The Lord Chamberlain to the Court of Denmark was an old man called
Polonius, an ancient gray-bearded councillor, whose brain was stuffed
with saws and proverbial sayings, and who had a very high opinion of
his own sagacity. Polonius was ready to lay down the law on every
occasion, and could always explain everything completely to his
own satisfaction; the worldly wisdom of what he said was sometimes
excellent, but his prosy moralising was often a severe tax on the
patience of his hearers; in fact, he was not unfrequently what might
be called “a tedious old bore.”
Polonius had two children--a handsome, fiery-natured son called
Laertes, and a gentle, beautiful young daughter called Ophelia.
Like most young gallants in days of old, Laertes wished to see
something of the world abroad, and directly the coronation was over,
he begged permission to return to France, whence he had come to
Denmark to show his duty to the new King. Hearing that Polonius had
granted leave, though unwillingly, Claudius graciously gave his own
consent, and Laertes prepared to depart at once.
Between Ophelia and the young Prince Hamlet a tender affection had
grown up. As children, no doubt, they had been companions, for the boy
Prince had no brothers or sisters of his own, though at school he had
two friends of whom he was very fond, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
As Hamlet and Ophelia grew older this feeling became stronger. Their
intimacy was watched with favour by Queen Gertrude, who dearly loved
the gentle maiden, and wished nothing better than that she should
become the wife of her son. So far, no definite engagement of marriage
had taken place, but Hamlet was deeply attached to the young girl, and
showed his affection by many gifts and words of love. As for Ophelia,
her whole being was wrapt up in Hamlet. And small wonder, for peerless
in grace and beauty, gallant in bearing as noble in nature, the young
Prince shone forth far beyond any of his companions. As soldier,
courtier, scholar, he was alike distinguished--ready in wit, skilled
in manly exercises, highly accomplished, deeply thoughtful, studious
in learning, a prince of courtesy, and an affectionate comrade. What
marvel, then, that he had won for himself the absorbing love of a
simple maiden like Ophelia, and the whole-hearted devotion of a loyal
friend like Horatio?
Ophelia, in the quiet simplicity of her nature, accepted Hamlet’s
love without question; but Laertes, with his larger experience of
the world, was by no means confident that Hamlet intended anything
serious, and on the eve of his departure for France he warned his
sister not to place too much reliance on the young Prince’s favour.
He bade her think of it as a fashion and a toy to amuse the passing
hour--something sweet, but not lasting.
“No more but so?” said Ophelia wistfully.
“Think it no more,” counselled Laertes firmly. “Perhaps he loves you
now, sincerely enough, but you must fear, weighing his greatness, his
will is not his own; for he himself is subject to his birth. He may
not, as unvalued persons do, choose for himself, for on his choice
depends the safety and health of this whole State.”
Then, sensibly enough, Laertes pointed out that even if Hamlet truly
loved her, reasons of state might prevent his ever marrying her, and
therefore he begged his sister to be careful about bestowing her love
too unguardedly on the Prince.
Poor Ophelia’s heart sank lower and lower at her brother’s words, but
she meekly promised to remember his counsel. Then Polonius came in and
gave some excellent parting words of advice to his son.
“Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you,” said
Laertes, as he took his leave.
“What is it, Ophelia, he hath said to you?” asked Polonius.
“So please you, something touching the lord Hamlet.”
“Marry, well bethought,” said the old man; and then in his turn he
proceeded to lecture his daughter on somewhat the same lines as
Laertes had done.
In reply to his questions, Ophelia told him that Hamlet had lately
made her many offerings of affection, and spoken many words of love.
But, like Laertes, Polonius would not believe that Hamlet intended
them seriously, or, at any rate, he pretended to think it only a
passing fancy of the Prince’s. He ordered his daughter, therefore,
to be more chary in seeing Hamlet--in fact, to avoid him as much as
possible.
“I shall obey, my lord,” answered Ophelia dutifully.
It never seemed to occur to her to question her father’s will. She
could love faithfully, but she could not struggle against opposition.
So when the tempest came, she bent her head before it, like a frail
reed, and was swept resistlessly away.
