a murderer, his mother at least an adulteress; to kill his uncle was to set his seal to the whole, and, besides, to bring his mother into frightful suspicion of complicity in his father's murder. Ought not the faintest shadow of a doubt, assuaging ever so little the glare of the hell-sun of such crime, to be welcome to the tortured heart? Wretched wife and woman as his mother had shown herself, the Ghost would have him think her far worse—perhaps, even accessory to her husband's murder! For action hemusthave proof!
At the same time, what every one knew of his mother, coupled now with the mere idea of the Ghost's accusation, wrought in him such misery, roused in him so many torturing and unanswerable questions, so blotted the face of the universe and withered the heart of hope, that he could not but doubt whether, in such a world of rogues and false women, it was worth his while to slay one villain out of the swarm.
Ophelia's behaviour to him, in obedience to her father, of which she gives him no explanation, has added 'the pangs of disprized love,' and increased his doubts of woman-kind. 120.
But when his imagination, presenting afresh the awful interview, brings him more immediately under the influence of the apparition and its behest, he is for the moment delivered both from the stunning effect of its communication and his doubt of its truth; forgetting then the considerations that have wrought in him, he accuses himself of remissness, blames himself grievously for his delay. Soon, however, his senses resume their influence, and he doubts again. So goes the mill-round of his thoughts, with the revolving of many wheels.
His whole conscious nature is frightfully shaken: he would be the poor creature most of his critics would make of him, were it otherwise; it is because of his greatness that he suffers so terribly, and doubts so much. A mother's crime is far more paralyzing than a father's murder is stimulating; and either he has not set himself in thorough earnest to find the proof he needs, or he has as yet been unable to think of any serviceable means to the end, when the half real, half simulated emotion of the Player yet again rouses in him the sense of remissness, leads him to accuse himself of forgotten obligation and heartlessness, and simultaneously suggests a device for putting the Ghost and his words to the test. Instantly he seizes the chance: when a thing has to be done, and can be done, Hamlet isneverwanting—shows himself the very promptest of men.
In the last passage of this act I do not take it that he is expressing an idea then first occurring to him: that the whole thing may be a snare of the devil is a doubt with which during weeks he has been familiar.
The delay through which, in utter failure to comprehend his character, he has been so miserably misjudged, falls really between the first and second acts, although it seems in the regard of most readers to underlie and protract the whole play. Its duration is measured by the journey of the ambassadors to and from the neighbouring kingdom of Norway.
It is notably odd, by the way, that those who accuse Hamlet of inaction, are mostly the same who believe his madness a reality! In truth, however, his affected madness is one of the strongest signs of his activity, and his delay one of the strongest proofs of his sanity.
This second act, the third act, and a part always given to the fourth, but which really belongs to the third, occupy in all only one day.
[Footnote 1: Here follows in1st Q.
confest a murderCommitted long before.This spirit that I haue seene may be the Diuell,And out of my weakenesse and my melancholy,As he is very potent with such men,Doth seeke to damne me, I will haue sounder proofes,The play's the thing, &c.]
[Footnote 2:
'Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;' &c.
Macbeth, iii. 4.]
[Footnote 3: In the1st Q.Hamlet, speaking to Horatio (l 37), says,
And if he doe not bleach, and change at that,—
Bleachis radically the same word asblench:—to bleach, to blanch, to blench—to grow white.]
[Footnote 4: Emphasis onMay, as resuming previous doubtful thought and suspicion.]
[Footnote 5: —caused from the first by his mother's behaviour, not constitutional.]
[Footnote 6: —'such conditions of the spirits'.]
[Footnote 7: Here is one element in the very existence of the preceding act: doubt as to the facts of the case has been throughout operating to restrain him; and here first he reveals, perhaps first recognizes its influence. Subject to change of feeling with the wavering of conviction, he now for a moment regards his uncertainty as involving unnatural distrust of a being in whose presence he cannot helpfeelinghim his father. He was familiar with the lore of the supernatural, and knew the doubt he expresses to be not without support.—His companions as well had all been in suspense as to the identity of the apparition with the late king.]
[Page 116]
Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance, Guildenstern, and Lords.[1] [Sidenote: Guyldensterne, Lords.]
[Sidenote: 72]King.And can you by no drift of circumstance[Sidenote: An can | of conference]Get from him why he puts on[2] this Confusion:Grating so harshly all his dayes of quietWith turbulent and dangerous Lunacy.
Rosin.He does confesse he feeles himselfe distracted, [Sidenote: 92] But from what cause he will by no meanes speake. [Sidenote: a will]
Guil.Nor do we finde him forward to be sounded,But with a crafty Madnesse[3] keepes aloofe:When we would bring him on to some ConfessionOf his true state.