“Sweet Bells jangled, out of Tune and Harsh”
In accordance with her father’s injunctions, Ophelia now began to keep
aloof from Hamlet; she sent no answers to his letters, and refused to
see him. In the deeply-absorbing subject which had occupied Hamlet’s
brain since the visit of the Ghost, it may be doubted whether he felt
to the full this altered behaviour; but when all joy on earth seemed
failing him, and nothing true or steadfast seemed left, it was perhaps
an added pang that even the woman he loved should choose this moment
to withdraw her sympathy and companionship. Hamlet had sworn to his
father’s spirit henceforth to banish from his mind the remembrance of
everything but revenge. His love for Ophelia, therefore, must take
a secondary place; but he could not give it up so easily, though he
made an attempt to do so. There was a constant struggle going on in
his mind; his was the misery of one who has a harder task imposed on
him than he has strength to carry out. He knew his duty, but he could
not do it. He pondered and pondered over the matter, he reflected
deeply over the problems and difficulties of life; he could think, and
suffer, and plan, but he could not act. Time passed on, and still he
had taken no decisive step. Day after day he saw the false, fawning
smile of the traitor who had stolen his father’s crown. He knew
himself to be thrust out of his own lawful place, a poor dependent on
the will of the usurper, instead of enjoying his lawful rights as his
father’s successor. But there was something in the sweet nobility of
Hamlet which wrought its own downfall. A coarser, blunter nature that
went straight to its mark, and either did not see, or did not trouble
itself, about any side-issues, would have won its object; but Hamlet’s
delicate, highly-strung spirit was not of the kind to command worldly
success.
The perpetual trouble and perplexity in which he was plunged, and the
bitter sense of his own irresolution, wrought a great change in the
young Prince. Utterly out of sympathy with the whole Court of Denmark,
and the better to conceal the workings of his mind, he adopted a
strange mode of behaviour. He enjoyed the freedom this gave him of
dispensing with the hypocrisy which was so prevalent at Court, and he
took a half-bitter amusement in playing the part of one whose wits
are wandering, and who is therefore privileged to indulge in wild
and random speech. But at any instant he could lay aside this garb
of eccentricity. With his old friends he was still the warm-hearted
comrade, and to those in a lower position he was invariably a Prince
of royal courtesy and kindness.
The King and Queen were much concerned at this change in Hamlet, and
could not imagine what caused it, unless it were his father’s death.
They sent in haste for two favourite friends of his boyhood to see if
they could cheer him up with their company, and privately glean if
there were anything afflicting him unknown to them. Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern promised to do their best, and the Queen ordered them to
be at once conducted to Hamlet.
In the meanwhile, old Polonius had solved the problem of Hamlet’s
madness entirely to his own satisfaction, and he now came in triumph
to impart his discovery to the King and Queen. It was, of course,
quite impossible for him to tell his tale in a few words, but after an
immense deal of beating round the bush, at last he came to the point.
Briefly, it amounted to this: Hamlet had become mad because Ophelia
had rejected his love. Oh, Polonius was quite certain about it, there
was no doubt of the fact; and he carefully traced in detail all the
various stages of Hamlet’s malady, which, it need scarcely be said,
only existed in the old Chamberlain’s imagination. Polonius further
produced as evidence a wild sort of letter that Hamlet had written
to Ophelia, and was quite offended when the King and Queen seemed to
hesitate a little in accepting his explanation of the problem.
“Hath there been such a time, I would fain know that, that I have
positively said ‘’Tis so’ when it proved otherwise?”
“Not that I know,” said the King.
“Take this from this,” said Polonius, pointing to his head and
shoulders, “if this be otherwise. If circumstances lead me, I will
find where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed within the centre.”
“How may we try it further?” asked the King.
Polonius replied that Hamlet often walked for hours together in the
lobby where they then were, and suggested that at such a time Ophelia
should be sent to speak to him; he and the King, secretly hidden
behind the arras, would watch the interview.
“If he love her not, and be not fallen from his reason because of it,
let me be no assistant for a State, but keep a farm and carters,”
concluded Polonius complacently.
“We will try it,” said the King.
“But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading,” said the Queen,
as Hamlet himself entered the lobby at that moment, his eyes fixed on
the open book he held in his hand.
“Away, I do beseech you--both away!” cried Polonius eagerly. “I will
speak to him.--How does my good Lord Hamlet?” he added suavely, as
Hamlet approached.
“Well, God have mercy!” said Hamlet, in a voice of vacant indifference.
“Do you know me, my lord?” said Polonius, still in the same coaxing
tone.
The young Prince lifted his listless eyes from his book and surveyed
the old man.
“Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.”
“Not I, my lord,” said Polonius, rather taken aback.
“Then I would you were so honest a man.”
“Honest, my lord?”
“Ay, sir! To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked
out of ten thousand.”
“That’s very true, my lord,” Polonius was forced to agree. He had not
come off very well in this first encounter of wits, but he resolved to
make a further attempt. Hamlet had now returned to his book. “What do
you read, my lord?”
“Words--words--words,” said the young Prince wearily.
“What is the matter, my lord?”
“Between who?”
“I mean, the matter that you read, my lord?”
“Slanders, sir,” said Hamlet, looking full at him, and pretending to
point to a passage in the book, “for the satirical rogue says here
that old men have gray beards, that their faces are wrinkled, and that
they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak limbs; all
which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold
it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, should be
as old as I am--if like a crab you could go backward.”
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it,” said Polonius
aside. “Will you walk out of the air, my lord?”
“Into my grave.”
“Indeed, that is out of the air,” remarked Polonius struck by the
wisdom of Hamlet’s replies. “Well, I will leave him, and suddenly
contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter. My
honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.”
“You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly
part withal,” said Hamlet, bowing low with exaggerated courtesy;
then, as he turned away, the satire in his voice changed to a note of
hopeless despair--“except my life--except my life--except my life,” he
ended, with almost a groan.
“Fare you well, my lord,” said Polonius; and as he fussily took
himself off, Hamlet muttered under his breath, “Those tedious old
fools!”
Hamlet, for his own purpose, had chosen to amuse himself at the
expense of the pompous old Chamberlain, but directly Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern appeared he was again himself, and the warm-hearted
friend of old days. He greeted them with the utmost cordiality, and
nothing could have exceeded the gracious charm of his manner. If only
they had met him with the same frank candour, all would have been
well; but his quick penetration soon discovered from their expression
that there was something in the background, and he presently made them
confess that their visit to Elsinore had not been prompted solely by
the desire to see Hamlet, but that they had been sent for by the King
and Queen. When Hamlet won from them reluctantly this admission, his
trust in them fled, and he determined to be on his guard with them. He
told them he could tell why they had been sent for, and thus they need
not fear betraying any secret of the King and Queen.
“I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, foregone
all custom of exercises,” he said, “and, indeed, it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a
sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you,
this brave, o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with
golden fire--why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and
pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how
express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension
how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And
yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not
me--no, nor woman either, though by your smiling you seem to say so.”
“My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts,” said Rosencrantz.
“Why did you laugh, then, when I said ‘Man delights not me’?”
Rosencrantz answered that he was only thinking, if Hamlet delighted
not in man, what sorry entertainment the band of players would
receive, whom they had overtaken on the way to Elsinore.
Hamlet replied that they would all be welcome, and asked what players
they were.
“Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of
the city,” answered Rosencrantz.
Hamlet’s interest was at once aroused, and he was discussing the
subject of the players, and the reason why they were forced to travel,
instead of keeping to their old position in the city, when a flourish
of trumpets announced they had arrived. Before Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern left him, Hamlet spoke a parting word to them.
“Gentlemen, you are welcome,” he said courteously. “Your hands,
come then”--for they would merely have bowed respectfully. “You are
welcome; but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.”
“In what, my dear lord?” asked Guildenstern.
“I am but mad north-north-west,” said Hamlet gravely: “when the wind
is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
Hamlet’s speech may or may not have puzzled the young men to whom it
was addressed, but, all the same, it was excellent good sense, and
meant that he was in full possession of his faculties. His metaphor
was taken from the old sport of hawking; the word “handsaw” is a local
corruption for “heron.” The heron, when pursued, flew with the wind;
therefore when the wind was from the north it flew towards the south;
as the sun is in this quarter during the morning (when the sport
generally took place), it would be difficult to distinguish the two
birds when looking towards this dazzling light. On the other hand,
when the wind was southerly, the heron flew towards the north, and,
with his back to the sun, the spectator could easily tell which was
the hawk and which was the heron.
By his speech, therefore, Hamlet meant to imply that his intelligence
was just as keen as that of other people.
Old Polonius now entered in a state of great excitement to announce
the arrival of the players. “The best actors in the world,” as
he expressed it, “either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral,
pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem
unlimited; Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the
law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.”
“You are welcome, masters--welcome all,” said the young Prince, with
his ready courtesy. “I am glad to see you well. Welcome, good friends.”
And for each one he had some kindly word of greeting and remembrance.
Then he bade them give at once a specimen of their powers; and as
a proof of the breadth of Hamlet’s nature, and the wideness of his
sympathies, may be noted the fact that he was as much at home in
discussing stage matters with the players as in musing over deep
philosophies of life by himself. He recalled to their memory a play
which had formerly struck his fancy, though it had never been acted,
or, if it were, not above once, for it was too refined for the taste
of the million--“caviare to the general,” as Hamlet expressed it.
Hamlet himself recited a speech from this play with excellent taste
and elocution, and the chief player continued the touching passage
with much pathos.
Noting the effect that the player’s mimic passion had on the
spectators, a sudden idea came to Hamlet, and when the other actors
were dismissed, in the charge of the fussy Polonius, he kept back the
first player to speak a few words to him.
“We’ll have a play to-morrow,” he said. “Dost thou hear me, old
friend: can you play the Murder of Gonzago?”
“Ay, my lord.”
“We’ll have it to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech
of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in
it, could you not?”
“Ay, my lord.”
“Very well. Follow that lord, and, look you, mock him not,” said
Hamlet, sending him to rejoin his companions.