Qu.Did he receiue you well?
Rosin.Most like a Gentleman.
Guild.But with much forcing of his disposition.[4]
Rosin.Niggard of question, but of our demands Most free in his reply.[5]
Qu.Did you assay him to any pastime?
Rosin.Madam, it so fell out, that certaine PlayersWe ore-wrought on the way: of these we told him,[Sidenote: ore-raught[6]]And there did seeme in him a kinde of ioyTo heare of it: They are about the Court, [Sidenote: are heere about]And (as I thinke) they haue already orderThis night to play before him.
Pol.'Tis most true; And he beseech'd me to intreate your Majesties To heare, and see the matter.
King.With all my heart, and it doth much content me To heare him so inclin'd. Good Gentlemen,
[Footnote 1: This may be regarded as the commencement of the Third Act.]
[Footnote 2: The phrase seems to imply a doubt of the genuineness of the lunacy.]
[Footnote 3:Nominative pronoun omitted here.]
[Footnote 4: He has noted, without understanding them, the signs ofHamlet's suspicion of themselves.]
[Footnote 5: Compare the seemingly opposite statements of the two:Hamlet had bewildered them.]
[Foonote 6:over-reached—came up with, caught up, overtook.]
[Page 118]
Giue him a further edge,[1] and driue his purpose on[Sidenote: purpose into these]To these delights.
Rosin.We shall my Lord.Exeunt.[Sidenote:Exeunt Ros. & Guyl.]
King.Sweet Gertrude leaue vs too, [Sidenote: Gertrard | two]For we haue closely sent forHamlethither,[Sidenote: 84] That he, as 'twere by accident, may there[Sidenote: heere]Affront[2]Ophelia. Her Father, and my selfe[3] (lawful espials)[4]Will so bestow our selues, that seeing vnseeneWe may of their encounter frankely iudge,And gather by him, as he is behaued,If't be th'affliction of his loue, or no,That thus he suffers for.
Qu.I shall obey you,And for your partOphelia,[5] I do wishThat your good Beauties be the happy causeOfHamletswildenesse: so shall I hope your Vertues[Sidenote: 240] Will bring him to his wonted way againe,To both your Honors.[6]
Ophe.Madam, I wish it may.
Pol. Ophelia, walke you heere. Gracious so please ye[7][Sidenote: you,]We will bestow our selues: Reade on this booke,[8]That shew of such an exercise may colourYour lonelinesse.[9] We are oft too blame in this,[10][Sidenote: lowlines:]'Tis too much prou'd, that with Deuotions visage,And pious Action, we do surge o're [Sidenote: sugar]The diuell himselfe.
[Sidenote: 161]King.Oh 'tis true: [Sidenote: tis too true]How smart a lash that speech doth giue my Conscience?The Harlots Cheeke beautied with plaist'ring ArtIs not more vgly to the thing that helpes it,[11]Then is my deede, to my most painted word.[12]Oh heauie burthen![13]
[Footnote 1: 'edgehim on'—somehow corrupted intoegg.]
[Footnote 2:confront.]
[Footnote 3:Clause in parenthesis not in Q.]
[Footnote 4: —apologetic to the queen.]
[Footnote 5: —going up to Ophelia—I would say, who stands at a little distance, and has not heard what has been passing between them.]
[Footnote 6: The queen encourages Ophelia in hoping to marry Hamlet, and may so have a share in causing a certain turn her madness takes.]
[Footnote 7: —aside to the king.]
[Footnote 8: —to Ophelia:her prayer-book. 122.]
[Footnote 9:1st Q.
And hereOfelia, reade you on this booke,And walke aloofe, the King shal be vnseene.]
[Footnote 10: —aside to the king.I insert theseasides, and suggest the queen's going up to Ophelia, to show how we may easily hold Ophelia ignorant of their plot. Poor creature as she was, I would believe Shakspere did not mean her to lie to Hamlet. This may be why he omitted that part of her father's speech in the1st Q.given in the note immediately above, telling her the king is going to hide. Still, it would be excuse enough forher, that she thought his madness justified the deception.]
[Footnote 11: —ugly to the paint that helps by hiding it—to which it lies so close, and from which it has no secrets. Or, 'ugly to' may mean, 'uglycompared with.']
[Footnote 12: 'most painted'—very much painted. His painted word is the paint to the deed.Paintedmay be taken forfull of paint.]
[Footnote 13: This speech of the king is the firstassurancewe have of his guilt.]