Left alone, a bitter feeling of disgust at his own weakness and
irresolution seized Hamlet. The sight of this actor’s passion and
despair over the fate of an entirely imaginary person made him realise
his own lack of duty with regard to his father. Here was a King who
had been most cruelly murdered, and his son did nothing to avenge his
loss, but, like John-a-dreams, idle of his cause--a dull, spiritless
rascal--he simply wasted his time in brooding, and said nothing. His
wrath against his uncle blazed up again with sudden fury, and all his
thoughts turned to vengeance. But he checked his exclamations to plan
practical measures.
“About, my brain! Hum!--I have heard that guilty creatures, sitting at
a play, have by the very cunning of the scene been struck so to the
soul that presently they have proclaimed their ill deeds; for murder,
though it have no tongue, will speak in most miraculous fashion. I’ll
have these players play something like the murder of my father before
mine uncle; I’ll observe his looks; I’ll tent him to the quick; if
he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen may be
the devil; and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape. I’ll
have grounds more relative than this,” concluded Hamlet, touching the
tablets on which he had inscribed the message from the Ghost. “The
play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.”
“The Mouse-trap”
Next day, in accordance with their scheme, the King and Polonius hid
themselves behind the arras, to listen to the interview between Hamlet
and Ophelia. Hamlet, as usual, was meditating deeply on the problems
of life, when Ophelia approached, and offered to restore to him some
gifts which he had given her in happier days.
In the sudden tragedy which had overwhelmed Hamlet’s whole being,
his love for Ophelia seemed something very far away, but the old
tenderness was always struggling to assert itself. He tried, however,
to force it down, and even assumed an air of harsh indifference which
almost broke Ophelia’s heart. In apparently wild and rambling words,
but really deeply penetrated with pity, he gave her to understand that
all thoughts of marriage between them must now be over, and bade the
young girl get to a nunnery, and that quickly, too. The hollowness and
hypocrisy that he saw all around him goaded his spirit almost beyond
endurance, and now another blow to his belief in human nature was to
be struck.
When Polonius hid himself behind the arras it is doubtful whether
Ophelia knew he was there, or, in the excitement of the moment, she
may possibly have forgotten the fact. Anyhow, when Hamlet suddenly
asked her, “Where’s your father?” she answered, “At home, my lord.”
But her reply filled Hamlet with fresh scorn for the apparent
insincerity of this innocent young girl. He had seen the arras stir,
and Polonius’s old gray head peep out; he naturally thought that
Ophelia was in league with the rest of the world to spy upon him and
deceive him.
“Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but
in his own house,” he said, in clear, cutting accents, when he heard
Ophelia’s response. “Farewell!”
“Oh, help him, you sweet heavens!” murmured Ophelia.
It seemed quite evident to her that the unfortunate young Prince had
lost his reason.
“If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry,” cried
Hamlet wildly: “be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt
not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go; farewell!”
“O heavenly powers, restore him!” prayed Ophelia again.
“I have heard of your paintings, too, well enough,” continued
Hamlet, with increasing violence. “God hath given you one face, and
you make yourselves another; you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
nickname God’s creatures. Go to, I’ll no more on it; it hath made me
mad. I say, we will have no more marriages; those that are married
already--all but one”--here he looked darkly towards the arras, where
he knew the King was concealed with Polonius--“shall live; the rest
shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go!”
And with a furious gesture of dismissal Hamlet hurried from the room.
“Oh, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!” sighed Ophelia piteously.
”The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword; the
expectancy and rose of the fair state, the glass of fashion, and the
mould of form, the observed of all observers quite, quite down! And I,
of ladies most deject and wretched, that sucked the honey of his music
vows, now see that noble and most sovereign reason, like sweet bells
jangled, out of tune and harsh! Oh, woe is me, to have seen what I
have seen, see what I see!”
While Ophelia was musing thus sadly, the King and Polonius stepped
from their hiding-place. The King was not at all satisfied that
Polonius was right in his surmise that Hamlet had lost his reason
because of Ophelia’s rejected love.
“Love! His affections do not tend that way,” he said decidedly. “Nor
was what he spoke, though it lacked form a little, like madness. There
is something in his soul over which his melancholy sits brooding,
and I fear the result will be some danger. To prevent this, I have
determined that he shall depart with speed for England, to demand
there our neglected tribute. Haply the sea and the sight of foreign
countries will expel this settled matter in his heart, about which his
brains, always beating, makes him thus unlike himself.”
Polonius agreed that it would be a good plan to send Hamlet to
England, though he would not give up his idea that the origin and
commencement of Hamlet’s grief sprang from neglected love. He further
suggested that after the play the Queen should have an interview alone
with Hamlet, and try to get from him the cause of his grief, and that
Polonius himself should be placed where he could hear their conference.
“If the Queen cannot discover the cause, send him to England, or
confine him where your wisdom shall think best,” he concluded.
“It shall be so,” declared the King. “Madness in great ones must not
go unwatched.”
* * * * *
The play on which so much depended was now to be performed. Hamlet had
inserted some speeches of his own, and before the performance began he
gave some excellent advice to the players on the art of acting. While
they were making ready, Hamlet had a few private words with Horatio.
In the midst of the trouble and turmoil of his own soul, his fretted
spirit turned with deep affection to the quiet strength of this
faithful friend.
“Give me that man that is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
in my heart’s core--ay, in my heart of heart, as I do thee,” he said
tenderly to Horatio.
He had already confided to him what the Ghost had related, and now
he told him that he had laid a trap to discover if what it said were
true; one scene in the play was to represent closely the circumstances
of his father’s death, and he begged Horatio, when that act came, to
observe the King with all the power of his soul. If his guilt did not
reveal itself at one speech, then the Ghost must have spoken falsely,
and Hamlet’s own imagination was black and wicked.
“Give him heedful note,” he said, “for I will rivet my eyes to his
face, and afterwards we will compare our impressions in judging his
appearance.”
“Well, my lord, if he steal anything whilst this play is playing, and
escape detection, I will pay the theft,” said Horatio, meaning by this
that his watch would never waver.
“They are coming to the play; I must be idle. Get you a place,” said
Hamlet.
The music of the Danish royal march was heard, there was a flourish of
trumpets, and, attended by the full Court, the King and Queen entered
the great hall of the castle. Old Polonius marshalled them, bowing
backwards before them; Ophelia followed in the train of the Queen;
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, with other attendant lords, were there,
and guards carried torches to light up the scene. The King and Queen
took their seats on thrones provided for them at one side of the
stage; Ophelia sat in a chair opposite; Horatio took up his stand at
the back of Ophelia’s chair, where, unnoticed himself, he could watch
the King’s face; and Hamlet, who on their entrance had immediately
assumed his air of madness, flung himself on the ground at Ophelia’s
feet.
The play began. First the scene was given in dumb show. It represented
a King and Queen who were apparently very affectionate together.
Presently the King lay down on a bank of flowers, and the Queen,
seeing him asleep, left him. Soon another man came in, who took off
the King’s crown, kissed it, poured poison into the sleeper’s ear,
and went off. The Queen returned, found the King dead, and showed
passionate signs of grief. The poisoner came back, seemed to lament
with her; the body of the dead King was carried away. Then the
poisoner wooed the Queen with gifts. She seemed for a while loath and
unwilling, but in the end accepted his love.
Claudius at the sight of this scene betrayed many signs of secret
uneasiness, but he made no open remark, and the other spectators
were too intent on the play to notice him. Only Horatio, from his
place opposite, kept careful watch, and Hamlet, lying on the ground,
quivering with excitement, never took his eyes from the guilty man’s
face. The Queen and Ophelia looked on with rather languid interest.
“What means this, my lord?” asked Ophelia, when the dumb show had come
to an end.
“Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief,” said Hamlet.
“Belike this show imports the argument of the play,” said Ophelia,
which indeed proved to be the case.
Now the real players came on, who had to speak, and the action
followed the same lines as the dumb show, the player Queen pouring
forth boundless expressions of devotion to her husband.
“Madam, how like you this play?” asked Hamlet presently, when a pause
occurred.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” said the Queen.
“Oh, but she’ll keep her word,” said Hamlet, with biting sarcasm.
“Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in it?” asked the
King uneasily.
“No, no; they do but jest--_poison in jest_; no offence in the world,”
returned Hamlet, looking at him with strange malice in his eyes.
The King winced, but tried to appear unconcerned.
“What do you call the play?”
“‘The Mouse-trap.’ Marry, how? Tropically,” continued Hamlet, still
in the same wild manner. “This play is the image of a murder done in
Vienna; Gonzago is the Duke’s name, his wife Baptista. You shall see
anon. ’Tis a knavish piece of work; but what of that? Your Majesty and
we that have free souls, it touches us not; let the galled jade wince,
our withers are unwrung.”
The King grew more and more disturbed; he cast uneasy glances at the
play, made a half-movement to rise, and checked himself. As the play
went on, Hamlet could scarcely control his excitement. The players
were now reciting the speeches he had written; the young Prince
muttered the words with them in a rapid undertone. When one of the
characters poured the poison into the player King’s ear, Hamlet burst
out again into fierce speech, his voice rising shriller and higher.
“He poisons him in the garden for his estate. His name’s Gonzago. The
story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see
anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.”
Hamlet, in his excitement, had dragged himself across the floor
till he was at the foot of the throne. The King, seeing the mimic
representation of his own crime, started up in guilty terror.
“The King rises!” exclaimed Ophelia.
“What! Frighted with false fire!” shouted Hamlet in bitter derision,
and with a harsh cry of triumph he sprang to his feet, and flung
himself into the throne which the King had left vacant.
All was now confusion; the King and Queen hurriedly retired; their
courtiers thronged after them, and Hamlet and Horatio were left alone
in the deserted hall. Hamlet broke into a wild snatch of song:
“Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungallèd play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep,
So runs the world away.”