[Page 120]
Pol.I heare him comming, let's withdraw my Lord.[Sidenote: comming, with-draw]Exeunt.[1]
Enter Hamlet.[2]
Ham.To be, or not to be, that is the Question:Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to sufferThe Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,[Sidenote: 200,250] Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,[3]And by opposing end them:[4] to dye, to sleepeNo more; and by a sleepe, to say we endThe Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockesThat Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummationDeuoutly to be wish'd.[5] To dye to sleepe,To sleepe, perchance to Dreame;[6] I, there's the rub,For in that sleepe of death, what[7] dreames may come,[8]When we haue shuffle'd off this mortall coile,[Sidenote: 186] Must giue vs pawse.[9] There's the respectThat makes Calamity of so long life:[10]For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,[Sidenote: proude mans][Sidenote: 114] The pangs of dispriz'd Loue,[11] the Lawes delay,[Sidenote: despiz'd]The insolence of Office, and the SpurnesThat patient merit of the vnworthy takes, [Sidenote: th']When he himselfe might hisQuietusmake[Sidenote: 194,252-3] With a bare Bodkin?[12] Who would these Fardlesbeare[13] [Sidenote: would fardels]To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,[Sidenote: 194] But that the dread of something after death,[14]The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose BorneNo Traueller returnes,[15] Puzels the will,And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,Then flye to others that we know not of.Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,[16][Sidenote: 30] And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution[17]Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,[18][Sidenote: sickled]
[Footnote 1:Not in Q.—They go behind the tapestry, where it hangs over the recess of the doorway. Ophelia thinks they have left the room.]
[Footnote 2:In Q. before last speech.]
[Footnote 3: Perhaps to a Danish or Dutch critic, or one from the eastern coast of England, this simile would not seem so unfit as it does to some.]
[Footnote 4: To print this so as I would have it read, I would complete this line from here with points, and commence the next with points. At the other breaks of the soliloquy, as indicated below, I would do the same—thus:
And by opposing end them….….To die—to sleep,]
[Footnote 5:Break.]
[Footnote 6:Break.]
[Footnote 7: Emphasis onwhat.]
[Footnote 8: Such dreams as the poor Ghost's.]
[Footnote 9:Break.—'pawse' is the noun, and from its use at page 186, we may judge it means here 'pause for reflection.']
[Footnote 10: 'makes calamity so long-lived.']
[Footnote 11: —not necessarily disprized by thelady; the disprizer in Hamlet's case was the worldly and suspicious father—and that in part, and seemingly to Hamlet altogether, for the king's sake.]
[Footnote 12:small sword. If there be here any allusion to suicide, it is on the general question, and with no special application to himself. 24. But it is the king and the bare bodkin his thought associates. How could he even glance at the things he has just mentioned, as each, a reason for suicide? It were a cowardly country indeed where the question might be asked, 'Who would not commit suicide because of any one of these things, except on account of what may follow after death?'! One might well, however, be tempted to destroy an oppressor,and risk his life in that.]
[Footnote 13:Fardel, burden: the old French forfardeau, I am informed.]
[Footnote 14: —a dread caused by conscience.]
[Footnote 15: The Ghost could not be imagined as havingreturned.]
[Footnote 16: 'of us all'not in Q.It is not the fear of evil that makes us cowards, but the fear ofdeservedevil. The Poet may intend that conscience alone is the cause of fear in man. 'Coward' does not here involve contempt: it should be spoken with a grim smile. But Hamlet would hardly call turning fromsuicidecowardice in any sense. 24.]
[Footnote 17: —such as was his when he vowed vengeance.]
[Footnote 18: —such as immediately followed on that Thenativehue of resolution—that which is natural to man till interruption comes—is ruddy; the hue of thought is pale. I suspect the 'pale cast' of an allusion to whitening withrough-cast.]
[Page 122]
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,[1] [Sidenote: pitch [1]]With this regard their Currants turne away, [Sidenote: awry]And loose the name of Action.[2] Soft you now,[Sidenote: 119] The faireOphelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons[3]Be all my sinnes remembred.[4]
Ophe.Good my Lord, How does your Honor for this many a day?
Ham.I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.[5]
Ophe.My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours, That I haue longed long to re-deliuer. I pray you now, receiue them.
Ham.No, no, I neuer gaue you ought.[6][Sidenote: No, not I, I never]
Ophe.My honor'd Lord, I know right well you did,[Sidenote: you know]And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd,As made the things more rich, then perfume left:[Sidenote: these things | their perfume lost.[7]]Take these againe, for to the Noble mindeRich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde.There my Lord.[8]
Ham.Ha, ha: Are you honest?[9]
Ophe.My Lord.
Ham.Are you faire?
Ophe.What meanes your Lordship?
Ham.That if you be honest and faire, your [Sidenote: faire, you should admit] Honesty[10] should admit no discourse to your Beautie.