“O good Horatio, I’ll take the Ghost’s word for a thousand pounds.
Didst perceive?”
“Very well, my lord.”
“Upon the talk of the poisoning?”
“I did very well note him.”
It was not likely that Hamlet’s behaviour would be let pass without
remark, and presently the two obsequious courtiers, Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, came to summon him to the presence of the Queen. They
brought word that the King was in his own room, marvellously upset
with rage, and that the Queen, in great affliction of spirit, had sent
them to say to Hamlet that his behaviour had struck her into amazement
and astonishment, and that she desired to speak with him in her room
before he went to bed.
Hamlet replied he would obey, but on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s
further attempting to discover from him the cause of his strange
behaviour, he retorted by asking the two young men what they meant by
treating him in the way they did, which was as if they were trying to
drive him into some snare.
“O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly,”
answered Guildenstern.
“I do not well understand that,” said Hamlet; and it may be doubted if
the speaker himself knew what he meant by his silly words.
But the young Prince determined to give the couple a lesson, and show
them he was not quite the witless creature they seemed to imagine. A
few minutes before he had called for music, and ordered some recorders
to be brought. The recorder was a small musical instrument something
like a flute. On the attendant’s bringing them, Hamlet took one and
held it out to Guildenstern.
“Will you play upon this pipe?” he asked him courteously.
“My lord, I cannot.”
“I pray you,” he begged.
“Believe me, I cannot.”
“I do beseech you.”
“I know no touch of it, my lord.”
“’Tis as easy as lying,” said Hamlet. “Govern these holes with
your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will
discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.”
“But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not
the skill,” declared Guildenstern.
“Why, look you, how unworthy a thing you would make of me!” said
Hamlet, his persuasive voice changing to sudden sternness. “You would
play upon _me_; you would seem to know _my_ stops; you would pluck out
the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the
top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice in this
little organ, yet you cannot make it speak. Do you think I am easier
to be played on than a pipe?--Call me what instrument you will, though
you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.”
The pipe snapped in his slender fingers, as he tossed it
contemptuously away, and the two young men stood crestfallen and
abashed before his noble scorn.
* * * * *
It was no repentant and shamefaced son that entered the Queen’s room
that night. Hamlet had steeled his heart to do what he considered his
duty, and tell his mother the truth. He would speak daggers, though
he used none; he would reveal to her the true character of the man
she had taken for her second husband. When, therefore, the Queen, in
accordance with Polonius’s advice, began to take him roundly to task
for his strange behaviour, he retorted in such a strange, and even
menacing, manner that she was quite alarmed, and shouted for help.
Polonius, hidden behind the arras, echoed her cry. Hamlet, thinking it
was the King, and that the hour for vengeance had come, drew his sword.
“How now! A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!” he exclaimed, and made a
pass through the arras.
[Illustration: “How now! A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!”]
There was a cry from behind, “O, I am slain!” and the fall of a heavy
body.
“O me, what hast thou done?” exclaimed the Queen.
“Nay, I know not. Is it--the King?” said Hamlet, in a harsh whisper.
“Oh, what a rash and bloody deed is this!” moaned the Queen, wringing
her hands in dismay.
“A bloody deed! Almost as bad, good mother, as kill a King and marry
with his brother,” said Hamlet solemnly.
“As kill a King?” echoed the Queen, astounded.
“Ay, lady, it was my word.”
Hamlet lifted the arras, and found that, after all, it was not the
guilty murderer whom he had hoped to punish, but the meddlesome old
Chamberlain, who had fallen a victim to his sudden impulse. His task
of vengeance had still to be accomplished.
“Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell,” said the young
Prince, gazing at him sorrowfully. “I took thee for thy better; take
thy fortune! Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.”
Thus the officious old man’s prying ways met their punishment. And
Hamlet’s lack of resolution, too, brought its penalty; for if he had
had strength of will to carry out what he believed to be his duty, he
would not have thus trusted to the blind impulse of the moment, and a
comparatively innocent life would not have been sacrificed.
But he had matters too important waiting to spare much time for
regret. Letting the arras fall on the henceforth silent prattler,
Hamlet turned to his mother. In the most forcible manner he pointed
out to the Queen how blameworthy had been her conduct. In vivid
language he sketched a portrait of her two husbands, showing how noble
had been the one brother, and how contemptible was the other. What
strange delusion could have cheated the Queen, after knowing her first
husband, to have married such a wretched being as Claudius?
“O Hamlet, speak no more!” implored the Queen. “These words, like
daggers, enter in mine ears; no more, sweet Hamlet.”
“A murderer and a villain!” continued Hamlet, with increasing scorn
and vehemence; “a slave that is not the twentieth part the tithe of
your former lord; a buffoon king; a cutpurse of the empire and the
sceptre, who from the shelf the precious diadem stole, and put it in
his pocket!”
“No more!” besought the Queen.
“A king of shreds and patches----”
Hamlet’s torrent of wrath died on his lips. Before him stood once more
the spirit of his father, gazing at him with calm, rebuking eyes.
“Save me, and hover o’er me with your wings, you heavenly guards!”
murmured the young Prince, in an awestruck whisper. “What would your
gracious figure?”
The vision, apparent to Hamlet, was not visible to the Queen. She only
saw the sudden change that had come to her son, and the rapt look on
his face.
“Alas, he’s mad!” she sighed.
“Do you not come your tardy son to chide?” continued Hamlet, still in
the same hushed voice, “who, lost in time and passion, lets go by the
important acting of thy dread command? Oh, say!”
The Ghost replied that his visit was indeed to whet his son’s almost
blunted purpose. But now he bade Hamlet note how startled and amazed
the Queen was, and told him to speak to her and soothe her.
“How is it with you, lady?” said Hamlet absently.
“Alas! how is it with you?” retorted the Queen, for to her it seemed
that Hamlet was looking at vacancy, and holding converse with the
empty air. “Whereon do you look?”
“On him--on him! Look you, how pale he glares!... Do you see nothing
there?”
“Nothing at all; yet all that is, I see.”
“Nor did you nothing hear?”
“No, nothing but ourselves.”
“Why, look you there! Look how it steals away! My father, in his habit
as he lived! Look where he goes, even now, out at the portal.”
The Queen saw nothing of the figure gliding away, and told Hamlet
that it must be the coinage of his brain, the sort of delusion which
madness was very cunning in.
“Madness!” echoed Hamlet; and he bade his mother note that his
pulse beat as calmly as her own, and that it was not madness which
he uttered. Bring him to the test, he said, and he would re-word
the matter, which madness could not do. In short, his words were so
convincing that the Queen could no longer refuse to believe them.
Before they parted, she promised to adopt a very different mode of
behaviour from her usual pleasure-loving frivolity, and not to allow
herself to be persuaded by the crafty Claudius that anything her son
might say or do arose from madness.
[Illustration: “Do you not come your tardy son to chide?”]
“I must to England; you know that?” asked Hamlet.
“Alack, I had forgotten; it is so arranged,” said the Queen.
“There are letters sealed,” said Hamlet, “and my two schoolfellows,
whom I will trust as I will adders fanged--they bear the mandate. Let
the knavery work; for ’tis sport to have the engineer hoist with his
own petard, and it shall go hard but I will delve one yard below their
mines, and blow them at the moon.”
“Rosemary for Remembrance”
Hamlet’s suspicions with regard to fresh villainy on the part of the
King were justified. Claudius dared not do any harm to the young
Prince in his own country, for he was greatly beloved by the people.
On the plea, therefore, that it was for the benefit of his health, he
was despatched to England, but letters were given to Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern, who accompanied him, commanding that on his arrival the
Prince should be instantly beheaded.
Suspecting treachery, Hamlet managed to get possession of these
letters, and in their place he put others, written by himself, in
which the English Government was begged, as a favour to Denmark, to
put the bearers to death. Thus Rosencrantz and Guildenstern fell
victims to their own treachery, and met the fate to which they were
shamelessly conducting their old schoolfellow.
The day after the changing of the letters their ship was chased by
pirates. Finding they were too slow of sail to escape, they made a
valiant resistance. In the grapple Hamlet boarded the pirates’ vessel.
At that very instant the ships got clear, so he alone became their
prisoner. They treated him well, knowing who he was, and expecting to
get a good reward, and not long after he had left Denmark Hamlet again
set foot in his own country. He did not at first announce his return
to the King and Queen, but sent a message privately to Horatio, who at
once hastened to him.
During his absence from Denmark a sad thing had happened. Poor
Ophelia, overwhelmed by all the sorrows that had fallen on her, had
lost her reason. Hamlet’s strange behaviour had been the first shock,
and on her father’s sudden death, and Hamlet’s departure for England,
the slender strength snapped utterly, and the young girl was carried
away in the full flood of calamity.
Ever sweet and gentle, as she had been all her life, Ophelia was so
still; there was no violence or malice in her malady. She was indeed
distracted with grief, and spoke strange words, but when allowed her
own way she went harmlessly about, only decking herself with flowers,
and singing sweet and touching snatches of quaint old songs.
The King and Queen were deeply grieved at this new misfortune that had
fallen on their young favourite, for the Queen, at least, loved her
tenderly. They had also grounds for uneasiness concerning themselves;
disquieting rumours began to be current. Rather foolishly, they had
tried to hush up the cause of Polonius’s death, and had had him
hurriedly interred, without proper rites or ceremony. His son Laertes
had come secretly from France, and tittle-tattlers were not lacking to
pour into his ears malicious reports of his father’s death. Finally,
there was an attempt at insurrection. Laertes went to the palace,
followed by a riotous mob, shouting, “Laertes shall be King! Laertes
King!” They broke down the doors, overcame the guard, and Laertes
forced his way into the presence of the King and Queen.