Ophe.Could Beautie my Lord, haue better Comerce[11] then your Honestie?[12] [Sidenote: Then with honestie?[11]]
Ham.I trulie: for the power of Beautie, will sooner transforme Honestie from what it is, to a Bawd, then the force of Honestie can translate Beautie into his likenesse. This was sometime a Paradox, but now the time giues it proofe. I did loue you once.[13]
Ophe.Indeed my Lord, you made me beleeue so.
[Footnote 1: How couldsuicidebe styledan enterprise of great pith? Yet less could it be calledof great pitch.]
[Footnote 2: I allow this to be a general reflection, but surely it serves to show thatconsciencemust at least be one of Hamlet's restraints.]
[Footnote 3: —by way of intercession.]
[Footnote 4: Note the entire change of mood from that of the last soliloquy. The right understanding of this soliloquy is indispensable to the right understanding of Hamlet. But we are terribly trammelled and hindered, as in the understanding of Hamlet throughout, so here in the understanding of his meditation, by traditional assumption. I was roused to think in the right direction concerning it, by the honoured friend and relative to whom I have feebly acknowledged my obligation by dedicating to him this book. I could not at first see it as he saw it: 'Think about it, and you will,' he said. I did think, and by degrees—not very quickly—my prejudgments thinned, faded, and almost vanished. I trust I see it now as a whole, and in its true relations, internal and external—its relations to itself, to the play, and to the Hamlet, of Shakspere.
Neither in its first verse, then, nor in it anywhere else, do I find even an allusion to suicide. What Hamlet is referring to in the said first verse, it is not possible with certainty to determine, for it is but the vanishing ripple of a preceding ocean of thought, from which he is just stepping out upon the shore of the articulate. He may have been plunged in some profound depth of the metaphysics of existence, or he may have been occupied with the one practical question, that of the slaying of his uncle, which has, now in one form, now in another, haunted his spirit for weeks. Perhaps, from the message he has just received, he expects to meet the king, and conscience, confronting temptation, has been urging the necessity of proof; perhaps a righteous consideration of consequences, which sometimes have share in the primary duty, has been making him shrink afresh from the shedding of blood, for every thoughtful mind recoils from the irrevocable, and that is an awful form of the irrevocable. But whatever thought, general or special, this first verse may be dismissing, we come at once thereafter into the light of a definite question: 'Which is nobler—to endure evil fortune, or to oppose ità outrance; to bear in passivity, or to resist where resistance is hopeless—resist to the last—to the death which is its unavoidable end?'
Then comes a pause, during which he is thinking—we will not say 'too precisely on the event,' but taking his account with consequences: the result appears in the uttered conviction that the extreme possible consequence, death, is a good and not an evil. Throughout, observe, how here, as always, he generalizes, himself being to himself but the type of his race.
Then follows another pause, during which he seems prosecuting the thought, for he has already commenced further remark in similar strain, when suddenly a new and awful element introduces itself:
….To die—to sleep.——Tosleep! perchance todream!
He had been thinking of death only as the passing away of the present with its troubles; here comes the recollection that death has its own troubles—its own thoughts, its own consciousness: if it be a sleep, it has its dreams. 'What dreams may come' means, 'the sort of dreams that may come'; the emphasis is on thewhat, not on themay; there is no question whether dreams will come, but there is question of the character of the dreams. This consideration is what makes calamity so long-lived! 'For who would bear the multiform ills of life'—he alludes to his own wrongs, but mingles, in his generalizing way, others of those most common to humanity, and refers to the special cure for some of his own which was close to his hand—'who would bear these things if he could, as I can, make his quietus with a bare bodkin'—that is, by slaying his enemy—'who would then bear them, but that he fears the future, and the divine judgment upon his life and actions—that conscience makes a coward of him!'[14]
To run, not the risk of death, but the risks that attend upon and follow death, Hamlet must be certain of what he is about; he must be sure it is a right thing he does, or he will leave it undone. Compare his speech, 250, 'Does it not, &c.':—by the time he speaks this speech, he has had perfect proof, and asserts the righteousness of taking vengeance in almost an agony of appeal to Horatio.
The more continuous and the more formally logical a soliloquy, the less natural it is. The logic should be all there, but latent; the bones of it should not show: they do not show here.]
[Footnote 5:One'well'only in Q.]
[Footnote 6: He does not want to take them back, and so sever even that weak bond between them. He has not given her up.]
[Footnote 7: TheQ.reading seems best. The perfume of his gifts was the sweet words with which they were given; those words having lost their savour, the mere gifts were worth nothing.]
[Footnote 8: Released from the commands her father had laid upon her, and emboldened by the queen's approval of more than the old relation between them, she would timidly draw Hamlet back to the past—to love and a sound mind.]