“O thou vile King, give me my father!” he demanded, with menacing
gesture.
“Calmly, good Laertes,” implored the Queen, while the King, with
all the subtle art in which he was so skilled, tried to soothe the
infuriated young man, and asked him why he was so incensed.
“How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with,” cried Laertes fiercely,
flinging off all semblance of allegiance. “Let come what comes, only
I’ll be revenged most thoroughly for my father.”
“Who shall stay you?” asked the King mildly.
“My will, not all the world!” retorted Laertes roughly. “And for my
means, I’ll husband them so well, they shall go far with little.”
The King was just explaining that he was in no sense guilty of
Polonius’s death, when there was a stir at the door, and the next
moment Ophelia entered. At the sight of the beautiful young maiden,
in her simple white robe, her long yellow locks floating free on her
shoulders, her sweet blue eyes opened wide in vacant gaze, a sudden
check came to the young man’s violence.
“O rose of May! Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!” he murmured,
with tenderest pity. “Oh heavens! is it possible a young maid’s wits
should be as mortal as an old man’s life?”
Ophelia carried flowers in her hand, and she came in singing and
talking to herself.
“They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain’d many a tear:--
“Fare you well, my dove.”
“Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, it could not move
thus,” said Laertes.
Ophelia now began to distribute the flowers she held in her hand.
First she gave some to her brother.
“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember. And
there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.”
“A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted,” said Laertes.
“There’s fennel for you, and columbines,” said Ophelia to the King,
(fennel is an emblem of flattery, and columbines of thanklessness).
“There’s rue for you,” to the Queen, “and here’s some for me; we may
call it herb of grace on Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a
difference. There’s a daisy; I would give you some violets, but they
withered all when my father died; they say he made a good end,--
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.”
“Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, she turns to favour and
to prettiness,” said Laertes, as smiling, and kissing her hand, the
poor wit-bereft maiden went singing on her way.
His desire for vengeance was redoubled, and he resolved that his
sister’s madness should be dearly paid for. He therefore lent a ready
ear when the King declared that the blame of everything that had
happened was due to Hamlet, explaining that he had been unable to
punish him up to the present, owing to the intense love borne him by
his mother, and all the people. Even as they were talking arrived a
letter from Hamlet himself; it ran thus:
“HIGH AND MIGHTY,
“You shall know I am set naked on your
kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave
to see your kingly eyes: when I shall,
first asking your pardon thereunto,
recount the occasion of my sudden and
more strange return.
“HAMLET.”
Hamlet’s return happened most aptly, and the King immediately
suggested a plan whereby Laertes could gratify his vengeance without
fear of being found out. While Laertes had been in France, he had been
greatly talked about for his skill in fencing, and a Norman gentleman
who had come to the Danish Court brought a marvellous report of his
prowess in the use of the rapier. This account filled Hamlet with
envy; he was himself a master in the art of fencing, and he longed for
Laertes to come back and try a match with him. The King now proposed
that Laertes should challenge Hamlet to a trial of skill.
“He, being heedless, most generous and free from all contriving, will
not look closely at the foils,” continued the King cunningly, “so that
with ease, or with a little shuffling, you may choose a sword unbated,
and in a pass of practice requite him for your father.”
Laertes not only consented to this dastardly scheme,--he went a step
further, and declared that he would anoint the point of the rapier
with some poison so mortal that no remedy in all the world could save
from death the thing that was but scratched with it. He would touch
the point of this sword with this poison, so that if he wounded Hamlet
ever so slightly it would be death. In addition to this, in case
Hamlet should escape unhurt from the fencing, the King said he would
have a chalice near with poisoned wine, so that if he grew thirsty,
and called for drink, he would meet his death in that manner.
Their further plotting was interrupted by the Queen, who came hurrying
in with further tidings of woe. Ophelia was drowned.
“Drowned! Oh, where?” cried Laertes.
“There is a willow grows aslant a brook that shows his hoar leaves in
the glassy stream,” began the Queen; and she told how Ophelia, having
woven many fantastic garlands of wild flowers, had clambered into this
tree, to hang her wreaths on the drooping boughs, when a branch broke,
and Ophelia and her trophies fell into the brook. There for awhile her
clothes bore her up, and she floated down the current, still singing
snatches of old tunes; but before she could be rescued, the weight of
her garments, heavy with the water, dragged her down to death.
Laertes could not restrain his tears when he heard of the loss of his
dear sister, but the King guessed that his rage would soon start up
with fresh fury, and he resolved not to lose sight of the young man
till his scheme of vengeance was accomplished.